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Letterboxing - Treasure Hunt in the Outdoors
by Mark Neal
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One way to take a step towards a world where we can live and thrive is to explore nature. Letterboxing provides an exciting and challenging way to do exactly that. It's basically a treasure hunt in the outdoors, where you search for a letterbox.
Think of letterboxing as a treasure hunt that takes you to interesting, historic or wild outdoor areas. Following clues posted at such websites as letterboxing.org and atlasquest.com, one searches for a hidden box that contains a rubber stamp. These stamps are often hand-carved images that reflect the area where they have been hidden.
The McKee Marsh letterbox containing logbook and hand-carved stamp. This image shows a yellow-headed blackbird, a seasonal visitor at the marsh:
Detail of the hand-carved stamp:
An article appeared in Smithsonian magazine in 1998 detailing the English pastime of letterboxing, and as a result its popularity grew in the United States and in many other countries as well. Since then, it has continued to grow and there are now more than ten thousand letterboxes scattered throughout all fifty states in the U.S. alone.
Each box contains a unique stamp and a logbook. The idea is to carry your own personal book and inkpad with you on your letterboxing jaunts to record the stamp image from the box as evidence of the “treasure” you have found. Most letterboxers also carry a personal stamp, which they then stamp into the logbook to show they have visited the box. Think of it as a signature or a calling card.
An example of a page from a personal logbook showing eleven different stamps from letterboxes found in Michigan and Illinois:
An example of a personal stamp, or “calling card” left by a visitor to the McKee Marsh letterbox":
Letterboxing websites, in addition to providing plenty of information about the hobby, make it easy to locate boxes that are hidden in your area or in a place you might be travelling to. The clues range from easy to cryptic, often contain compass bearings, and can take you from a local roadside park in Illinois to a mountaintop in England.
Devotees of letterboxing are continually tweaking the game to make it more interesting and challenging. For example, hitchhikers are stamps that travel from box to box, often ending up across the country from where they started. Hitchhiker hostels collect many hitchhikers in one box.
Cuckoo clues are unpublished traveling clues to a letterbox that begin in one box and move on from there. Postals are stamps and logbooks that are mailed from person to person. This is not to mention event stamps, bonus boxes, adopted boxes, virtuals, personal travelers, spoilers, and MIA’s!
Known as letterboxers, those who enjoy this hobby often take “trail names” for themselves and will typically sign into a letterboxing logbook using this fictitious name. They are also fond of keeping track of their finds (the number of stamps found) or their placed boxes (those they have hidden themselves). There is also wide, though largely unrecognized acclaim accorded to those who are the “first finders” of a box that has been planted.
Most letterboxers follow a code of conduct based on Leave No Trace to minimize environmental impact in the often-sensitive areas where they enjoy their hobby. They advocate and practice its ethical sustainability ethos in which accountability, sustainability and preservation are blended with an awareness of the value of natural resources. People around the world are taking to the forests and woods to seek this unique experience of the outdoors, one that combines a treasure hunt with art and an appreciation of natural places.
- Mark Neal, for http://rgbgreen.org
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