robotnik2004 | Cliocaching

Geocaching, and its low-tech granny letterboxing, are a kind of hobby treasure hunt, massively multi-user hide-and-seek games played in the great outdoors. Basically, players hide caches or letterboxes in out of the way places, then other players use clues or maps or GPS coordinates to find them. The caches usually contain a logbook, so you can record your find, or a stamp or trinket you can keep to prove you found it. Eccentric Brits have been doing this since the 1800s, but the internet and inexpensive GPS devices turned the hobby into a phenomenon. It’s easy to see why. Going for a hike is fun, but it’s way more fun when you go on a hike and find hidden treasure.

Why can’t we do this with historical research? Historians know how terrific it feels to discover hidden treasures in the archive, but we also know you can pan a lot of silt between each nugget of historical gold. What if we could rig the game for our students, patrons, and history buffs, to let them enjoy the thrill of the chase and the joy of the find?

Call it clio-caching. Leave calling cards in card catalogs, plant trinkets and rewards in archive boxes, bury treasure in the textual layers of the past. Then share your clues: There’s a cache buried in the James Forrestal fonds at the Truman Presidential Library. Find the last letter Isaac Brock wrote before the Battle of Queenston Heights and you’ll find a prize.

Hard core cliocachers could string out long chains of clues, each one leading to another, threading through linked archival sources. Rank them in order of difficulty: Letters by Civil War soldiers. Quilt and textile museums. Sealed files of the Warren Commission, or the Kremlin. Cliocachers could spend their Saturdays tromping through letterbooks and diaries. Families could bring a lunch and picnic in the past.

As any letterboxer can tell you, the value of the find is immaterial. In the hiding and the seeking lies the fun.

[Cross-posted from Old is the New New. Comments welcome here or there.]