Treasure Hunt One Over – Winner Announced, Clues Explained

Congratulations to D.N. Berg [no neighborhood listed] who, at 1:00 p.m. today, February 7, successfully finished Treasure Hunt One by writing, “It is the High Bridge taken from Shepard Rd.”

To be more precise, it was taken from the old Shepard Road, mainly because it is easier to stop and take a picture from there than it is from the new Shepard Road.

Anybody who knows D.N. Berg should make sure to echo our congratulations.

Now that the site of the Treasure has been identified it is in order to explain the clues.

Clue One read:

Go long, fellow.
Whether you are tall or a shorty
Work hard.
Call it forty.

“Go long, fellow” is a reference to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, two of whose most famous works were “The Village Blacksmith” and “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” Revere was a silversmith. Blacksmiths and silversmiths can be hard working people and Smith Avenue is, of course, the street which runs on the High Bridge.

“Call it forty” refers to Xcel Energy whose plant was next to where the picture was taken from, “XL” being the Roman numeral for forty.

Clue Two read:

It’s no joke
Think of a Hardy Oak
And if you’re old and not rich
You might fill some small sibs' niche.

“Hardy Oak” refers to Gabriel Oak, the protagonist of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, who at the book’s beginning is a shepherd.

“If you’re old and not rich/ You might fill some small sibs’ niche” refers to the Little Sisters of the Poor whose residence for the aged sits up on the bluff nearby below the bridge above the point where the picture was taken from.

Treasure Hunt Two should be posted next week.