Georges Island Sprint Orienteering

Navigation Games received an Innovation Grant from Boston Harbor Now in 2024. Together with our teen summer interns, we made orienteering maps of Georges and Peddocks Islands and ran orienteering teaching programs for summer campers. You can learn more about the grant program, see video of the island, and check out shots of kids orienteering in this video from Boston Harbor Now. Orienteering moments are at 0:29, 2:00, 2:29, 3:29, 3:46.

"Georges Island was our original choice for the US champs, and with good reason. It will be a memorable day out in Boston Harbour and a great experience in a unique locaton (OK, all locations are unique, but you know what I mean, that meet where for years afterward everyone goes "Do you remember..."). Its worth mentioning that we're not using it for the Championships purely due to access issues: it will provide some highly technical sprint orienteering. There's also a Corn Maze (or Maize Maze as we call it over here) to round out the weekend" - Graeme Ackland, Course Designer

IMPORTANT NOTICE: EMBARGOS of Georges Island and Boston's North End

Georges is embargoed as of June 15, 2025, through until the races in 2026

Note that Boston's North End, adjacent to Long Wharf where we catch the ferry to Georges Island, is also embargoed, through October 13th, 2025, for those planning to race in the US Championships.

Event Information

Key Information

Georges Island is a carry-on, carry-off island. Please come ready to carry all your garbage off the island!
Purchase your ferry ticket separately from the orienteering registration.
Bring food and water with you; there are no restaurants or shops on the island.
Georges Island has been closed much of this season due to infrastructure problems. Should those not resolve by August 30th, we will have an alternate orienteering event nearby.

Schedule: Date TBD in 2026

11:30 Latest you can arrive at Long Wharf (north side) for the ferry to Georges Island
12:00 Ferry departure
12:45 Arrive on the island
1:15 First start
2:45 Last start
3:00 First return ferry
5:00 Last return ferry

Competitive courses

We will have the usual OUSA categories and courses. The time limit for all competitive courses will be one hour in accordance with OUSA competition rules.

Recreational courses

The recreational courses will not have awards or be counted toward national ranking points. No results will be published for recreational courses. Volunteers will get discounted participation in the recreational courses. You can participate in the recreational courses if you were not able to meet the terms of the embargo.

Previous map

The previous map is available here.

Previous mapper notes

This map is a lot of fun because of the 5-sided fort with indoor spaces, terrepleins, 8 staircases (4 spiral), and ramparts, with an extra line of ramparts on the two sides that face the open ocean. There are four passageways connecting the inside to the outside of the pentagon, and another four ways to get beyond the outer ramparts. The passageways and staircases make for a complex topology and some fun route choice, which our course designer Graeme Ackland has taken full advantage of. (Did you know that Graeme has designed courses for both sprint and middle distance WOC races?)

Possibility of cancellation or demotion

Please note that this event may be canceled or demoted to a non-NRE because sometimes the island is closed due to the water main breaking or bad weather for the ferry crossing.

In the case of inability to access the island, we'll have orienteering available in an alternate location accessible by public transit; it may or may not be an NRE. Ferry tickets can be refunded if the ferry does not run that day.

Registration Dates

TBD in 2026

Fees

TBD in 2026

Ferry

Ferry: you must purchase your ferry ticket separately, from this site. Adult: $24.95; senior/student/military $22.95; children 3-11 $17.95; children under 3: free. EVERY HUMAN MUST HAVE A FERRY TICKET, even if it is a free ticket for a child under 3. If you fail to purchase a ferry ticket or miss the ferry, we will not refund your race registration fees after August 28th. Note that ferry tickets will be nonrefunded, if the ferry is canceled. (See "Possibility of cancellation" section above.)

Many non-profit and educational organizations can obtain free tickets for the people they serve; this needs to be done by application to Boston Harbor Now. The Island Pass provides free access for underserved populations. 2-for-1 passes are available at participating Boston-area libraries through the Museum Pass program. The Card to Culture program allows Massachusetts EBT and WIC program participants to travel to the island for $4 per ticket. Community partner organizations may apply for free community cruise tickets.

Registration

TBD

Babysitting

If you need child care while running your course, please contact nre@navigationgames.org.

People

Event Director: Barb Bryant, president@navigationgames.org

Course Design: Graeme Ackland

Course Vetter: Nancy Duprey

Day-of-Race Director: Ethan Childs

OUSA Course Design Consultant: Dave Tallent

OUSA Event Consultant: TBD

Cartography: Barb Bryant, J-J Cote

Consultant: Josivan Juan de Oliveira

Staff and volunteers: Erkan Sezgin, Mikayla Moss, Maija Pratt, Isabel Bryant, Jared Girouard, Geoff Pingree, Dave Yee, David Bryant, Will, Lisa

Access and logistics: Boston Harbor Now (Rebecca, Kalimah, Sarah Jackson). The orienteering map of Georges Island was created with an Innovation grant from Boston Harbor Now.

Land Management: Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (Belle, Scott, caretakers, Meg)

About Georges Island

Links

Harbor generally

"For thousands of years, the islands served as ceremonial sites and seasonal homes for local Indigenous communities." -source
Forts of the harbor
The Islands of Boston Harbor, 2008, by Edward Rowe Snow - he's the person who probably made up the legend of the Lady in Black.
Cruising guide (for boats)
Schools on the Boston Harbor Islands (NPS)

Georges

bostonharborislands.org: Georges Island
Wikipedia
History of Fort Warren
National Park Service; another page. Publication - cultural landscape report for all of the islands.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation
Book: Fort Warren, New England's Most Historic Civil War Site
Boston Ghosts: legend of the Lady in Black
Protecting and Preserving Georges Island History with North Bennet Street School. They built a maintenance facility, Led by Carpentry Department Head Brian Vogt and Instructor Geoffrey Shaw. 2019.
Slow Life Chronicles, 2017 personal story of a visit.
The John Brown Song had its origins on Georges Island.

Other islands we've mapped

Spectacle
- Restoration
- Inez Irwin wrote a book "Maida's Little House" partially set in Spectacle Island.
Peddocks
- Shutter Island

Teaching kids orienteering

We first took children orienteering on Georges Island 20 years ago! A class of first and second grade students learned about maps all year, with the island trip as a culmination. In class we used the USGS's Map Adventures curriculum. The students visited Harvard's entomology department, where orienteer and entomologist Jessica Rykken gave them a cool 3D presentation about insects. The kids planned their route to the MBTA from school using a street map, and then their subway route using the subway map. A national park ranger gave us maps of the harbor, and we colored in the green and red buoys and followed our progress to the island on the boat with that map. With the ranger, we collected and identified insects, and then we orienteered. It was a terrible orienteering map, but I'm going to show you anyway!

Acknowledgments

Cristina Luis and Videlin Aleksiev for help with EventReg <3
The DCR, especially Belle and Scott, for help with permitting and the site visit
Boston Harbor Now, for a grant to help with map-making and programming on the island, and logistical support
Jon Campbell
Graeme Ackland
The Navigation Games team
Linda Fobes, for trusting me (Barb) to bring her students to orienteer on Georges Island 20 years ago