Geotourism combines two of the world’s hottest trends.  The first trend is the developing interest in exploring and experiencing historic and natural history sites.  The second is the explosive growth of site location activities, including geocaching and letterboxing. 

The geotourism project first required us to search for the most important sites related to history and natural history.  To date we have a data base of about 1,000 significant sites related to various themes including ghost towns, abandoned fur trade posts, sunken steamboats, historic churches, haunted places, First Nations and pioneer trails, agricultural/homestead sites, museums, waterfalls, birding sites, dinosaur sites, rock hound sites, and so forth.

Once we find a site, we write a 1-page document describing it.  This document is called a “Site Page”, and consists of a series of boxes including “tombstone” information (name, age of site, et cetera), a photograph of the site (with historic sites we try to find an historic and a modern photo), site identification information (so you can find it), information on public access, a narrative which describes the site, and a bibliography where you can find more information to satisfy your curiosity.

All Site Pages related to a given theme (for example ‘ghost towns’) are then placed together in a Field Guide.  Our thematic field guides are given a consistent name to identify the theme of interest and the region covered (for example Field Guide - Ghost Towns of the Peace).  Thus, tourists and residents can download the field guide of their choice, and visit all the important sites within our region related to their interests.  The experience is a lot of fun, recreational and educational, too.

Those folks that are just interested in the historical or natural history attributes of the site can spend an enjoyable afternoon exploring the site.  Those folks that are just interested in finding geocaches/letterboxes, can spend a few hours looking for our elusive black box at each site.  And those who are intrigued by both activities will have fun in both pursuits!

For those who are into Geocaching/letterboxing, we have put stickers into each box.  When you have visited 24 sites and collected a sticker from each site, you may receive a beautiful historical 11x17 poster suitable for framing.  Simply log onto our website, complete the Geotourism Canada Poster Rewards Form, and take it along with the 24 Site Pages with affixed stickers to a participating museum.

Good luck and have lots of fun!  Click for "how to" instructions.