When I visited Lake of the Woods one day before, I noticed there was an "orienteering" event the next day at the Museum. I had no clue what orienteering was but it sounded fun so I attended. Equipped with no background, the host of the event (a gentleman named Matt) gave an introductory course on orienteering. He explained concepts like compass use, map reading, contour lines, basics of the sport, etc. The audience was me, Alex, and mostly a group of girlscouts (I suspect this was the intended audience).
Orienteering includes locating and reaching a series of "control points". Control points are located by using a highly detailed paper map and compass, using key landmarks, elevation changes, etc.
Control points were dispersed throughout Lake of the Woods preserve, throughout forestry and the prairie. It was much fun to track down each control point, even though we did make mistakes and have to back track quite often.
View of prairie
Alex and I attained a time of 91 minutes and 27 seconds for the intermediate (2nd level course).
Orienteering course timings
It was a wonderful experience and I will certainly do orienteering again. I already looked for more opportunities and found some permanent orienteering course 1.5 hours away and found some other events hosted by the IRVOC.