Ottawa Citizen
September 10, 2017
The previous record for the world‘s largest scavenger hunt was 2,079, set in 2014 by a Google-sponsored hunt in Provo, Utah. On Sunday, 2,733 people successfully completed Ottawa’s event, which was put on by Escape Manor as part of the Ottawa2017 celebrations, enshrining O-Town’s well-deserved place in the scavenger-hunt firmament.
Move over, Google, there’s a new sheriff in town.
The scavenger hunt that had teams of Ottawans hoofing and busing from Hintonburg to Parliament Hill, the ByWard Market and the Glebe on Sunday proved popular enough to set a Guinness World Record.
The previous record for the world‘s largest scavenger hunt was 2,079, set in 2014 by a Google-sponsored hunt in Provo, Utah. On Sunday, 2,733 people successfully completed Ottawa’s event, which was put on by Escape Manor as part of the Ottawa2017 celebrations, enshrining O-Town’s well-deserved place in the scavenger-hunt firmament.
“I may contact Google and challenge them to top this,” organizer and Escape Manor co-owner Steve Wilson said, “and we can just go back and forth.” (According to Wilson, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson asked him to repeat the hunt next year.)
The hunt began at 9 a.m. at city hall’s Marion Dewar Plaza with 3,600 registered hunters in teams of four. Guided by placemat-sized maps and their wits, they headed to the aforementioned neighbourhoods plus Little Italy, Chinatown, Sparks Street and Centretown. Along the way, they had to answer trivia questions and collect as many of the 150 listed photos and videos as they could, including pictures with a caribou and a Canadian two-dollar bill and a video showing four strangers playing leapfrog.