How many others are into Canadian Benchmarking

[+tirediron]

Since work has me stuck for some time on the other side of the country, my 'caching has been limited to those caches within walking distance of bus-routes. Since there are not very many of those, I decided to try out benchmarking. If any of you are interested you can go here access the Natural Resources Canada Geodetic Survey Marker List. So far, I have found about a half-dozen in and around the Halifax area. It's a good excuse for a walk and a GPS exercise in an urban environment.

 

Now, on to the point of this rambling diatribe. Is there anywhere to log these? The whole benchmarking aspect of Geocaching.com seems to be US oriented (not surprisingly). How many other Canadians are doing this? Are there enough of us to warrant a look at asking the Admins to expand their benchmarking pages to include Canada as well?

[+PDOP's]

I think there's a problem with copyright on the data for survey monuments which is preventing Geocaching.com from setting this up. It has been discussed before briefly in the benchmarking forum.

 

There are a couple of virtual caches for survey monuments in Canada. In Alberta outfor the hunt has the Brass Cap cache which is moved to new monuments on a regular basis. There is also the Canadian Base Network cache with locations across Canada

 

PDOP's GPS Pages

[+tirediron]

Thanks for those links PDOPS, that's something to start with.

[+DyverDown]

I emailed Geocaching.com a while ago and here is a copy of their reply to me:

 

We recently received permission from Canada to use their benchmarks on our site. We'll be working to add those to our database soon. We'll make an announcement in the forums and on the main benchmark page when they're up.

 

-Elias

[+tirediron]

quote:

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Originally posted by DyverDown:

I emailed Geocaching.com a while ago and here is a copy of their reply to me:

 

We recently received permission from Canada to use their benchmarks on our site. We'll be working to add those to our database soon. We'll make an announcement in the forums and on the main benchmark page when they're up.

 

-Elias

---

 

Most Excellent!!!! Thanks for that Dyver... Maybe now I can get my find stats up a little.

[+Hard Oiler]

Great news! I've found just a few of the 600 odd that are listed within 30 minutes drive from home and and several such as the International Boundary markers make quite interesting finds and aren't always in the advertised place even when using the right datum. And when you've exhausted the local caches - and this area is fairly sparsely populated, they make an interesting new diversion - better than logging Tim Hortons locations

[+DyverDown]

I am very new to Benchmark hunting (relatively new to Geocaching in it's entiretry) I downloaded a list of Benchmarks in my area but am a little confused. Are all the Benchmarks, the tall tower style markers or are there different sorts? Can they be the small brass "cap" style one's too. can they be in / on buildings or structures or the structure itself?

 

I stumbled across a brass cap style one but it has no markings or numbers on it, just a warning not to remove it.

 

HELP....

[+Hard Oiler]

Certainly around here the nrcan database contains a mix of everything - landmarks like steeples or tanks as well as brass caps and other types of monumented benchmarks, some marked, some not. I did manage to find some long descriptions in the nrcan database which gave much more information but it's not too user friendly to get at. Was hoping GC.com would get them into a more accessible database as they have done in the US.

[+WCoaster]

Here is an excellent site for benchmarks in BC.

http://mascot.gdbc.gov.bc.ca/mascot/

There are thousands of them. I have observed a few. Some have printing stamped into them and would be great offsets for multi-caches I think. The problem is, at least in the city they tend to be right in the middle of intersections and a lot of times underneath a manhole cover or valve cover. But it is a good hunt on the website just to find a visable one. Finding the real thing is actually pretty easy given the directions for each marker. I guess if you don't read the dialogue it would be more challenging.