Grab your compass and join in on this outdoor adventure at Lundbom Lake.

The Greater Vancouver Orienteering Club organized a two-day wayfinding event that is happening on August 26 starting at 11 a.m. and August 27 starting at 9 a.m. Everyone who wishes to participate can still register for the event until August 24.

Bruce Rennie, event director for the Lundbom Lake orienteering event, said his passion for the sport started back when he was in Australia, before the sport even started in Canada back in the 1970s.

“I’ve been competing in this sport for over 50 years,” he said.

From understanding the colours and symbols on the maps to guiding yourself with a compass at an unknown terrain, orienteering is a very unique navigation sport.

Rennie said the idea of the sport is “not to follow somebody, but to navigate your own way.”

“You’re running cross-country, you choose your own route from one point to the next,” he said. “And that’s the real challenge. It’s trying to choose what you think, to yourself, would be the best route for you.”

According to Rennie, some of the challenges people usually face when practicing the sport is reading the map correctly.

“Being able to tell what is up and what is down on a map. To be able to find what you would think would be the fastest route from one point to another,” he said. “It may not necessarily be a direct route, because that might involve going way up over a hill and down the other side, it might be faster to run around on a very clear track or road, that might be the better way to go.” 

He added that anyone who wishes to be a part of orienteering can participate in it.

“It really is a sport for life,” he said. “We have some people that are in their 90s, that go out and walk on an orienteering course, we have some young families that go out and work on an orienteering course.”

 

Greater Vancouver Orienteering Club – Lundbom Lake 

 

When: August 26 at 11 a.m., and August 27 at 9 a.m.

Where: Lundbom Lake – southeast of Merritt

Cost: $10 per adult, $5 per youth + administrative costs; 

 

Anyone who wishes to participate can still register here. Registration deadline: August 24 at 11:59 p.m.