John Collins floundered for awhile Wednesday night after the scrambled version of the final clue posted for the Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt. He sat on a bench — on that starlit, minus-22-degree night — and focused.
He added up a few clues, marked off 10 paces, then kneeled and dug. Within minutes, the $10,000 puck was in his hand.
“On my headstone I want it to say, ‘Finder of the 2019 medallion’,” said Collins, 52, of Fridley.
#pphunt winner John Collins, in the heady few minutes after his discovery
The lifelong Treasure Hunter and St. Paul Winter Carnival fan found the medallion wrapped in cardboard to look like a downed cottonwood leaf on a wooded shoreline at Long Lake Regional Park in New Brighton.
Collins, who goes by “JC,” is a drummer with the St. Paul Police Band and other groups. He marched and drummed in Saturday’s Winter Carnival Grande Day Parade — but he will not march in Saturday’s Torchlight Parade because he’ll be on the Treasure Hunt winner’s float. It will be the first time in 27 years that he won’t march with the police band, he said.
Collins has been hunting since he was 4 years old, going out with his father, Tom Collins Sr., his brothers and mom in their VW camper van. “This is for my dad,” he said.
Despite the cold, hundreds of hunters had streamed into Long Lake Regional Park for that crucial final clue in this year’s Treasure Hunt, the Pioneer Press’ 68th. It’s not unusual for the Treasure Hunt to stretch out to 12 clues, with one clue per day leading to the medallion hidden somewhere in a Ramsey County Park. This park, however, spanned some 190 acres.
It was also among the coldest nights. Unofficial Treasure Hunt historian Jesse Anibas said it was the lowest high-temperature day he’d heard of, though the 1996 hunt had more below-zero days.
Collins, a Roseville native and 1984 Hill Murray School graduate, noodled the location by drawing a triangle between a big cottonwood stump, nearby Devine Drive and the nearby walking trail. A “10” he noticed in an earlier clue prompted him to walk 10 paces off the trail into the woods.
He had driven his Jeep, carrying all his hunting gear, right onto Long Lake but quickly ran home to Fridley after the scramble came out because he forgot his headlamp.
Once he focused on the spot, “I just started clawing down and I think maybe five, 10 minutes in … it just kind of rolled out,” he said. The prize popped up, looking like it didn’t quite belong in nature: the little medallion in a cardboard sleeve — in fact a Rice Krispies cereal box — and wrapped in cellophane.
“There were several people around me,” he said. “I knew it was going to be a crapshoot because everything was so trampled.” The snow where he found the medallion had been packed tight, he said.
Collins wasn’t sure what it was but he ran to his Jeep to open the package there.
After realizing he had found it, Collins was kind enough to get the word out right away. The hundreds of other treasure hunters streamed out of the park quickly, back into their warm cars to head for home.
Collins is familiar with Long Lake park, having hunted for the medallion there other years. He returned last week with his rescue dog, Sarah. Another faithful companion, his dog Sammy, died in November.
Coincidentally, Collins is a classmate of the randomly kind brigade who hid little mittens full of coins for weary Pioneer Press Treasure Hunters. Those classmates were hunting near Collins when he found the prize, one of the anonymous Secret Starlight Squad members said.
Collins is a medical device marketer who worked for many years for Medtronic; now he works for a medical device startup, VivaQuant, in Shoreview.
His family includes his mother, Toni, and brothers Jim and Tom; his father died in 1996. He’s a self-described “lone wolf,” hunting on his own, though his sister-in-law Erin Collins was nearby.
Collins recalled that it was his father who sparked the family’s interest in the hunt. “He would read the Pioneer Press Dispatch clues and we would strategize and theorize and go out,” he said. “It was a great way to learn about St. Paul, learn the geography and history. I wouldn’t know a fraction of what I know about St. Paul and the surrounding parks without this hunt. In fact it’s one of the reasons I was excited to join the St. Paul Police Band back in the early ‘90s, because I knew they march in the Winter Carnival parades. And the magic of the medallion hunt … my dad started it all. And mom, she was great, piling us all into the Volkswagen.”
Collins said he might sit out next year’s hunt. But it’s still early.
“I’m glad it’s anybody’s game. You gotta be smart and you gotta dress right. And celebrate the winter,” he said.
And what will he do with the winnings?
“I might get a new furnace,” he said to laughter at a news conference Thursday. He might give some to charity, too, he said.
Copyright 2019 Pioneer Press.