Newmarket nine-year-old Abigail Watkins said she was born into geocaching.
With her plush friend, Qutie Coon, in tow, Watkins and her family have amassed a small social media following tracking down the hidden treasures.
“It’s very cool, and I really like it because I just really want to be famous,” she said. “I just want other people to get into geocaching.”
The Newmarket family has become some of the most prominent geocachers in town, with more than 200 followers on Instagram and eight caches they have placed themselves.
The activity has trackers seek out small containers placed on public land, containing hidden treasures. Locations are logged on an app and hidden in ways that can be tricky to find. Geocachers log what caches they have found and spread trackable items that can move from one cache to the next. The activity encourages outdoor exploration and conservation, with participants asked to clean up the land they traverse.
Angela Rotherham-Watkins, Abigal’s mother, said the family was introduced to it on a camping trip when her daughter was two years old. From there, they just kept on doing it.
“It’s an opportunity to get families out there,” she said. “They’re using technology, but they’re using it in a positive way to find something to explore.”
The family has become invested in the hobby that has millions of enthusiasts. When they came upon another family using a mascot, they decided to make their own using a plushie from Upper Canada Mall, with a tracker that can highlight every geocache they have visited.
“Looked for stuffed animals that would be Canadian,” father Stephen Watkins said. “Beavers were overdone, and moose were overdone.”
“I had a thing about raccoons when I was small. It just kind of fit,” Rotherham-Watkins said. “I wanted a cute name.”
The family has made videos and social media posts highlighting their various geocaching adventures. They have found 177 in all.
They have also made geocaches in Newmarket, including at the Magna Centre and Fairy Lake. Stephen Watkins said they try to make theirs kid-friendly, larger, and easier to find. One of them is filled with false gold coins and rubies, representing a pirate’s treasure.
“It’s a fun hide,” he said, adding they have received plenty of positive responses from kids finding their caches. “Ninety per cent (of geocaches) are those little, tiny ones, but when the kids see the big ones, they get blown away.”
The youngest Watkins said that makes her glad.
“I just feel quite a little proud of myself,” she said. “I just like doing it because I get to make other kids feel positive.”
The family plans to continue their geocaching ways, promoting the activity to others and getting to spend quality time together.
Abigail Watkins said she plans to keep up her social media presence and eventually take on the harder geocaches to find out there.
“I really like what I do, because it makes other kids happy.”
