Eleven teams scrambled across L’Île-du-Grand-Calumet on Saturday for the annual treasure hunt put on by the Groupe L’Île-du-Grand-Calumet.
Teams visited seven sites, completing activities designed to help people discover the history and nature of the island.
Organizer Guylaine La Salle said the tour featured two new sites this year, including the Ste-Anne Cemetery pavilion and the Mountain Rapids at the foot of the island.
At the end, the Limonade Rose team won the $200 first-place prize, Chiro Pontiac won $150 for second place, and Les Licornes Arc-en-Ciel won $100 for placing third.
La Salle said she was pleased that two of the top three teams were made up of three generations of Island residents – an aspect she highlighted when asked why she thinks teams return to the event year after year.
“[It’s] the curiosity, and doing something fun with friends and family,” she said.
Money raised from the event will go toward the Groupe’s Honor our Roots project, an effort to display 900 names of those buried in the Ste-Anne cemetery.
The group had originally planned to create a series of smaller plaques to be displayed inside the pavilion the group built at the cemetery last year. But La Salle said their strategy has shifted slightly since finding out that the price of steel had nearly doubled due to recent tariffs.
“We’re doing one big plaque now,” she said, explaining that it will feature all 900 names.
She said the group is still $10,000 short of their fundraising goal of $25,000, and hopes the group’s fishing derby in August will help them get closer to reaching that goal and begin erecting the plaque.
La Salle said she was not sure if she would offer the treasure hunt again next year due to an aging volunteer base, but the increase in teams this year gave her faith that the event could survive another year.
“They were just crossing their fingers that I would do this again,” she said. “And I am.”
