When I was in my mid teens I hiked the trail around Lake Louise. I had a superlative Yes song going through my head. I thought of a mini game called Treasure of the Silver Dragon. Don't ask for details, how it worked, because there never were any. There would have been a map in there. This gave me a great feeling. But nothing came of it.

So what about a treasure hunt, "Treasure of the Silver Dragon"? The prize is fifty silver coins.

.. and, alas, there already is a treasure hunt called "Silver Dragon's Hoard". It's Canada too.
 

Q: How is Silver Dragon's Hoard different from the proposed Thesaurus Canada?

A: Silver Dragon's Hoard is solving riddles for various amounts of money, not exactly a treasure hunt. It is all online, with no book to buy or physical treasure to pick up. Also Quebec is verboten.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Treasures and Hunts
 

Or should it be kept secret?
 
 

I'm warming to having a standard prize at $5,000, with some lower. * One prize is $10,000 *. See pazoozas on the Treasure page. The $10,000 prize is a selling point, a cause for excitement.

Also, can you lend me $40,000?
 
 

Ghost story! There could be clues to a hunt in a ghost story. Entertaining, even if you don't figure it out. Debatable glimpses into a different view of the world, in two ways.
A murder mystery might be better from a clues point of view, but that is a bloodier business.
A spy story is not out of the question.
 

A cloak and dagger themed prize? That sounds dubious even to me, but neat components. "Cloak and dagger" is vague, but a couple of board games (Watergate, Shifty Eyed Spies, maybe Mind Management), books, mystery thriller, likely a code book, wallet lock pick set. And money.
 
 

Hidden Gems
 
 

Easter Egg Hunt
 
 

Silver something or other. Coins. Silver alpaca ..
 
 

The lower value prizes can be more colourful.
 

(Night) Out on the Town. Restaurant, coffee and danish store, tickets for the show, the game, you get the idea. Spendin' money. Gift card for clothing store. Casino chips! Local. Art gallery, play, beer garden ..
 

Cosy cabin. Games and books and puzzles, an object, art something. Skip the Dishes. What would you do for this prize? Maybe it needs a woman's touch.
 
 

A hunt that bends toward the Chinese Canadian crowd. Some Chinese writing. The prize is nine small gold dragon coins, for the year of the dragon. Could be in one of those new year envelopes, used to give money. I would find a way to get in Lanterns, a Chinese Canadian board game. Some free eatin' at the restaurants in Richmond.
 
 

Bit coin and bat coin. One of each in a tiny treasure chest. Possibly physical bit coin.
 
 

It would please me to have someone on the west coast get a prize that included east coast treats. Junk food, jam jams cookies, drinks including alcohol. But this is consumables. Alcohol too. That means going through hoops. An object, e.g. a model ship. Nova Scotia book or two.
 
 

I wonder how hard it is to set up a gift card to some store, like Cal's Cacti.
 
 

Medical charity raffles, e.g. the Tri-Hospital Dream Lottery, happen. Everybody wins. The treasure finder would get half tickets in an envelope and would not need to fill out anything. Well .. the devil's in the details. I like that, particularly the higher-value ones.
 
 

Arctic themed prize. The arctic has diamonds (hidden gems?). Nunami is a genuine Canadian arctic board game, apparently good too. The inevitable art work. Toonies, some have glow-in-the dark northern lights (shrugs shoulders).
 
 

There are books that have the pages placed randomly and you have to figure it out. We could do something like that, get a poem or something and .. no, that's secret.
 
 

Drinks, entire categories, baskets. That's stupid, so no. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't consider it.
 
 

What about a map? A classic pirate's x-marks-the spot map?
 
 

How about a treasure hunt where the different designers each do one aspect of it? Not going to happen, but something to ponder.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I find I like the medium hunts, like above, and I guess the small hunts. As opposed to the monster million dollar hunts, of which there are two famous ones out right now. My opinion is based on not much, and I could be wrong.
 
 
 
 

There should be a culture of secrecy to 1) preserve the integrity of the game and 2) prevent designers and their people being harassed. But there is a third, awkward little reason. I want designers to go in their own direction rather than succumbing to groupthink.
 
 
 
 

On paper evaluation means a hunt is accepted or not. But in practise I think it will be messier, greyer, less complete than that. I'm looking at Level 1 and Level 2 evaluation. Level 1 means "you're in" (sort of, not published). Level 2 is a more thorough scrub with the goal of perfecting the hunt. But this is a conversation among peers. "This clue doesn't work so well. Do you think you have an alternative?"
 
 
 
 

Muttering to myself:
Should I evaluate all the hunts for Thesaurus Canada?
I like spreading out evaluation so that no one person knows all the secrets. I would not be a gatekeeper, and I would do less work in a team of peers. Also people will have different tastes and perspectives.
On the other hand, a publisher would want to have a single point of contact. I would like to present the publisher with a recommended set of treasure hunts. That is best done by having me evaluate all the hunts, or at least aspects of them.
French would be a challenge. And someone is supposed to evaluate my hunt.