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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The History of the Bison Tube, why is it called a bison tube?

A Bison Capsule?

I was recently asked by one of our GeoSnippits Reboot Podcast viewers a rather interesting question.

"Why is a bison tube called a bison tube?"

Personally I have been using the pinky sized geocaches since for me the very beginning and never really put too much thought into it before. What surprised me when doing my research was the lack of information out on the World Wide Web. Oh sure there are tons of companies out there that sell them but where did they originate? Were they originally geocaches or made for something else? The answers were very difficult to find. In fact, I ended up talking with the company that designed the original bison tubes, though back then they were not known as bison tubes, read on.

When I found out the company that originated the bison tube concept was called "Bison Designs" a bit of the DOH! factor hit me but it was "Pixie" one of Bison Designs employees that filled in all the details.

Apparently back in 2001, the people at Bison Designs created a product known as a "Bison Capsule". It was designed to carry and keep safe different types of heart medicine. It looks very much like the bison tubes of today with a key ring attachment hooked to a cap, an O-ring for a seal and a screw-able base.

It was the ingenuity of a geocacher that realized that it would make a fine container for a geocache that really brought it to the spotlight in popularity. In fact according to Pixie when the orders started piling in for the bison tube they decided to increase the product line with different available sizes.

You can still buy "capsules" from Bison Designs. Just go to www.bisondesigns.com and put the word "capsule" in their search field.  They have quite a selection. I think I am going to try the Hook Capsule. Never seen a design like that before. Cool!

So now you know!

-Andy HeadHardHat Smith

www.geosnippitsreboot.com
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1 comment:

Duffman said...

Very cool. I never knew that. And I like the Hook one too. Though I wonder if the bobber would actually bob. If so, it'd be worth getting for one of those water tube caches.