Canada-Guelph Leaf

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 30-Jul-25 this trackable had survived for 1.5 years and had been moved by 6 cachers, for an average drop every 91 days, or 4.0 drops per year. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it at an event, in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban, non-premium cache. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

This wooden maple leaf recalls the maple leaf on the national flag of Canada.  Most people people living in the United States couldn’t name many cities in Canada, unless they live in the northern tier of states or Alaska.  This series of “Canada” travel bugs brings attention to the largest metropolitan areas in that country.

Guelph is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly 17 mi east of Waterloo and 62 mi west of Downtown Toronto. It is the seat of Wellington County, but is politically independent of it.

Because of its low crime rates, clean environment and generally high standard of living, Guelph is consistently rated as one of Canada's best places to live. Guelph has been noted as having one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country throughout the Great Recession. In February 2016, it had the lowest rate in the country, at 3.9 per cent, compared to the national rate of 7.3 per cent; in large part, this is because of the great number of manufacturing facilities, including Linamar.

Before colonization, the area was considered by the surrounding indigenous communities to be a "neutral" zone. On selected dates, members from these communities would meet and trade goods by the Speed River.[citation needed]

Guelph was selected as the headquarters of British development firm "the Canada Company" by its first superintendent John Galt, a popular Scottish novelist who designed the town to attract settlers and the surrounding countryside. Galt designed the town to resemble a European city centre, complete with squares, broad main streets and narrow side streets, resulting in a variety of block sizes and shapes which are still in place today. The street plan was laid out in a radial street and grid system that branches out from downtown,[citation needed] a technique which was also employed in other planned towns of this era, such as Buffalo, New York.

The Canada Company established Guelph in 1827 to serve as the company's headquarters during the development of the Huron Tract, although town later came into its own as a prosperous railway and industrial centre. Guelph was founded by the symbolic felling of a tree on St. George's Day, April 23, 1827, the feast day of the patron saint of England. The town was named to honour Britain's royal family, the Hanoverians, who were descended from the Guelfs, the ancestral family of George IV, the reigning British monarch; thus the nickname The Royal City. The directors of the Canada Company had actually wanted the city to be named Goderich, but reluctantly accepted the fait accompli. Guelph was incorporated as a city in 1879. Despite optimism, the population growth was very slow until the Grand Trunk Railroad reached it from Toronto in 1856; in that year, the village became a town.