Current at 11/6/2011 (Online waypoint URL) You have already found this cache! Master Index    Nearest Caches Quasi-Sudoku - Canadiana by dani_carriere (2/1.5) (Archived) N49° 52.750  W97° 11.850 (WGS84) UTM  14U   E 629500  N 5526754 Use waypoint: GC1JK49 Size: Regular    Hidden on 11/30/2008 In Manitoba, Canada Difficulty:     Terrain:                           The cache is NOT at the posted co-ordinates. Solve the sudoku puzzle to determine which Canadian province matches which number. Replace the appropriate letter in the coordinates below to find the final hiding spot. N49 5H.GFE W097 1K.BAB British Columbia A Alberta B Saskatchewan C Manitoba D Ontario E Quebec F New Brunswick G Nova Scotia H Prince Edward Island J Newfoundland and Labrador K Initial Cache Contents: Logbook FTF Cert and Timmies card Original MBGA Geocoin pencil sharpener erasers writing sticks glow stick rubber ball badges tattoo stickers You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.

Additional Hints Hints

12/20/2008 by Kabuthunk
WOOH! Yay for a cache beginning with the letter "Q"! Thanks to it, I was able to complete my Manitoba ABC Soup today . At first I wasn't sure if I was even going to go out geocaching today... traffic being insane, snowing out, etc, etc. I still faithfully updated my GPS however with GSAK, and decided to see what "Q" caches were even in the list (all unfound caches in about 130km's of me). To my surprise, there was more than the three that I expected to see... alongside the two near Morris and the one in Portage la Prairie... there was a fourth cache!"

At which point I remembered that Dani had mentioned that she may be placing a "Q" cache in the near future (clearly, she mentioned this sometime prior to it being published ). I had forgotten about that until now! Opening up the page... I saw a bizarre, unusual puzzle the likes of which I had never seen. Glancing over it for a few minutes, I was perplexed as to how to solve it in the slightest! So many... colours, and numbers, and letters, and shapes... and letters corrosponding with numbers, and numbers corrosponding with other things. Truly, it boggled me for a bit. Then again, I had just woken up not long ago, and had not had any coffee .

So after a bit of perplexing, I came to a conclusion as to how to solve the puzzle. And I must admit... if anything deserves the term "quasi", it would be this puzzle. It's... yeah, that's the only way to describe it... quasi-sudoku . But anyway... with the aid of a pen and some pages from a nearby notepad, I began putting the pieces together. Unfortunately, the birds or trees didn't help me at all (or at the bare minimum, I didn't bother attempting to use those to assist me ), and made due with the "easier" things. I still had to do a fair amount of research... but came up with a feasable solution after about 20 minutes.

At which point, thank GOD you have this on geochecker... because I was seriously questioning how well I solved the puzzle. I had some convoluted method that involved having a letter, associating it with a number, which associated with a DIFFERENT number, and those were associated with the provinces in question. So yeah... I wasn't entirely sure I had associated the right things to the right responses at times . Oh, and that Manitoba = "D" thing? Yeah, that screwed me over too in a few ways . But alas... the geochecker confirmed that I was going to be looking in the right area . And thankfully, very nearby was also a "Remember #69" cache that fulfilled my "R" requirements as well (ended up finding that one first and this one second).

So from the "R" cache, I walked over to this one. Having a pair of my patented "instant winter boots" in my jacket pocket, and promptly put them on. Prepared for the drifts, I plunged inwards, seeing the cache when I was about 8 meters from it . At which point... I concluded that I was going after the cache in the COMPLETELY wrong way . However... despite taking the harder, more tangly (seriously... what's with the fishing line in the bushes there?) path, I was determined to get it. Retrieving it wasn't that hard... but putting it back up afterwards put up a good fight. After re-hiding the cache, I quickly jammed my hands into my gloves, and prayed that the icy twinges of... ice... would quickly disappear. As I have quite decent gloves, it only took a few minutes... well worth an awesome cache puzzle, hiding spot, and letter "Q" .

So thanks again for the interesting cache. I defintely made the hunt for it a lot more treacherous than I'm sure most other cachers experienced when locating it .

Took: Nothing (was tempted to move car TB... but it indicated it wanted to go to Ontario, so I figured it best to leave it there in a new cache that will likely be found a lot more often than any other ones I find in the near future)
Left: Logbook entry and chainmail ball.

Hints (Back)
Manitoba is not in the puzzle. It's value is 0 (zero).