2009 Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt

A veteran clue-writer, whose clues always rang sound for treasure hunters, Don Boxmeyer passed away on August 10, 2008, at the age of 67. His fascination with Swede Hollow and its history set the stage for this year's hunt taking us to the Hollow. While the official explanation sets up this link, we think it's a little too obscure. We'd have also preferred it if they could have made Vulcanus Rex rhyme instead of Boreas.

Given that "dale" and "dell", as geographical features, share the same root word, this clue could easily have been a red herring for any of the parks near Dale St.

For the third clue, after referencing the "dell" that is Swede Hollow, this one is something of a regression, leading to a significantly larger number of parks, either those with lakes, pools, or anywhere near the River. This one would actually have made a better clue #2.

Gotta give this one five stars for the double meaning and the relatively current events context while concealing how the puck was hidden. Plus, it came at a nice point in the hunt.

Another reference to the "hollow" of Swede Hollow. By itself, this would be tolerable at this point in the hunt. Then they made a reference to an obscure movie from four years ago that few people had heard of. Skip that part of the explanation clue writers, and just go with "sweet" sounds like "Swede".

The first line, making the third reference to the hollow itself, is the only part of this clue keeping it from being a five star clue and explanation. Come on here. This is the sixth clue. The horse is dead. Stop beating it already. Multiple anagrams for the same Swedish words (except "dankness" and "vale" are interspersed with "of" and" the", OK, we'll give partial credit because "dankness of the vale" anagrams to "dalen of the svenske"), giving us the sorts of puzzles we all yearn to solve, and the redirection to the more open spaces of the park, combine to redeem this clue.

Fourth Swede Hollow reference. However, this one is redeemed by the fact that it's not a reference to the hollow itself, but to a landmark effectively within the park (although all that is left of it is cornerstones and pillars). This clue has the flaw that, like the previous clue with its open spaces reference, it would have tended to draw the typical hunter to the upper portion of the park, when the puck was actually in the ravine. That said, we're not going to crucify this clue and explanation as being lousy, in light of the three previous references to the hollow itself, which would tend to draw most people back down into the hollow. Swede isn't big enough on its own to really give away too much of the actual location this early.

An obscure clue, this late in the game, making yet another reference to Swede Hollow. If anything this would have pulled us over towards Harriet Island, with its proximity to the once gangster-infested Wabasha St. Caves. Bad clue-writer. Bad.

This would have been an excellent clue, had the medallion in fact been found in an area bounded by Payne Avenue and Maury, and Margaret Streets. Sure, they don't run into the ravine, but this could have been a really nice way of narrowing down the location without giving it away, especially at this point in the game. Even though Payne is rather irrelevant, the bounding streets in the park are more like Tedesco and North Streets. Kudos for a puzzle naming streets, but without having any direct relationship to the location of the puck, this is just another really late reference to the park.

Though it probably would have made a better clue slightly earlier in the game, this one provides some good landmarking since it gives a close proximity to Phalen Creek, somewhere in the middle of the park. Since we know it's in Swede already, Hamms is redundant, but since they needed something to fill out a verse, why not make an explicit reference to the mansion above.

It's really hard to evaluate a clue 11 like this. For those people who couldn't figure it out, it gives away the park, but not a precise location, leaving the roughly mile long creek (although it was limited by the previous clue to the middle) as the bounds. One can probably assume that, being not far from the weeds, implies that you've got a 50 foot wide path from one end of the park to the other to search, 25 on either side of the creek.

We object to two things in this clue. First, if you're not familiar with the park, you may not know where the spring crosses the path. Second, they taped a picture of the bulldog on the medallion and "if it survived the hunt" would provide an indicator that the puck was found? Raccoon? Phalen? Donut? Does any of this ring a bell?

We would have enjoyed seeing references to the various landmarks around the park, like the cross of First Lutheran Church which lights up the nighttime sky above the park, or the cellular phone antenna at the south end of the park. Overall, though, this hunt probably had better clues than some of the previous years. Considering they honored Box with the hunt, they had to; he would have come back to smite them if they hadn't.