AQ Box of the Week and Letterboxing 101

"What do you want to do today?" we ask every weekend.  A list off all of the "should do's" (housework, yard work, laundry, grocery shopping, etc.) is rattled off.  All it takes is for one of us to say, "Maybe we should go letterboxing," and off we go.  What started out as a hobby, quickly became an obsession.  Since most of our friends have no idea what letterboxing is all about, I decided to try and explain it here.

Image Carved by Steve Olson

What is letterboxing?

Letterboxing is an fun pastime that combines artistic ability with delightful "treasure-hunts" in beautiful, scenic places.  Participants seek out hidden letterboxes by following clues and cracking codes.  Wikipedia describes letterboxing as "an outdoor hobby that combines elements of orienteering, art and puzzle solving."

Our Signature Stamp

The reward of successfully locating the letterbox is a miniature work of art in the form of a rubber stamp, usually hand-carved by the person who planted the letterbox.  Along with the rubber stamp, the letterbox will contain a logbook.  Every letterboxer has a signature stamp and their own personal logbook.  After finding the letterbox, the signature stamp is stamped into the letterbox's logbook to record the find and the letterbox's stamp is stamped into the letterboxer's logbook to record the discovery.

History of Letterboxing

Canmere Pool Letterbox

Letterboxing has been around for a long time.  Back in 1854, a man named James Perrott placed the first "letterbox" at Canmere Pool near Dartmoor, England.  Atlas Quest has a nice history of letterboxing.  Jump ahead to April 1998.  Smithsonian Magazine ran a short article about a peculiar English hobby called letterboxing.  With that article, letterboxing was established in the United States and has been growing in popularity ever since.


How did we get started letterboxing?

Steve is a passionate rockhound and our family vacations for  many years revolved around rocks.  I enjoy rockhounding, too, but it is not my passion.  Being out in nature and with rockhound friends is what I enjoy, but I can only take sitting in a gravel pit for a couple of days, then I get restless.


Our daughter, Signe, graduated from high school in 2006 and went off to college.  The summer of 2007 was our first "empty-nester" summer and I was looking for activities that Steve and I would both enjoy doing together.  Letterboxing popped up on my radar after finding the April 1998 Smithsonian Magazine article describing the hobby.  Since I like to hike, I thought this would be an activity I would enjoy after a couple of days rockhounding.  In the back of my mind, I was also thinking that letterboxing is similar to rockhounding, as they are both basically treasure hunts.  Steve is also very artistic, so I thought the artistry of the stamps would interest him.

Our 1st Letterboxing Weekend

Although we joined Atlas Quest in October 2007, we did not find our first letterbox until September 2008.  Our first letterboxing weekend took us to the north shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota and we found six traditional letterboxes and two hitchhikers.  Not bad for our first time boxing and we were hooked!  One of these first boxes, Hungry Jack Pine (AQ Box #46572), remains one of our all-time favorite boxes.


SZSRocks is our hastily chosen trailname.  We pronounce it S-Z-S Rocks.  The SZS part stands for our first names (Steve, Zoma, Signe) and the Rocks part denotes our first hobby of rockhounding.  Signe now has her own letterboxing trailname (The Tree Hugger).  As the summer of 2011 comes to a close, we have found over 500 traditional letterboxes and have planted 28 letterboxes.


Where do you find letterbox clues?


LbNA (Letterboxing North America)

Atlas Quest


Meeting Other Letterboxers


In October 2007, when we first joined Atlas Quest, I was exploring the site and discovered a local "event" (Something Wicked This Way Comes) was being held.  I got excited and signed us up to attend, even though we had not actually done any letterboxing.  We ended up getting cold feet and canceled out of attending the event.  In hind sight, I wish we would have had the nerve to go to the event!  We attended our first letterboxing event (A Skeleton's Picnic) in October 2008.  It was held at a park in Bloomington, Minnesota, and believe it or not, it snowed that day.  The weather did not discourage our fellow letterboxers and we had a great time.  Since then we have attended 12 more events in Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois.

Goofing around at the MI Fall Gathering: Viva Grand Haven!

On October 1st of this year, we hosted our first event (MN Fall Gathering: Rock Around Elk River!).  Planning and hosting the event was fun and exhausting!  We planted 27 letterboxes for the event.  I think everyone had a good time.

This morning, we received word that the letterbox series we planted, "Rocks and Minerals," has been chosen the "Box of the Week" for the week of November 13, 2011 on Atlas Quest.  This was quite a surprise and an incredible honor.  Thanks to everyone who has found this series!

If you choose to hunt for our Rocks and Minerals Series, here is a sneak peak at one of the stamps you will find.

Tanzanite on Diopside, Carved by Steve Olson

I hope this post has peaked your interest and that you will try letterboxing.  We have discovered so many new and beautiful places that we never would have found, if it weren't for letterboxing.  And, we have made many fabulous friends!

"Not all who wander are lost."

~J. R. R. Tolkien

The Cutting Edge - Day 3

Sundays always seem to come too soon.  We packed up and got an early start on our way back home.  First stop of the day...Le Claire, Iowa.  For those of you who watch American Pickers on the History Channel, this is their home base.  We stopped in this fabulous river town to find the American Pickers letterbox and add a couple of our hand-carved stamps to it.

We had to take some pictures at Antique Archaeology.  Sadly, they are not open on Sundays, so we didn't get to meet Mike, Frank or Danielle.

The mighty Mississippi is in the background.

Get out your X-acto knife.  Here's a stamp just waiting to be carved!

No, Mary.  This is not our backyard!  I think the Pickers might enjoy digging through our garage!

Le Claire has a neat Main Street with lots of eclectic shops.  The river always offers great photo ops.

 

Le Claire has recently come in to the spotlight due to the American Pickers, but it has another claim to fame.  "Buffalo Bill" Cody grew up here.

 

Scout Park, which was established in 1836 and offers great views of the Mississippi River, is a couple of block up a steep hill from where Buffalo Bill lived until he was 7 years old.

Continuing on our journey home, we wound our way through more picturesque country and river towns.  We enjoy taking the road less traveled.  It was a beautiful day and we were thrilled when we saw the temperature rise to 53 degrees!

Eagles were enjoying the beautiful day, too.

A short way after we passed fresh road-kill, we came across fish along the side of the road.  Surf-n-Turf must have been the special of the day at the Eagle Cafe.

A scary bridge brought us back into Illinois.  The bridge was narrow, you drive on a grated surface, and the side planks do not look like they would prevent anything from taking a swim.  Steve would tell you that most bridges scare me, but this one was a little more frightful than most, but not as much as others we have traversed.

We stopped in Galena, Illinois for a late lunch.  Surprisingly, we had never been to Galena.  We will be going back, as we did not have much time to explore the town.

We had lunch at Vinny Vanucchi's.  We will have to go back since the Love Dungeon was already taken by other diners.  Bummer!

As the day came to a close, Iowa treated us to a spectacular sunset.

After a fun weekend, we arrive safely home around 10:30 pm

The Cutting Edge - Day 2

Letterboxing is one of our favorite hobbies, along with rockhounding and photography.  When we tell people that we letterbox, usually no one knows what we are talking about.  According to Letterboxing.org, "letterboxing is an intriguing mix of treasure hunting, art, navigation, and exploring interesting, scenic, and sometimes remote places."  Letterboxing started in Dartmoor, Devon, England in 1854.  It started to gain popularity in the United States following a Smithsonian magazine article in April 1998.

Since 1994, the year we joined the Minnesota Mineral Club, most of our family vacations have revolved around rocks.  I enjoy our rockhounding adventures, love the people we travel with, and enjoy the places we get to explore.  But, rockhounding is Steve's passion.  I first heard about letterboxing on MPR and thought it would be something I could do after a couple of days sitting in a rock quarry or mine site. After coming up with our trailname (SZSRocks) and carving our signature stamp, we found our first letterbox near Grand Marais, Minnesota on September 20, 2008.  Since then, we have found over 400 letterboxes.  Steve and I are both hooked!

We decided to attend The Cutting Edge event in Moline, Illinois to learn how to carve our own stamps so that we can start planting letterboxes for others to find.  Our letterboxing friend, Hartx6, is an amazing stamp carver and we were thrilled with the opportunity to learn from the best!

After showing us how to transfer an image on to the "pink stuff," the first image we carved was a circle or ring.

After the circle, we carved a rectangle and then tried our hand at a faceted triangle.  This was my very first carving experience and I could see my lines getting steadier as I practiced.  Hartx6 was very patient and an excellent teacher.

When we felt more confident in our carving, we ventured on to images that we had brought along to carve.

We have talked about planting a series of letterboxes about minerals for a while.  Steve took the opportunity to start carving stamps for that series.  This is an image of Benitoite on Neptunite.  The image is taken from a painting by Wendell Wilson.  Steve's an overachiever...

I decided to carve a Ford sign stamp.  Hartx6 recently planted a letterbox honoring the American Pickers (History Channel TV show).  Along with his original stamp for the letterbox, he is asking the boxers who find the box to carve an image of something that the Pickers would pick and leave the stamp in the letterbox.  This means that the letterbox will accumulate more and more stamps.  Please note that when you stamp my image, the letters will be the correct way!

Butterqup (of Butterqup and Bear) is also thinking about doing a letterbox series of Foursquare badges.

You're never too young to start carving.  It helps if your dad is a master carver!

Just like rockhounding, we have met some awesome people who letterbox.

ggghiker and HowDgirls

 NamVet and Trail Rider

Butterqup and frequent.adventurer

Hartx6 and his assistant

When the Cutting Edge event wrapped up, we headed back to the Hennepin Canal to find a bonus box that Hartx6 had replanted, since the original had went for a swim when we attempted to get it this summer.  Hartx6, Pitties and Shorty have planted the awesome Wizard of Oz letterbox series (52+ boxes) along the Hennepin Canal in Illinois.  Steve and I found a couple of this series' boxes in June when we attended the Great Lakes Gathering 2010.   We came back with our bikes to find the rest of the series over the fourth of July weekend and actually were the first to complete the series!

Over the canal and through the woods to the Burning Broom we go!

The Hennepin Canal connects the Mississippi River with the Illinois River.  It opened in 1907 and reduced the shipping distance from Chicago to Rock Island by 419 miles.  Unfortunately, due to other technological advancements, the Hennepin Canal became obsolete before it opened.  It is registered on the National Register of Historic Places and is maintained as a state park.  A trail along the 75 mile canal allows people to hike, bike, ride horses, snowmobile, and letterbox!  Fishing is also popular along the canal.  We had a great time exploring the Hennepin Canal this summer and were excited to go back and see it in the winter.  A BIG bonus of our winter visit...NO BUGS!

We found the Burning Broom...

 Getting ready to stamp our logbook.

As you can see from our logbook, Hartx6, Pitties and Shorty are AMAZING carvers!  We can't thank them enough for our wonderful adventure in Oz!

Ready to go back into hiding.

Self-portrait.  Just playing around while Steve went to re-hide the Burning Broom.

When we got back to our hotel room, Steve decided to carve a stamp to leave in the American Pickers box, too.  I may need to run an carving intervention.  I'll let you know.

For the American Pickers box, Steve decided to carve a Belt Buckle Bullet stamp.  On one of the episodes, Mike and Frank (the pickers) found a Civil War military belt buckle that had a bullet stuck in it.  That was one lucky soldier...hopefully!

For our anniversary, we went to Shorty's Pizza and ordered a heart-shaped pepperoni pizza.  Pretty romantic!  Oh, and there may be a letterbox to be found close by!

If you're still interested, my next post will be the final day of our cutting edge adventure.