Driving across America #4: Canada: canoeing, Ports Maitlin and Colborne, gunpowder and lead
News ·Friday July 2, 2010 @ 22:01 EDT (link)
Continued from parts 1 2 3. As planned, we went on our canoe trip to the Grand River on Wednesday, with Scott Barbacki and his niece Scarlett, stopping by the Port Maitlin lighthouse afterward. (Canoe photos are Rebecca's—I didn't bring my camera into the canoe fearing Emily might need too much help, or tip it; but she proved a quick study.) On the way home, we saw some tiny horses too.
Thursday was Canada Day—July 1—and we went over to Port Colborne. We wandered around the park there; got ice-cream; saved my Coca-Cola mini-basketball from certain death; and went to Harold Black park for fireworks later on.
I called up Jonathan (Jon) Yade; I'd found we shared an interest in shooting sports, and we arranged to meet up Friday at 1400 and go to a local range, the Silverdale Gun Club in St. Anns. It's a pretty nice range; clubhouse at the front; nice guy manning it. Not real cheap—$20 to shoot, but that included targets. We had to drive in further (past an electronic gate at the front) to the range itself, which is much like SVRC but looks in better repair and is longer, with particular sections dedicated to particular target distances.
The difference between what I'm used to was mainly just the flag system: there are red and green flags that have to be switched out: red means active, green for cease-fire (which seems odd; SVRC has an audible and visible alarm system, so I'm not used to flags at all, but I would expect red to be "don't fire").
I shot Jon's H&K SL8, a nice rifle, .223, probably with a 10-round magazine due to Canadian restrictions (think Massachusetts or California as a starting-point). Jon had the SL8, not the SL8-1 "permitted" in the US due to import restrictions (922(r), most likely): there are indeed some few guns that are banned in the US and allowed in Canada. The range had some (creaky but functional) spotting scopes on the tables, so I spotted for Jon and vice versa and we made a pretty good go of it.
Although Jon had a grandfathered PAL (Possession and Acquisition License, required to own firearms in Canada, although you still can't carry them and there are transport restrictions), allowing him to own and shoot pistols, he didn't own any yet; I think he was waiting on getting the required safe. The range master, however, was shooting pistols, and let us shoot his Para Ordnance 1911? and another pistol he had with him (Beretta); we just had to buy some ammo at the clubhouse (.45; it wasn't cheap either, but then it was convenient to us, and neither in a store nor in bulk). I shot pretty well with it (better than the owner… but it was new to him and I have a Springfield 1911 EMP at home).
Since I hadn't been by since becoming interested in firearms, I stopped by the gun store in Fonthill (during one of the few times it was open); not a bad little store, really, although not terribly friendly.
We also went into St. Catharines to look around used bookstores earlier in the day; we picked up the first few books of the Belgariad for Emily (we bought her one, dad the other).
Books finished: A Conflict of Visions.
