The Cranbrook Archery Club is excited to announce that they will be hosting the 2020 3D Archery Provincial Championships this June.
Chris Mummery, President of the Cranbrook Archery Club (CAC), says that archers from all over B.C. and other western Canadian provinces will be converging in Cranbrook this year to participate in Provincials.
This is the first time that CAC has held an outdoor Provincial event, but they have hosted similar events, like the Indoor Target Archery Provincials in 2012 and 2013.
The event will be held on the weekend of June 6 and 7, 2020, at the CACs Outdoor Archery Range on Mission Fort Steele Road, located between Highway 3 and Fort Steele.
Mummery says that Provincials will see participation numbers between 100 to 175 archers. The registration fee for adults is $75, with a $10 reduction of the fee for all age categories before May 10. Registration can be done online by following the instructions on the CAC website. Registration will be opening very soon, so stay tuned to their website and Facebook page for announcements.
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The competition takes place over three days and will involve three or four courses, totalling 80 targets, that are set out in the wilderness at the CAC outdoor range, says Mummery. The targets will be set at unknown distances (to the athletes) up to 50 yards. Targets will feature lifelike three dimensional foam animals.
“These targets range from large, life-size bull moose or elk targets, all the way down to small life-size targets such as skunk or coyote,” said Mummery. “There are even some exotic targets like a stegosaurus dinosaur or large cobra.”
Mummery says that volunteers are needed to help out with the event.
“We will need volunteers, primarily for the set up, a day or two ahead of the event and some for assisting with the organizing of athletes during the event,” Mummery explained. “We welcome all and it’s not necessary to be an archer to volunteer.”
Those interested in helping out and volunteering can send an email to the CAC secretary email, cranbrookarcherysecretary@gmail.com.
The CAC hopes to have a few targets available for spectating over the weekend as well.
“Spectators will have a limited ability to participate as there are safety concerns with having non-archers walking the shooting courses,” said Mummery. “There will be a few targets near the registration area where designated locations for spectators will be set out. We hope to have six to eight targets available for spectating.”
Many local athletes will be competing against the best of the best in the province.
“We are hoping to get a good turnout from local archers who would typically attend our 3D annual events. We normally get attendance for those of 170 to 200 archers; it would be amazing to see more than half of those folks attend the Provincials,” Mummery said. “It’s our desire that competitors will travel from all over the province; Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland, the Interior, Okanagan, and Northern BC to come to the Kootenays to participate. We expect to see a strong contingent of local athletes. We have some very talented archers in this area.”
Mummery says this is an exciting opportunity for CAC because they were also successful in their bid to host Nationals next year.
“The event we are hosting in 2020 will help iron out any logistical items that may pop up and allow us to host the best event possible for Canada in 2021,” said Mummery. “The Nationals will likely be a larger event and will require more organizing and volunteers to host, [so] we are looking at this year’s event as a stepping stone for our club and are very excited about it. Both events will be a great draw for our area here in the Kootenays and provide exposure to what we have to offer here.”
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