This is a Cinderella-themed cache for the young and young-at-heart geocachers, made by some fellow geocachers at the Maker Madness: they did a beautiful job constructing this. It is a decorated larger container with a smaller inner container that has the log and small child-friendly items for trade in it. There is also a self-inking stamp that you can use for your letter-boxing book: please leave this stamp in the cache.
Cinderalla is one of those endearing stories that has stood the test of time. Most of us are familiar with the Disney version, the mice singing away while they try to sew a dress for "Cinderelly", later Cinderella in her blue dress provided with a swish of her magic wand by the Fairy Godmother dancing away with Prince Charming before the clock strikes midnight. In the end, her dainty foot fits into the glass slipper and there is the happy ending.
Did you know, though, that there are many versions of the Cinderella story? The European folk-tale known by either Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper was first published by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé in the late 1600s, and subsequently by the Brothers Grimm in their folk tale collection Grimms' Fairy Tales. In a Chinese folk-tale called Yeh-Shen (retold by Ai-Ling Louise) there are stepsisters and a stepmother, and since she is seen as more beautiful than them, they make her do all the chores: her only friend is a fish who grants her wishes. There is Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters (retold by John Steptoe) which is set in Zimbabwe: it has two daughters (no stepdaughters or stepmother) vying for the heart of a king. Locally to this area, there is the Algonquin variation of The Rough-Face Girl (retold by Rafe Martin) that is set in a village near Lake Ontario. As with other versions, she has sisters who treat her cruelly and make her do all the chores which, in this case, scar her face: despite this, she is chosen by the Invisible Being as she is the only one able to truly see him.
Near to this cache is one of the older trees in this area, fondly known as "Grandpa Tree" to Kortright staff and visitors. When we were placing this we thought of him as our cache's Fairy Godparent in tree form. As you make your way along the Maple Sugar Bush trail toward this spot, you should be able to spot Grandpa Tree on the left side of the trail from quite some distance. Take a minute while you stamp your book once at the cache to think about all the major world events that have taken place since he first began to grow, and that the Cinderella story would have, at the time, just gone into print.
This cache was placed under direct supervision of park staff. Please use the provided trails and visit this geocache only during park hours.
Congratulations to Mag-nitude 2.1 on the FTF, and their first Letterbox!