When I was young I saw an article in Macleans magazine about this Masquerade book. I was very impressed. It had a picture, must have been that picture, of the rabbit.
The prize was all kinds of good; classy, pretty, animals, cute, also valuable. It's actually small.
Rabbits/hares seem to be a natural part of treasure hunts ("Follow the white rabbit").
Using art as part of the mystery was nice, plus some cryptic writing to figure out. Even the title of the book was attractive.
This gave me, not only a lifelong fondness toward treasure hunts, but treasure hunts with these features.
crypto millionaire makes treasure hunt /
Artnet
Physical bitcoin? I didn't know they exist. I've pondered collectable cards as prizes, but that doesn't quite work for me. This man got prizes for different generations, which is thoughtful.
It's under the big W.
These treasure hunts start off being wondrous and fun, but can have regrettable outcomes.
Nice presentation. Still mostly secret.
Solving a 19th-century cipher leads to gold treasure that will make you rich. Not a game.
There have been more than one movie about treasure hunts.
On the Trail of the Golden Owl. Fake clues? On l'a trouvé.
For more, you could look at "Finding the Treasure of the Golden Owl".
I wonder what they do with word/letter games in French, with the accents.
Could I make one of these?
Pro: I've been making treasure hunts since I was a kid. A Christmas treasure hunt is being done again this year.
Con: A treasure hunt like above is a different beast, different presentation, geography, timeframe and prize. I couldn't do that.
I've never read a treasure hunt book, so it's kind of terra incognita. I think urban, not bush.
Jon Collins-Black has made a book with a treasure hunt, leading to treasure hidden in five states. So what could it be like if we did something like that in Canada?
Get five designers/writers, each one making a treasure hunt for one of the five regions of Canada's provinces. Five writers independently take their own distinct approach to the puzzle, presentation and treasure, all winding up
in the same book.
Five writers, each one making a treasure hunt for one of the five regions of Canada's provinces (rockies, prairies, Ontario, Quebec, maritimes). This can be sliced and diced different ways.
The territories - cold, underpopulated, huge, remote, cold - are kind of yes, kind of no.
| One treasure hunt per region. |
| One treasure per region. Plus a sixth somewhere in Canada. An advantage is people in the rockies will not give up once the rockies one is found. |
| Five treasures located .. nobody knows until they are solved. Will there be three in Ontario? |
| One treasure per province is very satisfying, although ambitious. Maybe one for all the territories too. |
| (Sigh) One treasure per region. Plus five more treasures in unspecified provinces. |
French would be more than welcome, even on the cover of the book. (Apparently the Latin word for treasure is thesaurus).
The Maritimes seems like a nice place for a treasure hunt. In fact, Nova Scotia is where the mysterious Oak Island treasure is. An advantage of this book is it would get Canadians to explore their own country.
Can you picture letters from this alphabet hidden in a drawing?
It would be nice if each treasure hunt had a different approach. One just writing, story or poem. One with an emphasis on art. Cipher. You get the principle anyway.
What's inside?
I could go on and on about treasure possibilities. So I will. Because I can. Here are broad categories:
| Loonies. You want an x-marks-the-spot treasure chest with coins? There you go. |
| Holy Grail. Something worth a good amount of money, preferably something charismatic, a conversation piece. |
| Trinkets. Miscellaneous items, things you've encountered on the net or in life that you think will bring happiness or fit the package. Wide open possibilities. Subjective. |
| Tickets and gift cards. |
| Consumables are unfortunately a no because of storage conditions. |
Loonies image search. It's easy to portray coins in a chest, but a treasure chest with coins is a treasure chest full of metal; very heavy.
Holy Grail unless I can think of a better term. I note that the arctic has diamonds. A giga pearl exists, with an interesting presentation. Cryptocurrency, in the form of a physical coin.
A rare collectable card. Game Rant The Gamer That One Ring was found in Ontario. Magic: The Gathering is not the only collectable card game out there.
This is about the size of the palm of your hand. Worth CAD $30,000.
Something different. Goes for CAD $245.
Trinkets. Jewellery works in a number of ways. Craft, art. Book. Game. Whatever floats your boat. (Japanese) CMY cube. Trinkets might make it look more like a garage sale than a classy treasure chest. Casino chips? DVDs?
Aesthetics, Packages and Themes:
An amber/gold look. A subset of these items: loonies, gold macaroni, maple ice wine candies, honey, honey mead, amber.
Brass items like the mercator knife. Fancy bottle of maple syrup (shrugs shoulders).
Loonies look dull. For a shiny gold look, add a layer of Euro dimes.
Toonies and a diamond have some arctic flair, at least as I see it. A silvery icy look.
One year they made some toonies with glow-in-the-dark aurora borealis.
Just coins, of one sort or another.
Just cards, paper. Money bills, tickets, gift cards, collectable cards. Small.
Cobra Gold. Gold, serpent, thai. Makes sense in my brain.
Just cryptocurrency.
Just a set of trinkets. Mixed feelings about that.
Your classic pirate/D & D/Tolkien treasure chest with coins and some glittering items is good, pretty, also expected, although there are alternatives. Could we somehow have the treasure chest and the trinkets semi separate? For example, the arctic diamond and
toonies in a chest, but the arctic boardgame Nunami is outside the chest.
It's nice to have a prize that's worth a lot because it will lead to buzz, excitement going through Canadian society.
I wouldn't mind being a . . sheepdog for this project. I'm also getting more optimistic about being able to design my own treasure hunt.
And .. zziiip! I made much of a treasure hunt, fast. It provides keys to solve a cipher.
Not sure where the treasure would go though.
Let's start to talk more real world:
Hypothetical. The working title is Thesaurus Canada. The territories are explicitly out. Too many problems. People die doing these hunts.
(Sigh) Five designers making eight treasure hunts. When you consider that The Secret had twelve separate treasures all organised by one designer, you can understand why it's so darn hard to nail down this number. How much would be in French? All very hypothetical anyway.
I'm skeptical of cryptocurrency. On the other hand, each designer can do what he wants. Having a choice of sport for season tickets is probably too messy, so no. Note that winners may want to be anonymous. The floor value of a treasure is $500, unless we're doing the set of trinkets. The maximum value is $31,000. The average value is, uh, $9k, inversely proportional to the number of treasures. The median would be, I don't know, $3k. I think I'll put you in charge of getting the financing. There might be some corporate support, like that gold macaroni. Your idea of a lot of money might be very different from mine.
How big is the book? A coffee table book? I prefer smallish.
There could be even more cloak and dagger than you think. There are the related matters of secrecy and people not wanting to be harassed. Listen to a few seconds of
this.
