The Newsletter of Orienteering New Brunswick
Rob Hughes
Seems like I was just writing one of these things last week. Well, when the snow finally covers less of the ground than the mud and it's really not going to work even with your worst "rock skis", then for me the winter is over and thoughts turn to orienteering. This happened for me over the Easter holidays. You may have your own personal indicators of the changing season. For those who follow the x-c ski scene (and others who don't) my local club (Wostawea) won the NB Loppet Cup this year in very convincing style. Yeahhhh! "What has this got to do with orienteering?", you groan. Probably not a lot. There may be some fitness carry-over, but it's open to debate.
One of the main aims of the spring issue is to inform you about upcoming meets for spring and summer. You'll find a wad of flyers in this edition. Stick them on your fridge so you won't miss any important meets. The usual slate of varied and fun events is there, so you have many opportunities to try and improve some more, erase the infamous memories of last season's hapless wanderings, or repeat your epic runs, whatever applies to you. If you want to go in for some extended agony/ecstacy, there are always rogaines.....read on in this issue for more details.
Wait a minute....looks like it's snowing again!!
The email address for all submissions to ONB Notes is rustics@brunnet.net.
The Ed.
The Foxes and ONB needs your HELP. If you have a friend or know someone who you think would enjoy orienteering, please forward the following information to them.
The Fredericton Foxes will be giving a Beginner's Clinic starting on Monday April 22, and continuing with further instruction on April 29 and May 6. The course will be taught by Stig Skarborn, a Level 2 NCCP orienteering instructor, at the UNB Woodlot Forestry Centre. Registration is at 6:45 on April 22. Cost is $30 for adults, $20 for those 20 years old and under, and includes membership in ONB, and free participation at the first event of the year, the May 5 Street Orienteering event, with start and finish at Officer's Square. Stig can be reached at skarborn@brunnet.net, tel. 452-1804. or FAX 452-0881.
Beginners clinics will also be held in Saint John as follows: April 23rd, April 30th, May 7th. 6pm-9pm. See the event schedule later in this issue for more information on clinics and events.
Hear ye, hear ye! In accordance with the Jan 5 ONB AGM (Annual general Meeting) no further newsletters or other mailings will be sent to members, unless they have renewed their membership for 2002. Also, the membership will last for 12 months from the time they join, according to a new ONB AGM resolution. So, renew your membership NOW!
President: Paul Looker
V-P: Rob Hughes
Treasurer: Don Heron
Secretary: Stig Skarborn
Directors: Harold McQuade took over the SE region from Terry Edgett.
Many thanks to some outgoing officers, notably Theresa Whaley, ONB secretary for many years, and Mike Smith, outgoing President! Thank you for all your efforts!!
Anyone who presently is certified as a Level 1 Official, and is interested in a Level 2 Clinic in Halifax on April 20 or 21, can contact Stig Skarborn at 452-1804, or skarborn@brunnet.net, for further information.
Another reminder about this orienteering megafest in the Calgary area this coming July 7-14.
Q: I am from a country that is not an "Asia Pacific" country. Can I still compete in APOC 2002 Canada? Can I win a medal?
A: Orienteers from around the world are welcome at APOC 2002 Canada. All competitors are eligible for the 6-Day awards. In addition, at each championship race the top three finishers in each class will be recognized with an award, and the top three eligible finishers will also be recognized with a medal. Check the eligibility page for more information.
Q: Regarding the Event Centres, what day should I leave the University of Calgary event centre and move to the University of Alberta event centre? And where is the University of Alberta?
A: The University of Alberta is in Edmonton, Alberta's capital city, 300km north of Calgary.
More Qs&As like this can be found on the web site.
by Ray St-Laurent
The following is a transcription of a radio report sent to orienteering headquarters. The reason it came across my desk may become evident as you read the report. How the report was intercepted, the originator and the intended recipient were not revealed, nor was the manner of its translation.
This is the initial report from the exploratory team. Although it is too early to tell if we were planted at a primary location, it is evident that we arrived during a significant event. This was determined in spite of the fact that almost all of our sensors were damaged in transit. Fortuitously our geometry, physiology and coloration are such that so far we remain undetected.
We believe we have discovered two primary classifications of life forms, rooters and transients. Rooters are attached to the ground with movement restricted to waving appendages above the ground. Transients have no fixed location.
Our locale is populated mostly by rooters of various types. The largest type have a central column many times taller than ourselves and they live in large stands. Many upper appendages appear as a cloud about their central columns.
We have not conclusively determined which are the dominant transients. One candidate is known as orienteer. We have come across another term, "human". We are not sure what a human is yet. Perhaps they are related to orienteers or one may be a variation of the other. Or perhaps they are synonymous: to be an orienteer is to be human. Further observations should resolve this question along with which rooters and transients are dominant as well as relationships between the various life forms.
Preliminary studies have concentrated on these perplexing orienteers. They have a bilateral symmetry comprising a central pod with four main, articulated limbs attached, each in length similar to the central pod. The two lower limbs are used for wandering. The upper limbs are used for grasping and fending off small rooters and transients. Orienteers appear to spend their time wandering among the tall rooters at various speeds.
There is a smaller swivelling pod at the top of the central pod. The top pod has a variety of protuberances and dents, including at least four small holes. In the lower center is a large, reconfigurable hole. It can be closed or opened in various ways. They make noises from this hole. By modulating the sound from the noise hole, orienteers appear to engage in a crude form of communication.
Originally we thought there many varieties of orienteers. What we originally thought were multi-coloured skin areas turned out to be removable and replaceable. Underneath these part-skins, all orienteers are similar. We have settled on two primary varieties based on general body form, points and blunts, points being more pointy.
Orienteers generally have a dense cluster of what appears to be thin rooters on top of the top pod. The length of these rooters varies between individuals, points tending to have longer and denser rooters. For some blunts, one has to look hard to find any top rooters. We don't know the significance of top these top rooters yet, or even if they are rooters or rooter mimics.
Orienteers come in different sizes ranging up to about six times larger than ourselves. Assuming that size is age related, orienteers tend to grow throughout their lives: first they grow taller, then they grow wider. The young seem to have more top rooters even among the blunts. Perhaps the top rooters of elder blunts are transformed into transients and move elsewhere. There so little we know of the biology of this strange place.
We arrived in the midst of an event where orienteers apparently seek the approval of creatures we have dubbed "wise ones". They are probably rooters. These inhabitants are approximately our size and suspend themselves from tall rooters by a thin appendage. A second appendage hangs below their bodies with a grasping appendage at the bottom. The wise ones are always silent.
Orienteers would seek the wise ones, bow before them, and take their one free appendage to get a signature on a strip of material carried by the orienteer. The orienteer was almost always glad to see a wise one. Only once did we see a wise one apparently refuse to sign the strip of material. Then the orienteer went off to find a more lenient wise one. We discovered later that each set of signatures obtained by an orienteer was examined for authenticity by a sedentary orienteer. I witnessed one case where the signatures were rejected. The supplicant orienteer immediately bellowed a sequence from his noise hole.
Situations like this lead us to suspect that the use of the noise hole is inversely proportional to intelligence, and perhaps competence. The decryption of modulated noise is one of our primary goals. Generally orienteers are silent while wandering. In times of difficulty more noise tends to occur. Preliminary decryption indicates that many of the sounds made at these times are related to fecal matter or to deity. Astonishingly, this culture may consider fecal matter to be deity. If so, this does not imply a high intelligence and they are unlikely to be a dominant species.
As you know, in many environments creatures at the top of the food chain are dominant. If that is the case here, then the dominant species may be small, airborne creatures that harvested orienteers wandering through the rooters. Generally orienteers reluctantly accepted the harvesting. Sometimes they appeared to resent the natural order and tried to fend off the harvesters. Typically the noise hole then called upon their deity, fecal matter and frequently repeating the name damosketos.
The relationship between these damosketos and the wise ones is uncertain. They seem to ignore each other. Perhaps damosketos are dominant transients while wise ones are dominant rooters. Further observations will concentrate on these two species to determine dominance.
August 24-25, 2002
If you feel like a challenge, plan on attending this event north of Montreal in late August. Information: Francis Falardeau, montbleu@sympatico.ca web site: http://www3.sympatico.ca/montbleu