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'Sweaty nerds' to battle for geographic supremacy

'Sweaty nerds' to battle for geographic supremacy

Nicholas Hume always knows where he is. In a way he's a champion at it.

Hume is the provincial champion Canadian Geographic Challenge, a nationwide competition testing the geographic know-how of secondary school students.

This weekend the Leo Hayes High School student will travel to Ottawa to compete against 19 other finalists for the National Canadian Geographic Challenge.

Hume said when he first got into geography, he thought it would be a passing phase. He was wrong.

"I have these little hyper obsessions and they usually only last a couple months," said Hume, who is in Grade 9.

"They come and go, but geography … it just stuck with me, and I kept getting more and more interested in doing it."

Hardball questions

The questions can vary from the obviously geographic, in which ocean are the Hawaiian Islands located, to more obscure ones, such as in which countries are cars driven on the right-hand side of the road.

Hume said this means that it's impossible to really study specifically for a competition, you just have to be a jack-of-all-trades.

"My strong suit is political geography, so I'm more [into] administrative things like borders and flags and culture and stuff like that," said Hume.

"My struggle is physical geography, so things like mountains and rivers and national parks and stuff like that. That's where I struggle and that's [what] I'm focusing on right now."

The first two rounds of the national competition will narrow the finalists down from 20 to five and are closed to the public.

The final round will live stream on the Canadian Geographic Facebook page on Monday.

This is the second year Hume is participating in the competition and he said the experience is unforgettable.

"It was an amazing experience," said Hume. "It was actually kind of weird being in the same environment with a bunch of sweaty nerds like me that have the exact same interest. That's kind of surreal."

Hume said he's aiming for first place, but there's a catch.

The competition rules state that once you've won, you can't come back.

"Maybe just top five this year," he said.