OK perhaps it's a bit premature to be thinking about this as a new guy who hasn't even attended the Alberta shoot, but what the heck. I'm all
about jumping in both feet and blindfolded! Shooting antique guns next to my face and not headspacing that SMLE before you fire it the first time! Life in
the fast lane!
The talk on the New England 2008 thread about a public shoot really kind of pushed me to thinking about this more seriously, so here's my idea. Tell me what you think.
I would like to set up a Victoria Riflemen Provincial shoot open to the public here in Southwestern Saskatchewan specifically at or near the Fort Walsh National Historic site for Labour Day 2009. This area is the birthplace of the NWMP, Fort Walsh was established in 1875 largely in response to the 1873 Battle Creek massacre and was instrumental to bringing the NWMP into existence. This translates to a location that is primed with federal promotion and tourism and is ideal for displaying and demonstrating Victorian era and period firearms. This also means we don't need to draw the public interest we just need to syphon off some of the existing tourists already in the area which are evidently showing a basic interest anyhow. The local Maple Creek Museums of which have a pretty strong tie to the NWMP (Maple Creek wouldn't exist but for Fort Walsh) would be onboard in a heartbeat too. This would be a very easy venue and event to promote and to a lot of people.
In addition I would like to invite some of the local cowboy action shooting crowd to the shoot for a couple reasons: 1: Cowboy action shoting is big in the area and would increase our visability amongst others in the general shooting public. 2: The Cowboy action shooting crowd would be able to provide other period firearms appropriate to the location and local history, and thus increase the impact of my pitch to the park. 3: a larger event with more participants, more noise and more smoke will draw more interest from the general public. Grant (aka Rattlesnake Jack) being a member of the Rocky Mountain Rangers, would be an ideal liason if willing to help out.
Now some of the obstacles.
1: Maple Creek does not have a gun range of any sort. Thus setting up on an existing approved range is not a possibility. But that's OK, this actually may work in our favour. I hope to hold the event in or near Fort Walsh itself and not in town, so we would not be stepping on the local wildlife federation's toes by not holding it at their facility. In fact this would be greatly bennificial to the local Wildlife Federation (of which I am a member) who are actively trying to get a location for a full callibre range. A positive event like this with greater public visibility might help on that front too. We might even get some help and exposure from the membership there too.
2: Fort Walsh is a National Park, although there have been black powder re-enactments held in Parks in the past, I'm not aware of any that have allowed live fire. So this might be a hard horse to rope. That said I do know an individual or two on the inside that might be able to help keep this moving in the right direction. Failing this however the National Park is very small and is really a park within a park. Specifically the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park which does infact allow hunting, so firearms here are not out of the norm, so we wouldn't be setting such a precident. A location within this area may be able to host a live fire shoot if it can't be arranged in the Fort Walsh area. And the final option is to hold the event on Private land. Infact private land borders Fort Walsh, and I might be able to arrange to hold it there. Additionally there is private land not so near the Park which could be arranged easily enough.
3: Again lacking an approved local range, any range that we set up will have to be built from sccratch and quite likely will need to be torn down again at the conclusion of the event.
4: While I may be able to coordinate enough to get the green light for this to actually happen I do not have the experience in hosting and running such an event, so the help from others with such experience, like DD would be required. So really the fourth obstacle is that I would need as much help as possible in the actual execution of this event.
So let the discussion begin. Anyone interested?
Gary
The talk on the New England 2008 thread about a public shoot really kind of pushed me to thinking about this more seriously, so here's my idea. Tell me what you think.
I would like to set up a Victoria Riflemen Provincial shoot open to the public here in Southwestern Saskatchewan specifically at or near the Fort Walsh National Historic site for Labour Day 2009. This area is the birthplace of the NWMP, Fort Walsh was established in 1875 largely in response to the 1873 Battle Creek massacre and was instrumental to bringing the NWMP into existence. This translates to a location that is primed with federal promotion and tourism and is ideal for displaying and demonstrating Victorian era and period firearms. This also means we don't need to draw the public interest we just need to syphon off some of the existing tourists already in the area which are evidently showing a basic interest anyhow. The local Maple Creek Museums of which have a pretty strong tie to the NWMP (Maple Creek wouldn't exist but for Fort Walsh) would be onboard in a heartbeat too. This would be a very easy venue and event to promote and to a lot of people.
In addition I would like to invite some of the local cowboy action shooting crowd to the shoot for a couple reasons: 1: Cowboy action shoting is big in the area and would increase our visability amongst others in the general shooting public. 2: The Cowboy action shooting crowd would be able to provide other period firearms appropriate to the location and local history, and thus increase the impact of my pitch to the park. 3: a larger event with more participants, more noise and more smoke will draw more interest from the general public. Grant (aka Rattlesnake Jack) being a member of the Rocky Mountain Rangers, would be an ideal liason if willing to help out.
Now some of the obstacles.
1: Maple Creek does not have a gun range of any sort. Thus setting up on an existing approved range is not a possibility. But that's OK, this actually may work in our favour. I hope to hold the event in or near Fort Walsh itself and not in town, so we would not be stepping on the local wildlife federation's toes by not holding it at their facility. In fact this would be greatly bennificial to the local Wildlife Federation (of which I am a member) who are actively trying to get a location for a full callibre range. A positive event like this with greater public visibility might help on that front too. We might even get some help and exposure from the membership there too.
2: Fort Walsh is a National Park, although there have been black powder re-enactments held in Parks in the past, I'm not aware of any that have allowed live fire. So this might be a hard horse to rope. That said I do know an individual or two on the inside that might be able to help keep this moving in the right direction. Failing this however the National Park is very small and is really a park within a park. Specifically the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park which does infact allow hunting, so firearms here are not out of the norm, so we wouldn't be setting such a precident. A location within this area may be able to host a live fire shoot if it can't be arranged in the Fort Walsh area. And the final option is to hold the event on Private land. Infact private land borders Fort Walsh, and I might be able to arrange to hold it there. Additionally there is private land not so near the Park which could be arranged easily enough.
3: Again lacking an approved local range, any range that we set up will have to be built from sccratch and quite likely will need to be torn down again at the conclusion of the event.
4: While I may be able to coordinate enough to get the green light for this to actually happen I do not have the experience in hosting and running such an event, so the help from others with such experience, like DD would be required. So really the fourth obstacle is that I would need as much help as possible in the actual execution of this event.
So let the discussion begin. Anyone interested?
Gary
). OK there may be some precident for them in militia forces. Like you say if
it's in the spirit of the event. But a 12/22 revolver is pushing it.
