Golden Rod & Gun Club
Golden Rod and Gun Club
Written by Ellen Cameron for Golden Memories
This organization has been active in Golden for many years. At first, its membership was small, and meetings were held in Bill Wenman’s Shoe Repair and Harness-Making Shop. In those days, some of the active members were Bill himself, Tom Sime Sr., Johnny Thorson, Axel Hanson, Andy Spowart, Norm King, and the Van Hoepen Brothers, Chris and Joe.
These members and others who joined the club in later years concerned themselves with Fish and Wildlife Conservation. Until fairly recent years, there was no access for vehicles to many of the remotest areas of the district. Fish fry and eggs had to be packed in by the game warden who was often helped by club members. The Cabin Creek area was one of these and so was Wiseman Lake. At the ladder, the Golden Rod and Gun Club did a great deal of work improving the lake for the rearing of cutthroat trout by damming one end and digging a ditch from Wiseman Creek to the lake, thus improving the fresh water supply.
One of the second-generation members, Tom Sime Jr., became concerned that, in some years of high water on the Columbia, the geese nesting sites were flooded out. He experimented by filling old wash tubs with nesting material and placing them in elevated positions in the sloughs. When the venture was successful, the club contacted Ducks Unlimited who gave it a grant of $1000 to construct nesting boxes and place them on driven piles in the Columbia backwaters from Golden to just south of Parson. The project has been a continuing one for Ducks Unlimited and Tom Sime, Irvine Barber, and Ronnie Fuse still do the voluntary work of checking the nesting sites.
During World War Two, the Rod and Gun Club sent cigarettes and comforts to the local boys posted overseas. Early in the war, communities were asked to establish a fund towards the purchase of Spitfire fighting planes. The club hit upon the idea of hosting a game dinner in the old curling rink which was then still in use. The novelty of the idea appealed to the public, and for several years it became an annual event. It was a social occasion which, because of the variety of meat served, accompanied by all the trimmings, cooked and served in light-hearted fashion by the club members themselves, often attracted big game hunters from other areas who time their visits to coincide with the date of the dinner. After the building of the Civic centre, dinners were held there and later in the Rod and Gun Club hall. They were discontinued as the district population increased and with it the pressure on the game animal range.
The Rod and Gun Club Hall was a unique rustic octagonal building with a pointed roof giving a somewhat Tipi shaped effect. It stood on the lots which have since been purchased by the Overwaitea Company. The logstructure contract was given to two Swedish woodsmen, Eric Berg and his partner. The inside finishing was done by the club members. Now they had the larger meeting space they needed, and a source of revenue which could be rented out for meetings and social gatherings. In time, a deal was made with the Kinsmen Club that permitted them to use the hall in exchange for improvements to the kitchen facilities. When the Rod and Gun club sold the land to the Overwaittea, the rustic building was sold for a token sum to the Golden Snow Kings, who moved it to its present site where it became the Snow King’s castle. The club used the proceeds from the sale of the land to buy forty acres on Hartley Road in the Blaeberry. They also bought the Spillimacheen Rod and Gun Clubhouse and moved it to the site which they used as a shooting and trap shooting range. They eventually sold this property and bought a shooting range site just off the highway near Moberly.
The President of the 1982 Rod and Gun Club is Mark Hawley. Vice president, Davin Dunn, informed this reporter that the club also has an indoor range in the Civic Centre and that they sponsor the annual fishing derby.