Strait shootin’
Each week, Northumberland Strait Shooters Archery Club members tackle the great outdoors
Northumberland archery club members love the equipment, the outdoors and practising their sport
Simon De Best is asked what goes into becoming a proficient archer. Good eyesight and steady hands of course, but there’s something else, too. “If you’re a nature lover, that might be the number one thing,” says De Best, who moved to Canada eight years ago from his native Holland (his wife Rosemary is originally from Westville). The ability to adjust shooting an arrow to compensate for varying distances is also important, “but all of it comes with lots of practice.” De Best is standing on a trail in the woods in Thorburn, where eight members of the Northumberland Strait Shooters Archery Club has 20 targets set up in the woods just off the trail, of varying distances and sightlines. Once they’re finished with one target — each of them firing a single arrow — they walk to the next spot, taking their time, sometimes delaying if they need to help a shooter search for an arrow that had completely missed the mark, talking about their hobby and sharing tips with one another. De Best said anyone interested in taking up the sport shouldn’t necessarily spend a lot of money to get started (a used bow in good shape can cost around $150, higher-end bows can get pricey). “You start with something cheap, you practise and practise until you see how good you get and you know what you want.” Violet MacFarlane of Stellarton uses a re-curve bow, not an oldschool as the longbow her father Chris MacFarlane uses, but it’s “more traditional” she says, than the modern compound bows that can almost shoot an arrow by themselves. No sights, no bells, whistles and gadgets to help the archer’s aim be true: just oldfashioned draw, aim and release. “This is more finesse, not as technical,” she says. “It’s more instinct than memorized.” She started to immerse herself in the hobby just a few weeks ago. “My father’s been shooting forever,” she says. “And I have more time now. Being outside and in the woods — the smells, the sounds — I love being in the outdoors.” Staring in early June, the Northumberland Strait Shooters meet every Tuesday night at their outdoor range, starting in early June until the end of September.