I find I like the medium hunts, like above, and I guess the small hunts. As opposed to the monster million dollar hunts, of which there are two famous ones out right now. My opinion is based on not much, and I could be wrong.
 
 
 
 

I should get the word out to attract designers for Thesaurus Canada. But I'm having trouble making myself do it. It's time to list the things that could go wrong.
 
 

Where is the prize money, i.e. treasure, coming from? I might be naive about that. I assume the publisher should pay. But a bunch of money has to come from somewhere, or the project will fail.

How am I supposed to get the word out?

I would have to assemble a group of designers from all five provincial regions. Preferably able and dependable. French has to find a place too.

I don't stay awake at night worrying about secrecy, but it's wise to take measures to keep things secret. Having a group communicating, as opposed to a single designer, means bits of information can spread. With the classic, classy Masquerade treasure hunt from 1979, the designer had a girlfriend. He split up with her, she told secrets to her new boyfriend, who then picked up the treasure, spoiling the whole hunt.

Getting a book published and sold is an obstacle course that will probably lead to failure. There is the whole process of getting a set of approved hunts. Then a publisher, in Canada, would have to agree to publish it, and also shuffle over $40,000. Few book submissions are published. Normally only a few people will buy a published book.

History shows that something or other could go wrong with a treasure hunt that's out there. Multiple people died looking for the Forest Fenn treasure. Maybe a treasure is never found.

Timing, dependencies and group effort worries me. Basically a step will not be done unless a previous step is done and a subsequent step will be done, so everything can easily seize up or otherwise fall apart. When will you know where the treasure spot is, test it out, put actual treasure there?

Treasure placement is a hole in my game. Can someone take a treasure chest from a provincial park? Proxy treasure has been known to be washed out of its spot by weather. Someone could spot you messing around at the treasure spot. Someone (with a dog? a metal detector?) can come across a treasure chest or something small without even knowing about the book. I don't know if we should establish standards (proper, easily communicated) or not (options). For example treasure may or may not be buried.

Proxy treasures means rules, customer service and delivery.

I don't think designers should be expecting much money for their work, even if it is published.

One speed bump is I don't know if there are programs that can solve ciphers with brute force. Other puzzles too.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

This is a marshmallow product that looks like Dare Viva Puffs, but it's a different beast. I didn't like it. My friend didn't like it. I didn't love it, but I was certainly not averse to eating more; maybe it's an acquired taste. It seemed to be similar to these fruit-flavoured candies with a crystalline look from Kharkiv that I had, which I also didn't love. I wonder if Ukrainians like, or are used to, certain things.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

(I've been hit by smoke/virus/both) I was sitting in the car with the window open in the sun, while my dad was in the suit store. A man said "You have a flat tire". I came out the car door to check out the situation. A native fellow said "Just kidding".

In my experience, the local native/indigenous sense of humour involves bluffing, including absurd bluffing. I went to university with one fellow when I was into special forces. I encountered him years later and he said he had joined the Rangers, sniper. When at Safeway and working at getting a coin in a shopping cart, a bummy native guy told me "I invented those".
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I was going to delete this because of broken links. I can repair the links with new links for these continuing contests, but I think I'll ditch the page because of my dweeby comments.

Genre contests like these can't please everyone, so you you get discussions and controversy. Here someone has negative things to say about the fantasy contest. Also nerds like to argue about the admittedly fuzzy definitions of science fiction and fantasy.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

There are remains of earlier civilisations, but they are typically a bunch of rocks*, especially with the older ones. We don't really get the everything of what life was like for these people and what things looked like, the stories and the behaviour. There's also the go-to of time machines, seeing prehistoric life. There's a list of mysteries to be solved. How were the pyramids built? I'm curious to know about life in my own city a few decades ago. There are scenes, communities from the past, usually involving music, that I have not experienced.
 
 

* As I see it. Archeologists will have much more to say.