Looks like even as an adult, you can never quite get away without writing a What I Did for Summer Holidays essay. It all seems so far away now. Someone flipped the Fall switch last week…

As with most of our summers, we spent it at the cottage my family owns in Whiteshell Provincial Park, Manitoba, Canada. And this summer, we decided to set up our very own geocache. I wrote about it earlier in the year.

But before we did that, my wife and I went off to find a few more caches in and around the Whiteshell area of Manitoba.

A few words about the locations I chose.

Back in the late 1960s, an amateur prospector was out near Falcon Lake when he came across a strange object out in the wilderness. Something much like a flying saucer. He was badly burned from his exposure to the craft and eventually wound up in hospital to be treated. The man also suffered from poor health for a while after the incident. More can be found here.

I had read about this incident when I was a kid, so when I found out there were some geocaches planted in connection with the mystery, I had to check it out. Kimy had never heard of it, but as time went on, she became more intrigued to find the location.

This wasn’t the first time I tried looking for these caches either. Two years ago we went looking before, but were disappointed when our GPS ran out of juice half way out to one of the caches. Hmmmmmmm…

Don’t forget to pack your towel! (and some spare batteries)

Anyways, the first one we went looking for was located near the place where the prospector, a Mr. Stefan Michalak, walked back out of the bush once he encountered the mystery craft. And with a name like Holy Zarquon Singing Fish, my wife couldn’t be happier to go find it! We’re both big fans of Douglas Adams, and it seems at least on other geocacher is as well. It was a nice little hike, but eventually I started to get a little worried. We we getting a bit off the beaten path, and we started to see signs that the site was recently inhabited. Though by beings of a more Earthly nature. Probably some wolves. Or maybe a black bear.

Clearly we weren’t alone…

Our first (and turns out only) cache of the day!

After finding that cache, we went off in search for the real deal. The one that would point us to the way of the actual encounter. It wasn’t that far away, but the route we took was rather roundabout. And once again we had to turn back as it was getting rather late and the GPS was running out of juice again. Hmmmmmmm again…

The truth is out there… way out there in fact.

The next day we were off. Eventually (and I mean eventually) we found the cache. Not going to give away too much here as it might spoil the fun if anyone reading this post decides they want to give it a try. The cache description said it wasn’t the actual location, but was very close to it. And anyone interested could follow the coordinates that you could find in the cache’s treasure trove to the actual spot. We were very close now. I could feel it…

Jackpot! Here’s a pick of Kimmy and the hidden cache. Close cropped shot so as to not give too much away! 🙂

…And see it too. It was really, really close. Not to give too much away to any future geocacher, but the actual site is like 100 feet away from the cache, so it wasn’t much a journey to find it. No sign of anything out of the ordinary while we were there. Not counting the giant plastic teepee in the middle of nowhere though. And maybe something else as well. I’m still not too certain what to make of this picture I took…

The scene of the crime! Nothing strange going here now. Or is there? Click on the pic and for a closer look and see for yourself.

Getting back, on the other hand, was… interesting. We weren’t kidnapped by aliens, but I sure would have welcomed the ride. Portable GPS units (the kind one might install in the car for a long journey) don’t really hold a charge very long. And once again we were faced with having no more juice in our hand-dandy GPS unit. And it was a long hike back through unfamiliar woods. Obviously we made it back okay as this blog post attests to. But it was a longer afternoon than anticipated.

Perhaps the aliens have been influenced by watching too many Earthly Westerns?

Stay tuned for part two of our journey where we once again travel to places unexplored (by us anyways) and we unsuccessfully try to find a place in the Whiteshell for our own geoache.

Author’s Note: While my narrative is a little tongue in cheek, I do take a very casual interest in paranormal stuff, and I was very interested in seeing the site. While I’m not totally convinced this particular incident was caused by intergalactic visitors, there does appear room for SOMETHING to have occurred. Perhaps a test flight of a Cold War era spy plane?