My dad was a crack shot both with rifle and shot gun. He won many trap and target shooting awards in local competitions. There were early pictures of him in Ontario with deer trophies . One heAd of a beautiful buck hung in our prairie home. He married my mom and they homesteaded in Loverna Saskatchewan north of Kindersley near the Alberta border. The farming was dry land meaning they depended on timely rainfall to grow crops. The lived in a sod hut the first winter until the house was finished. Brother Don was born in the back of the Loverna general store with the owners wife as mid wife. After several crop failures the moved to a new irrigation district in Alberta near the Bow river and established the farm that I grew up on.
Dad hunted for food and later sport. The undeveloped prairie supported a large population of speedy prong horn antelope. There was big game such as moose and deer within a half days trip to the treed wilderness. But his forte was game birds . Clouds of migratory ducks and geese. The densely wooded banks of the irrigation ditches harboured large populations of pheasants and Hungarian partridge, there for the taking.
Fishing was available locally in the Bow river and the large irrigation lake Newell both close by. Pike, pickerel ( now called Walleye) and a bony little one called a Goldeye on offer .They could readily be caught by casting a small coloured lure and retrieving it slowly. The fishing, later bird hunting was really the only father/son activity I did with my frantically parent who otherwise was somewhat remote. I caught my first fish from the shore in the lake when I was 4 or 5, a small suicidal pike which I embraced in my arms racing toward my nearby dad, with my makeshift piece of bamboo “ rod” dragging behind on the ground, the hook still in the fishes mouth. I remember that he was convulsed with laughter.
The only other fishing with dad was in the summers when the whole family moved to the coolness of Watertown Lakes National Park in SW Alberta. My mother and us kid camped in a large walled tent. Simply blissful. Dad commuted from the farm . He built a little boat called “Antelope” and we trolled along the shore of the lake. One day he caught a 20 pound lake trout which collected a crowd at the campground. He was very proud . We also went up to a small trout lake above Watertown where we caught tasty little rainbow trout.
