It was a wondrous and haunting scene.
Like the last members of an ancient race, hundreds of people marched in twos and threes through the dark wood, beams of light emanating from their foreheads and swinging from the ends of their arms. They whispered and counted steps in the right direction and the wrong direction, seeking something they would not find.
They were in the deep snow of Bald Eagle-Otter Lakes Regional Park north of White Bear Lake before midnight Wednesday, hoping to win $10,000 in a rare final-clue Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt. It was the first time since 2004 that no one had found the prize-winning medallion before the 12th and final clue, which spelled out exactly how many paces to take from where “the snowy trail Ts.”
Though they found the starting line in good time, others who made better guesses were on the snowy trail ahead of them and closing in on the prize.
Among the lucky ones were Christopher Jozwiak, Heather Vocke and Phillip Kitzer, high school friends from Rhinelander, Wis., now living in Minneapolis. Following a hunch about an X mentioned in an earlier clue, they were standing at the junction of two nature trails that put them halfway to the snowy T before the final clue appeared on the Pioneer Press website, TwinCities.com.
“We were standing there refreshing our phones for the new clue, and there were 100 people around us in teams doing the same thing,” Kitzer said.
When the clue was published, other groups hurried off in different directions. But Kitzer insisted they study the clue until they fully understood it, Jozwiak said. The time was well invested. They re-oriented themselves, paced off the steps described in the clue and soon found themselves looking at the large uprooted tree where the medallion should be.
“We saw the tree and it felt right,” Jozwiak said. “We started digging.”
At the time, there were about two-dozen people digging around the same tree, many of them, including Jozwiak and Vocke, concentrating on the upturned roots.
“The implement I had chosen — one of my favorites, a long and thin stick so I can get into trees and holes — I couldn’t get into where I needed it,” Vocke said. “I said, ‘Chris, bring that hoe rake in here.’ ”
Jozwiak dug where Vocke pointed and soon there was a plastic bag stuck to the tines of his rake. Inside the plastic bag were some cigar leaves and a wet nap, both elements of earlier clues. Wrapped inside the wet nap was the medallion. It was just before midnight.
BATTLE PLANS
While the clue that started the race was revealed a half-hour before midnight, the final hunt began hours or days earlier for many of the hunters. They assembled teams, scouted out starting points and, in many cases, placed intelligence operatives at Gabe’s by the Park, the St. Paul bar and restaurant that gets the first copies of the Pioneer Press each night. Often the operatives at Gabe’s are able to relay clues to hunters in the field a half-hour or more before the clue appears online.
Tom Tehle of St. Paul and Jim Bennewitz of Eagan sat at the bar around 10 p.m. debating exactly which part of Bald Eagle-Otter Lakes really held the medallion. Bennewitz thought the final clue would point to Benson Prairie, the northernmost part of the park. Tehle thought it would be nearer the boat ramp.
Though many people milled around the prairie as the final clue arrived, they would be too far north to make it in time. The final clue told hunters to start at the boat ramp.
The boat ramp is where Shoreview twins Tommy and Tess McNamara started. They’ve been searching together since the 2004 hunt, when the medallion was found on the final clue after a long night of digging at Phalen Park.
They found the snowy T, paced out the steps and found themselves at an uprooted tree glowing with the portable lights of hundreds of other hunters. Well past midnight they still dug in a relatively pristine patch of snow, hoping to find the overlooked medallion.
Like other hunters, they were beginning to wonder if the rumors were true, that the medallion had been found. Or had they all paced themselves to the wrong tree?
“It paces out to me,” Tess McNamara said. “But who knows how tall the clue writer is?”
Nearby, Jason Polos of Oakdale stepped back from the tree and decided to pace it out again just to be sure. If the medallion was still out there, under a different tree, he didn’t want to give up yet. It was past 1 a.m.
“I’m going to go back to square one, go back to where the trails T, do it for the third time and see if I end up in the same spot,” Polos said. “I kind of hope I don’t.”
Many others were doing the same thing, pacing their way down different trails to different fallen trees, hoping to hear the tick of shovel on medallion or word that the medallion was found.
CLAIMING THE PRIZE
About the same time, Jozwiak, Vocke and Kitzer were standing outside the Pioneer Press office in St. Paul trying to turn in the medallion. They had left the fallen tree quietly with medallion in hand, not wanting to cause a commotion. They shared their secret and a hug with a longtime medallion hunter on the way back to their car, but otherwise kept quiet as they left.
Unfortunately, when they arrived at the Pioneer Press, the security guard was on his rounds and the front desk is being renovated and looked abandoned. They scratched their heads and wondered if they should go somewhere else. They also posted photos on Facebook and hoped word would reach the hundreds still digging around the tree. Then the last newsroom employee to leave for the night found them outside and helped connect them to contest official Lori Swanson, who separately was trying to confirm what she had seen on Facebook.
The first official word that the medallion was found came out about 2:45 a.m. and a news release was issued about 3 a.m. The few hopeful hunters still at Bald Eagle Lake could go home to bed.
Eight hours later, the three winners were back at the Pioneer Press office for the news conference where they received their oversized check, made out to Vocke because she was the one who told Jozwiak where to dig. They planned to share the $10,000 evenly.
The three said they’ve been medallion hunting about 10 years and they now keep binders of maps and information to organize their efforts.
They’re all big fans of the hunt.
“It’s always a lot of fun,” Jozwiak said. “You get to go out to parks and learn about places you wouldn’t otherwise go.”
“The Winter Carnival is great, too,” Kitzer said. “Winter is long in Minnesota. Getting out in the parks makes you appreciate a season that a lot of people get frustrated over.”
Vocke said she loved the rush to interpret the last clue.
“It was fun to get out there with all the flashlights and all that energy and the beautiful new snowfall,” she said.
Copyright 2016 Pioneer Press.
