Chilliwack: the "Heart of the Valley" is made up of 14 Villages - In this series of 14 caches we will introduce you to each of those Villages. When you have solved the puzzle for all 14 of the caches your smiley faces will produce the shape of a heart in the Eastern portion of Chilliwack. In each of the 14 caches you will find information which you must record in order to find the Final cache in this series, the "Heart of Hearts" cache.
We hope you enjoy your trip around the area and the cache locations we have selected for this series. Have fun and if possible involve the whole family in solving the puzzles and finding the caches, they are meant to be "family friendly".
East of Chilliwack nestled against Mount Shannon and extending along Yale Road beside Hope Slough is the community of Cheam. Meadowlands Gold Course, Cheam Elementary School, and a number of businesses located at the intersection of Yale and Gibson Roads are considered to be within the boundaries of Cheam.
Before the arrival of Euro-Canadians, the Stó:lō lived and travelled through the area. Archaeological sites, especially in the vicinity of Mount Shannon, attest to the earlier Stó:lō presence.
The first Euro-Canadians to arrive came from Ontario. Local roads or other geographical features remind us of the names of some of these people. Gibson, Gillanders, Ryder, Shannon, McConnell and Reeves commemorate some, but not all, of these first families. Missing from this list is David Nelmes, another transplanted Ontario resident, who is credited with being the first to pre-empt land in Cheam. By 1875, the area population was large enough that the first school was built. In 1877, the Anglican Church built a meeting-house on the banks of Hope Slough, near Banford Road. It was poorly built however and collapsed about ten years later. By 1890, local Methodists raised the funds and built the first Methodist Church. This church is no longer standing.
Cheam has remained primarily an agricultural community although urban development is encroaching.
All information was obtained from the Chilliwack Museum and Archives Website- Visit them "here"
In order to find this cache you will have to solve this Sudoku puzzle.
The cache is at: N 49 0A.BCD and W121 EF.GHI
