Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches North Marsh Cache II by OHMIC (1.5/2) N50� 13.531  W97� 08.235 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 632868  N 5565365 Use waypoint: GC2X4KG Size: Small    Hidden on 5/28/2011 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:                     Small "Fisheries" jar. Although, the cache is winter friendly, access to this area in winter will considerably increase the difficulty level. The original size of the Oak Hammock Marsh, formerly called St.Andrews Bog, was approxinmately 450 square kilometers. When the first European settlers arrived, they undertook the huge task of draining the marsh for use as agricultural land. By the 1960s, there was almost nothing left of the marsh. St. Andrews Bog had been drained down to 60 hectares. All that remained was the deepest portion, known to local people as Bedson Lakes. The drainage and settlement of the marsh was complete. R. A. Quickfall of the Stonewall Argus wrote "…those of us who have witnessed the many changes that have taken place cannot help but say that the reclamation of this bog land is for the good of mankind. It will help to feed and clothe the nation." You are now standing on the northernmost dike of the marsh where you can see the drainage creek used to empty the marsh. Today, this creek caries the excess water to the Red River via Wavey Creek. You can even see the structure used to empty the marsh.

Additional Hints (There are no hints for this cache)

7/8/2011 by Kabuthunk
Last cache (technically, if you ignore the few on the road leading up to here that I get on the way back) of the absolute North end of Oak Hammock marsh (assuming the fields to the north aren't part of the marsh somehow... perhaps as a test growing bed or something, I dunno). My fifth cache of the day, out of nine total (eight and one DNF unfortunately). And I'm almost kinda surprised, yet not really surprised at how close the caches are together up here. You'd think in an open marshland, there'd be very few places that a cache would be capable of hiding. But when you actually come and visit here, you begin to realize that there’s an absolute multitude of places a cache could be hidden, provided you have different styles of hide. So far, virtually every cache has been hidden in a slightly different manner up to this point.

So walking up to the coordinates, I had a preconception as to how this cache would be hidden. Given my thoughts as to how this one was going to be hidden, I would have had a 50/50 chance of getting it on the first shot. Alas, it’s probably best if I don’t pick up a lottery ticket today, since my first guess happened to be the wrong one.

Or… perhaps I’ve now used my allotment of bad luck for the day, and should be getting a lottery ticket since I’m now balanced towards the ‘good’ end of the spectrum. Hell, given how the rest of the day went (find to DNF ratio aside… read my further logs for more trials and tribulations… specifically ‘Not Your Average Marsh’), I’ve gotta have by this point like… a 1 in 5 chance of winning! Why, buying any less than 20 lottery tickets at this point would simply be foolish !

Where was I? Right, 50/50. So I picked wrong the first time, and several seconds later had spotted the cache container on my second attempt. The cache container however… seems to have picked up a fair amount of its own ‘natural’ camouflage. And man, is that ever natural, such to the point that I hesitated for a moment before grabbing the cache container. Giving it the container a bit of a shake, and the lid of it a bit of a flick on the underside made it a little bit less… crumbly so to speak, but it still camouflages itself quite nicely when in its hiding spot. Poking around at the contents, I quickly removed the accordioned logbook and signed my name on it.

Oohh, almost forgot… as an added bonus to this cache, I was pleased to be on the constant presence of the sound of water rushing . Love that sound. After replacing the cache, I soon discovered that said rushing sound was surprisingly coming from only one of the two culvert-waterfall things there. I kinda figured it was the method by which the marsh was to drain its excess water, but was a bit perplexed as to why only one of them was ‘active’, and how it would be adjusted if it needed adjusting. Rationalizing it a bit more in my mind, I came to the conclusion that the water level is as it currently is correct, and wouldn’t really need to be changed at any time. Secondly, I imagine water only rushes out the second culvert after a large rainfall, and more water would naturally drain off faster once it reaches the surface of the culvert hill blockage thing.

Of course, I could be completely wrong on all of that, but it seemed to make the most sense to me. So with the cool breeze coming off the surface of the water and the sound of a rushing waterfall, I relaxed there for a few moments until the horseflies inevitably rushed me off to the next cache… in this case, back to the car for a bit. I debated whether to walk around the entire marsh by following the dike trail, but the humidity and mosquitoes down the trail changed my mind relatively quickly. Perhaps another time in late, late fall I’ll do a fill circuit, just for the hell of it.

Took: Nothing
Left: Logbook and chainmail ball.