Opencaching, which has been around in Europe for some time is an alternative to Geocaching.com. The site has launched in the United States as of August 18, 2010. The site, opencaching.us is openly promoting their availability to USA geocachers. Not sure if they are lumping Canada into their USA site, or if they plan an opencaching.ca site in the future (right now that's domain parked).

Some of the differences on the Opencaching site include non-anonymous reviewers and the ability to post virtual caches. At the time this article was written, the site has 86 active cache listings (versus 1,167,584 on Geocaching.com). It will be interesting to see if the site grows, and how well it scales with no membership fees or other charges to use their service.

Just a few days after a man took a pipe-bomb like geocache into a Timmins police department, Peel Regional Police were dispatched to deal with a film canister in a tree outside the Wal*Mart corporate office in Mississauga.

The geocache was placed in a small spruce tree in the employee parking lot for the office, and this is an area the general public is normally not expected to be. Since the cache was placed without the property owner's permission, they didn't realize it was a geocache and called in the authorities.

This is being discussed on the Groundspeak Forums, and the Central Ontario Geocachers forums

Please remember to obtain permission when hiding geocaches, particularly when private property is involved. Also, when hiding a cache in an urban area, you should use a clear container so it is obvious the cache contents are harmless.

From an internal Wal*Mart memo:

11:37 am Subject: IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please Read
Early this morning an Associate reported seeing a suspicious package attached to one of the trees in the East parking lot.. As a precautionary measure the corporate security team contacted Peel Police. The Police have quadrant off a portion of the East parking lot and are requesting that all Associates remain away from this area. If for an emergency reason you need to access your vehicle please contact corporate security or your People Manager. We will let you know when this issue is resolved.

1:35 pm Subject: FW: IMPORTANT NOTICE: Update
Please be advised that the Peel Police have dealt with the suspicious item left in the East parking lot. The item turned out to be a GPS based scavenger hunt game. The item was destroyed by the Police and minor debris may be found in the parking lot. We do not believe any cars were damaged as a result of this action. If you have any concerns relating to your vehicle please contact Corporate Security or your People Manager. We will investigate how the item got to this location. We do not know whether any of our Associates had any connection with this item however, this event is an opportunity to remind all that no one should leave any packages unattended in public areas on Wal-Mart property.

Today the Globe and Mail is running an article in the Toronto Section about Geocaching in the City of Toronto. If you buy the paper, look on Page M5. There's quite a bit of useful information about caching in our city in the article.... and TAG is featured as well.

Geocachers Find The City's Hidden Charms - Globe and Mail, 21 August

The first "OGA Day" events are taking place this Saturday. This is a celebration of geocaching in the Province of Ontario hosted by the Ontario Geocaching Association. Several of these events are accessible to geocachers in the Greater Toronto Area.

If you have time on Saturday, August 14 (or August 21), consider making your way to one of these events:

Toronto:
OGA Day - GTA Picnic by OGA and emzernask (GC2CDY6) - August 14

Magnetawan / Huntsville Area:
OGA Day - Near North by OGA and Mag Magician (GC29Q9Y) – August 14

Barrie / Innisfil Area:
OGA Day - The Wrong Coast by OGA and Juicepig (GC23WGH) – August 14

Eastern Ontario:
OGA Day - Kingston Waterfront by Kingston and Area Geocachers (GC2BWV2) – August 14

South Western Ontario:
OGA Day - SWOG Summer Picnic and BBQ by danielwest76 and treasuredtrio (GC2A10A) – August 21

Letterboxing, the activity that started out well before geocaching (or even GPS). The activity is still going strong, and today was featured in a Toronto Star Article. Check it out, and keep that in mind next time you forget your GPS but still want the thrill of a cache hunt

The newest version of the Ontario Trails Project is now available online at the project website This release brings a lot of new data in Dundas Valley, and numerous forest tracts around the GTA. We've also tweaked the linetype visibility a bit to show up better on Oregon units.

Here's what changed in this release:

Changed Trail Line to 2 pixels with 1 pixel border to improve visibility on Oregons

Added - More trails in Heber Down Conservation Area - Whitby - entogeek
Added - Trillium Trail - Perth - Avernar
Added - Portions of Uxbridge TCT - Uxbridge - entogeek
Added - Dumfries Conservation Area - Cambridge - Zeke_
Added - Little Tract - Guelph - Luke Mattar
Added - Puslinch Tract - Guelph - Luke Mattar
Added - Dundas Valley Trails - Hamilton - Luke Mattar
Added - Dundas Valley Trails - Hamilton - nozzletime
Added - Don Valley Trails - Toronto - Luke Mattar
Added - Palgrave Conservation Area - Palgrave - Luke Mattar
Added - Main Tract Trails - Mulmur - Luke Matter
Added - Unnamed Rail Trail - Crysler - UNDERCOVER007
Updated - Waterfront Trail, Martin Goodman Trail - Toronto - John Carriere
Updated - Terra Cotta Side Trail - Terra Cotta - northernpenguin
Updated - Dickson Area Trails - Dickson - Zeke_
Updated - Guelph Radial Line Trail - Luke Mattar
Updated - Speed River Trail - Guelph - Luke Mattar

Geowoodstock, that massive geocaching event cache is going to be within caching distance for most Toronto Area Geocachers next year! The event is being held in Warren, PA - right near Alleghany State Park. This is along the New York / Pennsylvania border and is about a 3 hour drive from Toronto. The event will be held on July 2, 2011 and should make for a great long weekend destination.

We'll keep you posted as more news gets released. There's a discussion topic on Geocaching.com as well.

Update: Here's the link to the cache page - GC2AZ7G

Canada Day is upon us, and it's going to be a beautiful day in the Toronto Area!
Make sure you get out and find a geocache - perhaps you are planning to visit the challenge
GC24RB8 - Ontario's Public Holidays Challenge Cache at some point. Well, you'll need a cache on July 1 to qualify for that challenge!

On Canada Day, there are events and fireworks at Toronto's Canadian National Exhibition grounds. Go out and find a geocache, perhaps a Canada Day themed one, like this one in St. Catharines, or this one in Brampton. Get out and have some fun, party like it's Canada's 143rd birthday, "eh".

If you really want to make a day out of it - there's that Webcam cache in Ottawa that would be a great field trip. Remember to bring your great big Canadian Flag for the occasion!

Planning to head into Toronto during the G20 Summit for some geocaching? In a word: Don't.

In the best of times, geocachers can appear suspicious by the nature of the game. We use GPS devices to hunt for hidden boxes, that sometimes get mistaken for bombs. That's a bad combination to have outside a meeting of world leaders. If you own a cache near the security zone, you should disable the listing and remove the cache container until the summit concludes. The security people have been asked to remove geocaches by June 18th, so remove it if you want to keep it! This happened with the Vancouver Olympics as well. The other concern with geocaches is the potential for demonstrators to hurl them at Police if things get ugly ... which is why newspaper boxes and mailboxes and such are also being removed.

The Summit is in Toronto June 26-27, but there will be impacts on the community outside those dates especially June 24-28. Bear in mind Huntsville is hosting the G8 Summit June 25-26, and will have similar security impacts on the community/geocaching.

G20 Summit Information
Security Zone Map (PDF)

These are some examples of the caches in or near the security zone:

GCQ60P - I sat today, in the Park
GCR7AX - Great Balls of Fir! (well, sorta)
GC246YR - Jake's Toronto Railfanning Adventure
GC14XNJ - Let’s Go, Blue Jays!
GC1Z12B - CityPlace
GC1QBAJ - Muggle City
GC23BQ5 - Car On A Hill

You will also want to avoid the 401-427-Gardiner combination (PDF) as much as possible from June 24-June 27 as the highways will be closed often enough to create traffic chaos.

While many of the caches are outside the fence, it's not a good idea to go caching near the summit. Do yourself a favour, and choose another part of the GTA to go caching that weekend. Most of the outlying communities - Peel (except near the airport), York, Durham should be fine. This would be a great weekend to explore the Bruce Trail, or the Oak-Ridges Trail.

This topic is being discussed on the Groundspeak Forums as well.