PLUMSTED – A global game of exploration is making its way to Plumsted as one resident aims to share her sense of adventure and local history with her neighbors.
At 10 a.m. Aug. 22, attendees will join Lauren Harper, 17, and the Plumsted Youth for Nature and the Environment (PYNE) for the township’s first geocaching event.
The participants will meet at Volunteer Park, Evergreen Road, Plumsted. For more information, send an email to [email protected].
Geocaching is a recreational activity in which participants use a global positioning system (GPS) device to pinpoint the locations of hidden objects. Coordinates to various locations and objects are often found online with occasional hints from other users to help find the “cache.”
“Geocaching is a hobby, a fun way to explore the world in which we live, or simply as an outlet into nature,” Harper said. “It takes people off the main pathway of life and into the dirt, woods and sometimes hills of typically bypassed parts of the world.”
Harper, who has found nearly 400 geocaches with her mother and three brothers, said the hobby is a great way for people to get out and appreciate their surroundings.
Since getting involved in the hobby more than three years ago, Harper said she has found various “caches” as far north as Massachusetts, as far south as Georgia and as far west as Wisconsin.
“Every vacation we went on … we found at least three geocaches,” she said. “Touring colleges also helped; college campuses have a lot of caches.”
During the Aug. 22 event in Plumsted, Harper said, she and her fellow PYNE members will take participants to 10 locations in town that have significant historical importance to the area.
Harper said one of her caches will be at the remains of Elizabeth Lee’s house and cranberry cannery on Cranberry Canners Road, off Long Swamp Road.
“Lee is credited with being one of the inventors of cranberry sauce and cranberry juice,” Harper said. “She was simply trying to find a use for her cranberry surplus and with her kitchen stove, cranberries, sugar and other ingredients, she created one of the best sides for Thanksgiving dinner.”
Harper said she received support from the New Egypt Historical Society and PYNE as she selected the locations for the event.
She said participants will also be able to enjoy games and food at Volunteer Park. There will be additional demonstrations of geocaching and a geocaching-related challenge with prizes for the winners.
Harper said she hopes the participants will leave the event with a sense of wonder and excitement at the historical relevance of their surroundings.
“I hope the public will gain a sense of the history that completely engulfs New Egypt. I also hope it will encourage them to research more about their own land – what was here before them, the time periods that have passed and the artifacts people left behind,” the young woman said. “I find the history that immediately surrounds me and the history I see every day is far more real and interesting than anything one can read in a textbook.”