Geocaching: discover Laval one treasure at a time

Today, we're offering you a very special foray into the world of geocaching, an innovative and different way to discover Laval! It's a huge treasure-hunting game.

Boxes, suitcases and chests of all sizes are hidden all over Laval. The aim of the activity is to find them and enter your name in the "cache" register.

Two local geocachers, Claire and Claude Latour, kindly agreed to tell us about their interest in geocaching. For the past few years, they've been crisscrossing the city, camouflaging little treasures all over the island. We're the instigators of at least 300 caches in Laval, and we've found nearly 4,000 during our travels," they proudly explain. That may sound like a lot, but others have managed to unearth as many as 12,000! For us, it's a way of getting outdoors and enjoying a great activity. Each outing takes us to places we've never been before," they continue.

In each cache, the couple scatter a few small, worthless objects and add a notebook in which other geocachers are invited to identify themselves. Cache Sherlocks" can spot a tiny one under a park bench, or a very large one in the Nature Centre!

To find out where geocaches are located, visit the geocaching website. Simply enter a zip code, and you'll see the ones near you. Write down the geographical coordinates in a GPS, for example, and set off in search of them! You can then take one of the objects and replace it with another. For example, Claire has already found a small porcelain dog in Sainte-Dorothée... in the southern United States!

Browsing the geocaching site, you can see just how numerous and scattered the caches are, as "there's a rule that they all have to be at least 165 metres apart, otherwise it would be too easy", the geocachers explain. It's even possible to receive e-mail alerts when a new cache has been installed near you. We know people who can even set off in the middle of the night to be the first to discover it," exclaim our enthusiasts. Even us, before setting off on an outing, we sometimes check to see if we've found a cache near our destination," conclude Mr and Mrs Latour.

Geocaching is a hobby that originated over twenty years ago, initially in the United States. Since then, the phenomenon has gone global, and is very popular on the Ile Jésus. If you're ever interested in geocaching, I invite you to drop by the Laval tourist information office. Who knows what's hidden there!