Cache Up NB Does The Amazing Race Canada
After 7 months of keeping this under wraps, we can finally talk about it publicly. If you’ve listened to the podcasts, you’ve heard it referred to as Project Flower Pot. Well, the truth is finally revealed.
In February of 2014, Cache Up NB was contacted by The Amazing Race Canada to assist them with a “detour” stop for an episode of their show. We (myself and Ken Arsenault AKA Rev Slippery) set up a course at Hopewell Rocks for racers to go geocaching as one of the options on their detour. I was on camera as the guy to give out the clues. Unfortunately, the racers opted not to choose our detour and we never got to give them a clue. But we were part of something pretty awesome and I did get a couple of seconds of screen time.
Due to a non-disclosure agreement that me and Ken had to sign, we were not able to talk about it until after the episode aired. Me and Ken both told folks in the geocaching community that we were involved in something “big” but were not allowed to talk about it. We teased a little bit but couldn’t say anything. Project Flower Pot referred to the fact that the detour we built was at the “Rocks”, home of the Flower Pot Rock.
On the day of the racers arrival, the fact that none of them came through our detour really bothered us. I was actually quite mad. Ken had spent a lot of time and effort working on much of the course and because no one picked our task, none of that was going to be shown on camera. After leaving the park that day, me and Ken were both pretty upset and had a hard time seeing the larger picture. The main producer we dealt with was very disappointed about no one choosing the task, and he was very gracious in how he handled our involvement. He called each of us that night and let us know he was really disappointed that the racers didn’t pick our task. He was actually REALLY excited about what we had put together and wanted the racers to enjoy it as well. But if you watch the show, you know that detours by their nature offer up the chance that one side may not get chosen at all. It happened in PEI the week before.
Since then we’ve had time to let it all sink in and I actually view the entire experience as a positive one. Despite no one doing our task, a national television production company came to us and asked for our help. We did not seek them out. The highest rated Canadian television program of the summer actually wanted Cache Up NB to be involved in their television show. This to me is the biggest highlight. To think that we were asked and were involved in the production of such a high profile show is just unfathomable to me. I feel very honoured and thankful to have been part of it, regardless of how that day went down. Cache Up NB’s involvement in this will go down for me as biggest accomplishment to date, and helps to truly validate the work we do to showcase geocaching in our province. A huge thanks goes out to our community who keeps us going strong.
I would also like to send my appreciation to my partner in crime Ken. Since no one chose our task, you didn’t get to see what Ken was involved in. He may not have been on camera, but he was the one who went out with the producer several times to scope the area. He picked the spots. He got the containers. He marked the coords. He did more work than I did (I was out of the country for that time period) and his efforts would have seemed transparent to everyone else. I send a big thanks to Ken for helping out with this. I would not have been able to get it all together without your help.
So, for fun, here’s some tidbits about what went on behind the scenes of our involvement:
- All of the footage you saw of me, the geocaching task, and the containers, etc, was shot the day before the racers arrived
- The teams took a LONG time to do the flag challenge. Me and Ken could partially see them from where we were positioned. Looking back now, I do remember seeing the blue jacket which I now know was Sukhi’s
- Teams would not have known this, but if they had chosen the geocaching task, it would have taken them far less time to do it than the flag challenge. Producers told us they were sure all the teams were going to choose the geocaching task over the flag one.
- They tested both challenges the day before and everyone preferred the geocaching task to the flag one
- We actually got to look inside one of the clues the teams were given after completing the detour. I watched the challenge producer seal the envelopes
- I met and spoke to the host Jon who was actually a pretty cool guy. He had been to NB before.
- Me and Ken learned that the segment producer we worked with the day of the race actually produced parts of Cache Craze which was a reality TV show we mentioned earlier this year in our podcast
- We were asked by tourists visiting the area if it was the Amazing Race being shot and we had to say “Sorry, we can’t talk about it”
- The flag and geocaching challenge was originally supposed to take place at Cape Enrage. Ken actually convinced them to move it to Hopewell Rocks which was a far better location
- As a result of being part of the production of the show, we are now disqualified from ever being a contestant on the show due to our knowledge of how some of the production is done
- We didn’t know what TV show it was until after we signed the NDA. I’ve got a really funny story to share about the moment I found out who it was. I’ll talk about that during our next podcast.
If you didn’t catch the episode, it should be posted online to CTV’s website now, or very soon. We’ll do our best to try and get our little clip posted to Youtube for those who’d like to see it.
Well, no one took the geocaching challenge but I’m sure it would have been awesome. Looks like Cache Up NB is a force in the Canadian geocaching world. Or at least in New Brunswick.
Congrats guys.
I snagged a photo from the official Amazing Race Canada Twitter feed. You can see it here: https://www.cacheupnb.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/matt_tarc.jpg
You can also see the tweet itself here: https://twitter.com/AmazingRaceCDA/status/512046114309419008/photo/1
We were watching the show tonight and of course when I heard geocaching I perked right up. My wife chuckled as the shot came up and I said that is Zor. Shame nobody chose that detour ss I sure would have. The girls almost changed. Good to at least get a mention on national tv.
After watching the Amazing Race Canada preview last week, I knew The Rocks were going to be included, but I had no idea geocaching would be! Tonight came as a total surprise… “Holy @#$##!, that’s Zor!
Seeing Matt as the “clue-giver” tonight was pretty exciting and I was so disappointed that no teams picked geocaching… knowing the work that would have gone into this. Little glimmer of hope when the girls struggled and almost switched.
Reading the details in the above story makes me proud to know both of you. Even though there was no camera time, you well represented the sport of geocaching and Cache Up NB. Well done guys!
Way to go guys. We have not watched this years season yet, but it is on our to do list. Shame they didn’t use it….Mainiac1957
Not sure how many people will get the reference but remember the Hollywood Squares game show reboot with Gilbert Gottfreid as one of the squares? Everytime he tricked one of the contestants into agreeing with his wrong answer he responded in his trademark voice, “YOU FOOL!!”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcWLMkFmxck
I said that when no contestants tried the caching detour.
Heh, that’s funny.
Believe me, both producers were pretty much shocked that no one picked the geocaching task. Based on how it all went down, I think it was a fear of technology and something they just weren’t familiar with. When you think flag challenge, it doesn’t sound that hard. Too bad for them.
If Sukhi and Jinder had switched, they may have avoided elimination.
I actually really disliked Sukhi and Jinder. Every week they were running around asking “How does this work, can you guys help us with a clue?” A half dozen episodes in one of the other teams snapped back at them “How about you figure it out like the rest of us?”
Finally watched the episode tonite and spotted this in the credits.
Rev was kind of mentioned twice in there. lol Cacheup NB and Greater Moncton Airport.
I couldn’t watch it live but am I ever glad i PVR’d it.
I kept hearing Golum’s voice in my head when he says “stupides hobittes” thinking stupid racers…. Flags over caching? *cough cough* d’uh!
Events and dedication like this make CacheupNB and NB cachers in general stand above the rest!
Well done Zor and Rev.
BTW – The kids kept making me play back the portion with Zor saying “hahaha… Zor is on TV”…
😛
I was happy for Cache Up NB and Geocaching in general and I too recognized Zor in an instant. I was pretty bummed that none of the Racers chose that Detour as I think it would have given us greater exposure. The I thought: We gotta lot of work to do when no one chooses that task. Thanks for making us proud guys!! PS Sorry you can’t be a contestant… that would have been sweet.
superwife and i watched this episode tonight in re-runs. regardless of how all the racers took the _WRONG_ detour in the race, it was still nice to see our area represented on national tv. it would of course have been better if my pals zor and rev would have been in better focus. here’s to our next bug opportunity!
Okay, so here are a few questions that haven’t been asked answered yet which you may not know the answer to (and I admit to being curious as to how the producer’s minds work): How did they know to contact you guys concerning this? What made them decide to add geocaching to the mix of detours, roadblocks, etc.? Why did they choose NB to do this particular challenge?
Ask, and you shall get some answers…
The producer we dealt with already knew about geocaching and had wanted to incorporate it in the previous season but couldn’t find a way to make it work. When he was selected to do the NB leg of the race, he looked up our area and saw that geocaching was quite popular so he opted to go with it here.
He found CUNB through the web. He googled geocaching in NB and found us. Said he was VERY impressed by our site and our repertoire so he had his assistant reach out to us. The rest is history.
Me and Rev plan on doing a podcast this week where we will be talking about this experience in detail. Any further questions should be posted here and we can address them in the podcast.