Valley Quest

Discover Our Special Places

Valley Quest : 89 Treasure Hunts in the Upper Valley

Edited by Steven Glazer, published by Vital Communities

As you well know, there's treasure out there! Strewn across thirty-one towns in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire are TREASURES: historic one-room schoolhouses, gushing waterfalls, covered bridges, old cemeteries and cellar holes, bogs, hollow maples, ancient ceremonial sites and towering, stately oaks. Valley Quest's unique and FUN collection of 89 treasure hunts will introduce these hidden, special places to YOU.

Valley Quest clues and maps lead to the favorite places of children and adults from across the Upper Valley-places like Velvet Rocks, Glen Falls, Dunbar Hill Cemetery, and the Jonathan Wyman Saw Mill. At the end of each Quest-perhaps secreted in a stone wall or hollow tree-is a treasure box containing a sign-in guest book and a handmade rubber stamp.

Valley Quest was born out of a 150-year-old tradition in the region surrounding Dartmoor National Park in southwest England. In this region, people-from toddlers and teens to parents and "pensioners"-don their boots, and following maps and rhyming riddles, traipse the moors in search of hidden boxes. "Letterboxing," as this tradition is called, has become a hugely popular pastime, with over 2,000 boxes hidden in both natural and cultural locations.

Vital Communities built upon this tradition on this side of the Atlantic by developing the Valley Quest program. Our eighty-nine treasure hunts, or Quests, as we prefer to call them, are the outcomes of an educational program whose goal is to foster place-based education and stewardship. The Quests contained in this book were created between 1996 and 2000. More than 1,000 children, adults, families, scouts, students, and historical society members contributed to the creation of these Quests.

Whether you are a visitor to the Upper Valley or a life-long resident, Valley Quest is your ticket to adventure, and will help you discover and learn about the landscape and heritage we share.

"These are some of the finest wild goose chases I've ever seen."
-Bill McKibben, author of Hope, Human and Wild

"A beautiful way to learn about history, nature and our responsibility to both."
-Trina Schart Hyman, illustrator of A Child's Calendar

Valley Quest: 89 Treasure Hunts in the Upper Valley is available at bookstores across the region ($12.95), or may be ordered from Vital Communities. For more information, please contact: Steven Glazer, Valley Quest Coordinator, at (802) 201 -9100 or via e-mail at: steve@vitalcommunities.org
www.vitalcommunities.org