Orienteering night event in Fundy Park
While in Fundy National Park for the caching event, why not come a day early and try out orienteering? This fun night event will introduce you to orienteering and show you the linkages with geocaching. There will be a short night race followed by a marshmallow roast and meet and greet around the campfire.
Orienteering and geocaching are very similar sports, both involving wilderness exploration, finding hidden items and navigating by map and compass. The main differences are that orienteers do not usually use GPS units to navigate, and their events are timed. Orienteering New Brunswick will be holding a Night Orienteering event at Chignecto South campground in Fundy National Park the night before ACGA’s Sunday event (GC251X2). This will be a fun opportunity to improve your map-reading skills, to use your navigational skills in a new and exciting way and to meet other orienteers and geocachers.
The starting point for the Night O will be at the same cook shelter being used on Sunday for the larger event. The evening will progress as follows:
21:00 Registration begins/maps distributed
21:30 Intro to Orienteering instructional section
22:00 Night O event begins
23:00 Night O event ends
Marshmallow roast, socializing after the event.
Please pre-register your intent to come by visiting http://bit.ly/FundyNightO, pre-registration guarantees you a map.
Equipment: compass (or GPS with compass function), whistle, watch, headlamp/flashlight (with fresh batteries) and something to roast marshmallows with.
Instruction will be offered by a fellow geocacher who is also a member of Orienteering New Brunswick, and he will introduce you to some more advanced map reading skills and some ways to integrate the two activities. We promise that you will have fun!
There will be 2 courses offered (beginner and intermediate) covering distances of 2 km and 3 km respectively. We would recommend that anyone new to orienteering do the beginner course.
It sounds like a lot of fun. I used to be prety good at map and compass, having taken courses with the Outdoor Enthusiasts Club and with Tri-County Ground Search and Rescue.
Since you are comparing it to geocaching, I have a question in theat regard. Parks Canada banned geocaching from the Parks because of a fear that caches would be off trail and would possibly cause erosion and damage sensitive areas. I wonder if there is a danger that Orienteering might do that as well. I assum there will be some bushwacking and off trail activities.
They have been orienteering in Fundy for a long time, the national championships were there a few years ago. They probably allow it because it is well mapped out and probably approved by the park to be in certain areas just like the new caches. Also the controls are moved around to prevent repeated use so no “trails” I guess that geocachers have already proven that if an area is available for caches it will quickly get filled up with caches and not always in the best places.