Just about two weeks ago I went on a week-long trip to British Columbia to attend a horse archery clinic. Which I suppose warrants a bit of a backstory before I get into the trip itself.
My brother and I started doing archery at camp—Camp Woolsey for me, Scouting camps for Kevin. Over time, Kevin got his first bow, and I got mine a year or two later. We started going to a range at a nearby hunting store to practice, but more or less, we were on our own and self-taught. During this time I helped teach archery to plenty of girls and women while I worked at various Girl Guide camps, and sometimes I brought our bows along for adults to try something a little more substantial.
After some time, we got interested in trying out new bows. I decided on an longbow, but Kevin was starting to get interested in the different styles and history of horse bows. During the lockdowns, with time to spare, he started doing a lot of research and found some interesting youtube channels that talked about Eastern archery styles. I ended up getting my own horse bow sometime earlier this year (spring, 2021).
Then, last spring, Kevin discovered a place nearby that teaches horseback archery, called Horses of the Sun! This was something we had talked about for awhile, but never thought we would actually get the chance to try it out. We got in contact with them and signed up, and started taking classes in the summer. I took riding lessons from when I was about 8 or 9 to when I was 16 or 17, but Kevin didn't have any experience with horses. So far, we've both been having a great time!
Me with some of the horses I've ridden for lessons - Marko, Inka and Drishti
Which finally brings us to the trip to British Columbia! At the end of August, we were told about a clinic that was taking place in British Columbia. The clinic was for a particular style of horse archery (Kassai) which isn't the way we're learning, so it sounded fun. Not only that, but horse archery in Canada is a fairly small sport, and part of the appeal of going was to meet other people in the country who do it. Also, I had never been to British Columbia before!
So Kevin and I, along with our teacher Uwe and our friend Sonja, went on the trip! We flew from Ottawa to Calgary and got a drive to Luxor Corrals, where we camped for the week. We learned about the Kassai style of shooting, as well as helped with the Kassai track and competition that took place at the end of the week. Unfortunately we didn't get to do quite as much riding as we had hoped, given that the three of us were far behind everyone else with riding experience. Later in the week we did get our own beginner riding class, and we also got to go on a trail ride (which was definitely one of my favourite parts of the trip!)
Another fun thing that happened was that we got to ride some mules, so now we can say we've done mule-back archery! This was also my first time every trying western riding!
Top Row: Popcorn
Middle: Luna and Junior (a mule!)
Bottom: Junior (the one picture I have of me holding a bow while riding, and it's barely visible) and Dreamwalker (another mule!)
Views from our hike and trail ride
The scenery was beautiful and camping was fun (if a little colder than we expected for mid-September!) We didn't see much else while in British Columbia, since there wasn't time for much besides the clinic. However, we did make a few trips to the nearby town of Radium to visit the hot springs, which were very nice after some of the cold and rainy days!
On the way back to Calgary, we had a chance to stop at a beautiful trail called Marble Canyon. It was a nice quick hike, following Tokumm Creek and the canyon it carved away from the road until reaching a waterfall. I loved the colour of the water, which is caused by rock dust from the glaciers scraping against bedrock. The dust reflects the light to create the colour. I also thought it was interesting to see how the trees were growing back up after a forest fire.
All in all, it was a fun trip! We got to try out some new stuff, and meet new people. Also, beautiful scenery! Now we hope that next time we see everyone, we'll be able to hold our own a little better (with riding, we're actually pretty good at the archery side of the sport)!