The Great Northern Trails Goose Chase
Fun! Prizes! Goose! (Wait, what?)
February 11– March 10
Get your patrol, den, crew, post, ship, or family ready for an EPIC month-long scavenger hunt!
The Great Northern Trails Goose Chase is a Scavenger Hunt with activities you can complete anytime during a four-week period. Participants can score points for their team or patrol by completing missions doable within Covid restrictions. For example, activities might involve finding something at an outdoor location, or doing a fun task outdoors and submitting a picture of it. Submissions and scoring must be done via the GooseChase app, available for free for Android and iPhones.
Participants will travel around the district and encounter interesting and fun events requiring Scout skills and creativity.
Registration
- Decide how many Participants (between 4 and 10) you will register on a team/patrol. Challenges are designed for Scouts BSA, Venturing, Explorer, and Ship youth, but many are also doable by Cub Scouts as well!
- Decide on a team name such as a patrol name.
- Adult leaders can register teams/patrols using the ‘Register Today’ button on this page.
- Cost: $15/team + $5/person
- Adult leaders will receive event patches according to the count registered on the team Registration will stay open until capacity is reached or the event is over
- Once the team is registered, district staff will email the adult contact a team access code which the adult contact needs to distribute to everyone on the team.
- Participants, parents, and leaders can install the GooseChase app (see the participant’s guide) on any number of phones or tablets and join the team at any time before or during the event.
- Important: The adult contact for the team is responsible for ensuring that the unit has Part A of the BSA health form for each participant on file. The district will not check these, this is the responsibility of each unit.
During the Event
The event kicks off during the February 11 district roundtable meeting. Any questions can be answered live during the Zoom meeting, after which the missions will be released! Adult contacts are encouraged to attend, ask questions, and get any last-minute announcements. Click here to get the meeting link.
- Tracking progress: You can follow the progress of your team(s) over the course of a month, and new missions will be periodically released, which result in immediate notifications to the phones/tablets with the app installed. Scouts without their own phones/tablets may need help knowing that new missions are available, so make sure they know about new challenges!
- Fun: Make sure your participants are having fun, and all team members can contribute across the course of the month. District staff can see how many different phones/tablets submit challenges, but not necessarily how many Scouts are participating.
- Accomplishments: Most missions involve activities that are related to scout skills for rank requirements, or merit badges, or Webelos/Arrow of Light adventures. A list will be provided via email to all adult contacts and posted on the northerntrails.org district website that lists which requirements are related to each mission. You might choose to use this information if you want to verify and sign off requirements you think they accomplished.
- Likes: Most photos and video submissions will be visible to all teams. Everyone associated with a team can “Like” submissions, and leaders and parents (and participants) are welcome and even encouraged to “Like” their favorite submissions. Likes don’t directly affect scores, so don’t be shy about liking things!
Technical problems? Questions? gntgoosechase@googlegroups.com.
After the Event
The winning teams will be recognized at the March 11 District Roundtable meeting and prizes awarded. We will be showing highlights from the event for any who wish to attend.
Once patches arrive, they will be mailed out to unit leaders sometime in March.
Sample Mission: Makeshift Lookout Tower (50 Points)
Where did that goose go? You need a lookout tower! Build a tower out of recyclable materials such as cardboard boxes and plastic pop bottles. Try to make it taller than you! Put a lookout on top of it, maybe an action figure or bobblehead or even a stuffed animal named Fluffy. Take a photo or video of your tower using the GooseChase app, and add a text comment or caption to go with it. It will be visible to other teams, so make it look epic or hilarious! Recycle it once you’re done.
[Related requirements (for use by leaders): Webelos/AoL “Art Explosion” #3d, Photography MB #5f, Architecture MB #2b]
Sample Mission: Scout Law (50 Points)
Honk! What’s the 13th point of the Scout Law? Yes, we all know the Scout Law has only 12 points, right? But if there WAS a 13th, what would it be? All answers are acceptable and unlike most text-based missions, your answer to this one will be visible to all teams, so feel free to be crazy wacky funny! You can change your answer later if you think of something better. You can also optionally add a longer comment in the caption field if the answer requires an explanation, or just want to say something else. Captions on all missions are always visible to all teams, so make sure you don’t put your answer in the caption field, but feel free to comment publically on every submission!
[Related requirements (for use by leaders): Scout #1a, Arrow of Light “Scouting” #1a, Webelos/AoL “Castaway” #2d]
Sample Mission: Scout Spirit (50 Points)
Submit a team/patrol logo and yell. To submit the logo, go to the “My Team” tab in the GooseChase app, and tap the gear icon on the top right, then on the top right click the “Edit” (for iPhone) or pencil icon (for Android), then the pencil icon in the middle of the screen where your logo would go. Finally, submit your team/patrol yell as your answer, which unlike most text answer missions will be visible to all teams. You can also optionally add a longer comment in the caption field if your yell requires an explanation, or just want to say something else. Captions on all missions are always visible to all teams, so make sure you don’t put your answer in the caption field, but feel free to comment publically on every submission!
[Related requirements (for use by leaders): Scout #3b, Art MB #5c, Arrow of Light “Scouting” #3c, Webelos/AoL “Art Explosion” #3g]