Hunt from coast-to-coast – or one corner of the internet to another – to find the silver dragon’s hoard.
Mom and son duo Maureen and Nick Bruinsma are co-owners of Dragon’s Hoard Entertainment and are sharing their love of scavenger hunts and riddles with fellow Canadians.
Having originally lived near each other in Alberta, the two began brainstorming the idea just before COVID-19 took the world by storm.
“My mom and I especially, but the whole family really, has always loved riddles,” Nick said. “When we were kids she used to do riddles for us at birthday parties and stuff like that and help us find chocolate loot.”
The idea sparked after trying out treasure hunts organized by others. “We thought we could put out something that was a little bit more challenging as a riddle and a little bit more fun to try to solve,” Nick said.
The website features three hunts one can register for.
The first is “Carries a Certain Ring”. New riddles are sent out the last Friday of each month and registration is free.
“We’re trying to get people to see what hunts look like,” Nick explained. Prizes from the free hunt include entries into the two other hunts available.
“Double Check” is an ongoing hunt with an entry fee of $10. “We don’t have too many people hunting that one yet…we have about 20.” The first person to complete the hunt will take home a $500 prize, while the individual who referred them will also walk away with $100.
The biggest hunt is called “Snowball’s Chance” and Nick says it’s true to its name.
“The prize pool right now is just over $10,700 and the idea for that one is that it’s a growing prize pool. It costs $50 to enter and $30 from every entry goes into the prize pool. So, that’s kind of where it got its name from. If you picture a snowball rolling down a hill, as it rolls and gains momentum it accumulates and gets bigger and bigger, as well as kind of a reference to the difficulty.”
“Snowball’s Chance” has been ongoing for about 18 months now. Nick said 24 people have registered for the hunt, so the odds are still pretty good. This hunt, however, is meant to be more of a hobby and Nick expects it could take a while still before it’s solved.
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Maureen has moved to B.C. and Nick now lives in Nova Scotia, but they have not let the distance slow them down.
“It was a lot easier obviously when we could sit in the same room and kind of pass riddles back and forth,” Nick mentioned. “In some ways it’s almost helpful for us to both kind of go away, research a topic, come back to it, and then discuss the interesting points and then build the clue. Usually one of us will take it away, make a first draft, and then bring it back and we’ll both kind of rip it apart.
“As long as people do enjoy them we’ll probably keep writing them, because it’s a lot of fun for us.”
Learn all about the hunts, view a list of past winners and the riddle they solved, or get searching at SilverDragonsHoard.com.
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brittany.webster@blackpress.ca
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