The world is upside-down. The Pioneer Press treasure hunt medallion, the first one, was found by Jake Ingebrigtson after a record for success on the fewest clues, three, which is like figuring out steak from the word ‘hay.’
And the Winter Carnival got the ice for the Harriet Island ice maze from Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis. They are so environmentally hip in Minneapolis that they have less global warming than St. Paul. Nokomis could produce ice 14 inches thick, and our usual source, Lake Phalen, could not. Don’t ask me. All I know is that most Winter Carnival events on Harriet Island are free but you have to pay $2 to go through the ice maze, which means you are paying $2 to get lost in Minneapolis ice.
I talked to this Ingebrigtson fellow. I believe he would wear a pocket protector for his pens, if you know what I mean. This guy studies satellite downloads of St. Paul parks for purposes of eliminating them from his search grid. He and another guy, remember, some guy he ran into down in Hidden Falls, decided that the word “level” in clue No. 3 came from inside the word Cleveland, the avenue, which dead ends at the river.
The guy Ingebrigtson ran into was a guy named Rob Brass. They knew each other, vaguely, from past treasure hunts, the way two pros on the Nike golf tour might remember each other from waiting around during a rain delay at a tournament in Omaha.
“Are you going to give Brass a taste?” I asked Ingebrigtson.
“I think I should,” Ingebrigtson said.
As for the clue writer intending that “level” get extracted from “Cleveland,” I have my doubts. As obtuse as the clue writer is, that is a stretch.
In any event, I asked Ingebrigtson, 27, why he didn’t just pocket the medallion and wait a few days, for the sake of the game.
“No way,” Ingebrigtson said. “I wanted that record.”
This is what it has come to. Not only did Ingebrigtson want the record – he knew what the record was. I hesitate to even write this because by the time it appears in the paper today, Ingebrigtson could very well have found the second medallion.
Mind you, Ingebrigtson did not even hint at dumb luck. He found it entirely plausible that given his years of devotion and study – he is known as one of the vacation takers: people who take vacation during the treasure hunt – that he would be entirely capable of finding the prize in such record short time. Go to the discussion board about the treasure hunt at TwinCities.com and read some of the postings. This is no longer your mother’s treasure hunt, when she and a few neighbors might go out and poke listlessly at the snow in Highland Park with a broom handle.
This has become a treasure hunt for the mad geeks of the technological age, the computer-savvy GPS users who start plotting grid potentials in July.
Which gives me an idea.
We should have a summer treasure hunt. It could lead up to Grand Old Day or Taste of Minnesota. I bounced this off a few people and they said, “no, you would disrupt softball games and picnics in the parks.”
OK. Better yet. We should have a treasure hunt limited to downtown St. Paul, with clear rules and regulations that would prevent property damage or trespassing. Not that I would worry about such things. These are serious-minded people free of larcenous souls. The clue writer could have a field day catering precisely to the hunter who desires this to be as difficult as possible. If you are finding it after three clues, you can’t make it difficult enough. Maybe the clues would have an architectural theme. Or maybe the clues would invoke long-lost street names or neighborhoods or the churches and ballparks that once populated downtown.
Businesses, meaning bars, would love it. As long as the world is upside-down anyway, even Minneapolis people could join in. We’re using their ice.
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5474. Soucheray is heard 2-5:30 p.m. weekdays on KSTP-AM 1500.
Copyright 2007 Pioneer Press.
