The WCR Thanksgiving Rendezvous is always a bittersweet time of year as it marks the end of the Rendezvous season on Vancouver island as the soggy West Coast winter moves in. However as always, the Rendezvous was attended by friends from far and wide helped send the 2023 Season into the history books with a bang! The sound of muzzleloaders rang out first thing Saturday morning after the shooters meeting with many trappers reporting tough shooting conditions on the trails. Sunhine was said to be shining directly down the sights on shooters rifles on certain targets, making sighting the target against traditional iron-sights very tricky. The evening brought on the much anticipated gathering for a potluck supper with trappers and traders huddling under the wikiup to share good food, good company and good stories with laughs well into the night. Shooting events continued Sunday with the Mini Cannon event and a Candy Cannon closing out the day. The weekend was unusally dry for a Thanksgiving Weekend as many who have attended this event over the years are familiar with seeking shelter under tarps, canvas or sitting around a campfire to dry out. This year hwoever, we were fortuate enough to have some "Liquid Sunshine" in the week leading up to the Rendezvous that enabled us to shoot the trails this year. This was a vast diffrence to the bone dry conditions in 2022 when, even in the middle of October the trails remained closed. However it would not be a WCR Thanksgiving Rendezvous if it didn't rain, and starting early Monday morning the sky over Alder Hollow opened up and began to pour. Traders and Trappers woke up to puddles and mud on the ground with constant rain as shooters made their way up to the firing line for the Muzzleloading/B.P. Cartridge shotgun events. One brave shooter was even spotted packing a flintlock shotgun up to the line; it truly felt like a duck hunt, with the gunsmoke hanging thick in the air, at times obscuring targets for the Cartridge shooters. All it was missing were a few decoys.
The event was well attended with 53 registered shooters partaking in multiple events across the weekend. Special Thanks to Broken Hawk for being Boushway, Dan for being Segundo, Bill for scorekeeping and espeically thanks to Babyland for their hard work once again in organizing and preparing the potluck supper.
Thank you to everyone who put countless hours into preparing the rendezvous by helping with trail maintnence or workbees and to all who came out to attend the event. Rendezvous is nothing without our Black Powder Family.
EVENT WINNERS:
TOP MOUNTAIN MAN: Monty O.
TOP MOUNTAIN WOMAN: Celine O.
TOP SENIOR: Jim K. TOP JUNIOR: Cam J. TOP CUB: Ringtail
TOP PERCUSSION RIFLE: Monty O. TOP FLINTLOCK RIFLE: Kerry Y.
TOP TRADE GUN: Firefox
TOP PISTOL: Louise K. TOP SQUIRELL RIFLE: Celine O.
TOP MUZZLELOADING SHOTGUN: Rabbit TOP CARTRIDGE SHOTGUN: Kerry Y. (2nd Round Shootoff)
TOP CARTRIDGE RIFLE (SCORE): Benny Crocker
TOP CARTRIDGE RIFLE (GROUP): Benny Crocker
TOP KNIFE & HAWK: Firefox
TOP ARCHERY; PRIMITIVE (MAN): Monty O.
TOP ARCHERY; PRIMITIVE (WOMAN): Catwoman TOP ARCHERY; TRADITIONAL (MAN): Monty O.
TOP ARCHERY; TRADITIONAL (WOMAN): Catwoman
MINI-CANNON: Rabbit + Catwoman shooting Phoebe
MOSAIC FOREST BUCKSKINNER (MEDIAN AWARD): Shayla S.
NEXT EVENT: Halloween Shoot: October 29th 9:00AM
Please Remeber to have your camp cleaned up and taken off the property by November 1st.
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