The 2022 Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt ended Monday when Skyler Sawyer, 22, found the medallion in Silverwood Park in St. Anthony, after nine clues were published. Here are all 12 clues for the hunt, and their explanations:
Clue 1
From delta to omicron, what a marathon
Getting from last year to this
Strap on your mask, get down to the task
Let fresh treasure be your bliss
We open by laying the ground rules, and urge hunters to wear a mask. Fresh refers to the recent makeover at Silverwood Park.
Clue 2
Get out of your bed if you want some hunt cred
Don’t wait ‘til temps hit the 30s
With the prize as your driver be a vigorous striver
For success means a life of ease
“Cred, 30s (as ‘thirties’), striver” are an anagram for Three Rivers District, which includes Silverwood Park.
Clue 3
Far from the path that leads to a bath
The treasure waits so alone
Step out of the dark go to the park
But avoid obstacles of cone
Silverwood has a forest bathing trail. The puck is hidden in a parking lot.
Clue 4
An item hot is the current lot
Of at-home tests for COVID
Ours is nice, in block of ice
Inside the medallion’s hid
The prize this year is tucked into the box of an at-home COVID test, which we then froze in a chunk of ice.
Clue 5
When the buttons showed up, we screamed out ‘what?!?’
Still, we didn’t cancel the order
So when we hid the puck, we pushed our luck
And hid it so close to a border.
A nod to this year’s registered button misprint – the button appears undecided if it’s 2021 or 2022. Likewise, St. Anthony Village is actually in two counties – Hennepin and Ramsey. Silverwood Park is in the smaller part of St. Anthony that’s included in Ramsey, which had us making sure we didn’t cross any borders when we hid the prize.
Clue 6
Ride this rhyme for a trip through time
From stone circles to the flood
From a raised elevation you’ll make observation
That all of us spring from the mud
Among the sculptures in Silverwood Park is a time machine, stone circles, a memorial to the 1927 Mississippi River flood, a raised platform, and a sculpture that focuses us on the “early developmental state that all living creatures take before developing their own biological directions.”
Clue 7
Scale the heights, look for the brights
Where nature inspires the arts
Is it life eternal or heat infernal
That strikes at your heart of hearts?
Silverwood Park, near Columbia Heights and New Brighton, is known as a place where nature inspires the performing, fine and folk arts. One of the sculptures at the park is “Eterne,” an archaic form of the word “eternal,” and the visitors center is heated and cooled by geothermal energy.
Clue 8
If saving souls is among your goals
Then this hunt is for you
Bring your legions to these regions
And stay a week or two
Saving souls = salvation; legions = army; stay a week or two = camp. Silverwood Park is the site of a former Salvation Army Camp.
Clue 9
See how brave, bucked and raved
the tempo of the hunter
take a break for your sake
and tear the words asunder
Silverwood Park’s sculpture tour includes a giant “5” at the south end of the visitor center parking lot. It’s called “High Five,” and we’re riffing on it with an anagram (“bucked” and “raved”) about jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, suggesting readers “take a break” – a nod to Brubeck’s well-known “Take Five.” Tempo is a nod to the speed or flow of notes in music, which could lead hunters to one of the park’s overflow parking lots.
Clue 10 (not published)
Don’t skip ahead, follow the thread
You need to observe beginnings
Every clue has a bit that’s true
Rely on it to find winnings.
For folks who have found Silverwood but not the lot, we’ve started each line with a letter that spells out “Dyer,” a reference to Dyer’s Hill at the park, which overlooks the hiding spot.
Clue 11 (not published)
The finder will plot and search a lot
Avoiding where others go.
Away from the trail, how can you fail
Your riches will overflow.
The medallion is hidden out in the open, under a few inches of snow, in the middle of one of the park’s overflow parking lots. So don’t get stuck in the woods or searching the usual stumps and grass patches that many do.
Clue 12 (not published)
Noodling good? You’re at Silverwood.
What you seek is so near.
At county’s edge, this is our pledge —
The prize is in the clear.
If it’s night, turn on your light
And head from car through woods
Atop a rise you will surmise
Benches overlook the goods.
Down below, an expanse of snow
Bisected by small trees.
It’s out from those, 15 paces or so
The treasure lies at your knees.
It’s the final clue, so this one almost puts you on top of the prize. Again, we note the puck is out in the open, or “in the clear,” and give directions to head from the main parking lot to the adjacent wooded hill. If you follow the well-worn foot trail through the snow, you’ll end up at Dyer’s Hill, which is marked by several benches. Down below is an open patch of snow – an overflow parking lot, closed in winter – that is split in half by a line of trees. Out 15 paces to the north from one of the middle trees, the medallion sits beneath the snow.
Copyright 2022 Pioneer Press.
