Outdoor Nova Scotia: "The Best Way to be Informed."

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by Dave Caulfield

May 28th, 1999 Halifax, N.S. -  Not everyone spent the Victoria Day weekend swinging in a hammock, raising a glass of wine to the Queen.

One hundred and seventy-four people spent it trudging through the muck and fog of the Cobequid Mountains at the 1999 North American ROGAINE
championships.

ROGAINE is a sizable acronym that stands for Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance. Teams of two or more people spend up to 24 hours on foot finding checkpoints scattered over a big tract of wilderness. The team that visits the most checkpoints and finishes before the time expires, wins.

Last weekend's  Maxi-Moose II 24-hour Wilderness Race was deemed a success by organizer Michael Haynes.

"I think it was very successful. It was the biggest orienteering event in
Nova Scotia in 20 years," Haynes says, adding that the number of
participants had doubled since the first Maxi-Moose, which ran in the same
place two years ago.

"We had people from six different provinces and ten different states," Haynes declares proudly.

The orienteering race was won by Peter Gagarin and Ernst Linder of New
Hampshire. They covered more than 85 km in a mind-boggling 22 hours. They received the maximum score of 6,800 points.

"They only took one ten minute break the whole time," Haynes said, equally astonished. "They told me they had to turn their headlights off at night because the fog was reflecting so much."

Haynes admits the nasty weather alarmed him a little.

"I didn't sleep too much that night," he confesses lightheartedly. "I was
just in my tent listening to all the rain worrying about the 100 or so people that were still going out there."

Quebec's Francis Faleradeau and Eric Cyr placed second with 5,900 points. The top Nova Scotians were Dan Hennigar and Edward James of Halifax, who ended up with 4,100 points.

RELATED WEBSITES:
Maxi-Moose II ROGAINE Wilderness Race
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Recreation/Orienteering/moose.html
A complete breakdown of ROGAINE rules, as well as places to contact names and numbers if you'd like more information.

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