When We Were Pirates

How to Make a Treasure Map

When I was still married and living in New Hampshire, I only lived fifteen minutes from my middle daughter, Beth. I often babysat for the weekend.  This is a memory of one weekend when I had her two oldest boys, Kevin 8 and Liam 10. 

Jack Sparrow (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) inspired a love for pretending to be pirates on their visits.  Our treehouse was our pirate ship. There were steps to go up and an old plastic slide from a Goodwill store hooked onto the side so we could go down … quickly, if we were “under fire” from other pirates.

The huge tree the treehouse was built in had grown between two house-size boulders.  A third boulder was just to the right and the two together formed a nice-sized cave below.  All in all, it had all the makings for some grand adventures and every chance they got, Liam and Kevin came to enjoy them.

I knew the boys were looking forward to searching for buried treasure.  In preparation of the weekend, as a surprise, I dug out an old metal money box that had a key and I filled it with ‘treasures’ from around the house. 

I added some gold and silver buttons from my button jar, a few shark’s teeth from a beach my youngest daughter, Heather, took me to the year before in North Carolina.  I also put in some small change from someone’s trip to Mexico, and several shiny silver and gold bead necklaces from a New Year’s Eve Party, and long green bead necklaces from a St. Patrick’s Day party two years before. The final touch was a handful of sand from our sandbox so it would look authentic.

As another surprise, how could they search for pirate treasure without a special treasure map? So I created one! Here are instructions so you can make one, too.

Make a “Treasure Map” for Playing Pirate:

When you know the grandchildren are coming over, take a piece of typing paper and draw your map. (use a #2 dark pencil or indelible ink marker) Make a dotted line path and have it go around things, over and under other things out in the yard and write and draw each of them on the map as landmarks for the kids to look for. At the end of the map “path”, draw a large ancient-looking X where the treasure will be found.

Paint your finished map with strong coffee, or tea —really soak it and put it out in the sun. When it’s dry, it should be nice and crinkly, and the color of old parchment.

Then using a match or a lighter burn the edges all the way around the map to brown them and shape the edges to look old. To make it even more authentic, pick out a large bare spot on the map and hold the flame under it right there until it turns brown and just barely catches fire, then quickly blow it out. This leaves a nice little raggedy-edged hole.

The last thing to do is roll the map up and tie it with a string!

Now, lock your treasure box and hang onto the key.  Hide the treasure chest where you put the X on your map. Once, I hid it in the hollow base of an old tree, another time inside a cave where two large boulders came together. Every once in a while, I buried it in the sandbox in the backyard.

One last touch … you’ll need a hammer and nail to hang your key for your ‘pirates’ to find.  I put a nail in the wall inside the treehouse almost out of sight in a corner.  You could also put the nail on a tree or on a fence. 

Watch the excitement when they find the treasure map almost hidden on a shelf in your bookcase and again when you discreetly direct them to where the key is hanging!  I couldn’t make up my mind whether to have them find the key before the treasure box, or after when they discover it won’t open without a key.

You’re good to go!  Have a great time with the kids or grandkids —that’s the important thing. Oh, and if you’re lucky, they’ll let you be a pirate. Liam and Kevin always wanted me to be Tinker Bell …

Note: When Liam and Kevin got too old to be pirates, they loved helping me make the map for their younger siblings. It kept them involved and I still had quality time with them, too. It was a win-win all around.

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