Orienteering-How we started

Orienteering- What is that?

In 1967 Pat attended a Physical Education Symposium in Montreal and husband Dick went along as a spouse. One of the sessions that Dick attended in the Currie Gymnasium of McGill University was about Orienteering This session was given by Prof.Alex (Sass) Peepre, from Guelph University. It included a short run on a map of nearby Mount Royal Park. It all sounded very interesting but during that period the de St. Croix family were keen hikers and campers.

The First Competition.

Sass Peepre sent notices of the Guelph Orienteering Meets to us for three years and then finally we decided to go with our four boys to the 3rd. Guelph Spring Orienteering Festival on May 24, 1970.

The weather was cold and wet but there was a record 228 participants. Pat, Dick with Nick and Andy came second in a large field of 24 Wayfarer groups in a time of 48.4 minutes on a easy 2.25 km white course. We wore boots and carried a small lunch and generally we were prepared for anything.

Gene came second behind Ron Lowry on the Yellow Course and Ted did not finish because he could not read his soggy map anymore. Ted went on from there to an outstanding Orienteering career which included winning the Elite Mens Canadian Championships fourteen times and a tenth place at the World Championships in Australia in 1984, the best ever placing by a non European.

The next day When Pat asked the boys if they would like to go Orienteering again she was surprised to hear that they were all still interested in spite of the cold wet experience of the day before.

Later that year at the 4^th Ontario Championships Pat won the Elite Veteran Women class and Dick won the Elite Veteran Men class. In the Elite Boys, Ted was third. In the Novice Boys, Nick was third and Andy was sixth. It was some time after this that Andy asked what all the wavy lines (contour Lines) were on the maps. The year had been a good beginning.

Club Activities

At first we organized a family orienteering club and called it "The Coureur de Bois O Club". Later we joined with Lynden Russell to form the Niagara Orienteering Club. Over the next few years members of this club made many maps and organized many clinics and meets in the Niagara area. The club also organized the Ontario Championships two or three times.

In 1978 the Niagara Orienteering club organized day 5 of the Canadian Orienteering 6 day on the Scotchblock map north of Milton drawn by Ted. Dick acted as meet director, Ted was the course setter.

Highlights of our Orienteering Experience.

Since that first Orienteering experience in Guelph in 1970 Pat and Dick have competed in eight Canadian provinces plus the Yukon Territory and nine of the US states.

The countries that we have visited for Orienteering competitions include; Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, New Zealand, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Wales, United States,

 The First North American Championships

The first North American Championships were held in Prince William Forest Park, near Dumfries, Virginia. This successfull meet was organized by the Quantico Orienteering Club in November 6 and 7, 1971. There were 183 participants from Canada and the United States. The de St. Croix family, including Pat and Dick with Andy, Nick and Ted participated in this historical event. Andy and Nick were disqailified on one of the two days by punching the wrong control. Ted was second in the Boys category, losing by only four seconds. In the Veteran Women class Pat was first out of three, to earn the title North American Champion. Dick was also first in the Veteran Men Class. There were seven participants in this class which included Bjorn Kjellstrom, Sass Peepre and John Charlow. One of the interesting aspects of this competition was that the maps were copies of the standard US 1:24,000 topographical maps and the participants were required to draw their own courses on their map at the start and also add map corrections. Both days were in the same area and the start and finish were the same for both days.

In November 2002, we competed in the same Prince William Park for the United States Orienteering Championships, also organized by the Quantico Orienteering Club. There were about 800 participants in this meet. The maps were the special very detailed Orienteering maps, far superior to the topo maps. Another feature of this competition was the use of electronic punching.

The First European Trip

In 1973 we were encouraged to travel to Sweden for the famous O-Ringen. A group from Canada were invited to attend and the entry fees, accommodation and bus travel to the meets each day were provided by the O-ringen Organization. Pat and Dick and three of our boys were part of this fortunate group. We went to the Danish 3 Dages before going to Sweden. We landed in Copenhagen, Denmark at about 6:30 in the morning, caught a plane to a town near the meet site where Bob Kaill met us and drove to the start where Pat was due to start at 9:30. Pat jumped out of the car and ran to the start and found that she was only 2 minutes late. There were 1200 participants at this meet and we were the only Canadians there but they were flying the Canadian flag..

After the 3 Dagers in Denmark we travelled with Bob Kaill to Sweden for the Swedish Five Days or the O-Ringen. It was held in the beautifull Dalarna area and we stayed in the town of Rattvick. In Sweden there were a few more Canadians and a lot more participants, almost 11,000. Since this was a chase start on the last day most of us started well after the winner of that class had finished. All except Ted who finished in 12^th place out of the143 in the H 15-16 class. It was an exciting experience for all of us except perhaps Nick, who was on crutches because of an accident back home in Canada.

After the O-Ringen, we visited Ingve and Lola Odell in Falun, Sweden. Ingve had been to Canada to a meet in Ontario. We became acquainted because he was in the same class as Dick and won the first place medal, for which he apologized to Dick but it started a long friendship.

First Veterans Cup in Finland

In 1983 Pat and Dick attended the first Veterans World Cup in Lahti, Finland. The flight to Finland was a Finnair charter and we were lucky to have seats in the first class section.

The format for the meet consisted of two qualifying days to determine who would be in the A final or who would be in the B final. In Lahti we stayed with Winnie Krogsrud in a small apartment of her sister's while her sister was away. At this meet we first met Russ Bruce from Michigan, USA.

The maps and the organization were all good, the people were friendly, although fewer people speak English in Finland than in Sweden or Denmark. We took a cruise from Turku to the Oland Islands and did some cycling there for a couple of days.

Returning to Turku, we cycled to another two day Orienteering meet called Lahti-Suunnistus where we stayed at the Motelli Sylvämpi. We learned two things at this meet. The start triangle is not always where you pick up the map, the Finns like challenging courses so they tend to "hide" the controls. The 55 plus Finnish men are also very good orienteers based on the fact that Dick was last both days by many minutes.

Masters Games in Toronto

In 1985 a group of people in Toronto were inspired to organize a set of competitions which were called The Masters Games for athletes over thirty-five. It was hoped that it would attract much spectator support to make it profitable. Unfortunately the planned budgets for the games overspent the spectator and financial response.

Since Pat and Dick had retired in 1982 it was a good project to get involved in for Orienteering. Pat organized a fine group of Ontario Orienteers all under 35 to put on a Veterans Cup style competition, that was quite successful. Two existing maps were updated and reprinted and one new map for the final day was prepared.