If you’ve spent any time around Comox Lake, you’ve likely heard the clap of gunfire booming out from the “Fish and Game,” or Courtenay & District Fish and Game Protective Association, as it’s officially named. Here, “game” takes on two meanings. One: an animal that ends up on a dinner plate. The other: having fun.
Some of those blasts are from the gun ranges. Boomtown is made to look like an Old West town. Here, members hold matches in cowboy action, a competition where costumed participants shoot old-style, single-action firearms at steel targets.
Or you might be hearing discharges from the shotgun range, where half a dozen athletes from across Canada train for international skeet shooting. Their coach is a medal-winning Olympic athlete from France, one of their shotguns can cost $60,000, and the 12-gauge ammunition is manufactured in Italy. The skeet shooting fields at the Fish and Game are one of only a few places in the country big enough to host these shooters, some of whom are hoping to earn a spot in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Making dreams come true for athletes is part of what makes Gail Eggiman proud to volunteer at the facility. Wearing a pink camouflage sweater, she meets me downstairs in the sprawling waterfront clubhouse, where conservation officers (COs) are training for scenarios in the main hall above us. From upstairs come muffled yells and the thump of their boots.
The club’s relocation from Courtenay to the more secluded Comox Dam
After the Fish and Game moved from a Courtenay location and bought land near the dam, the society acquired more acres over time (it’s now over 200 acres). Eggiman tells me that the club’s secluded area is ideal for various organizations who want to practice away from public view. Comox Valley Search and Rescue conducts helicopter training scenarios here, while COs, Fisheries and Oceans Canada officers, and RCMP members from around the province train for various situations they might encounter in the field.
In 2018, the Comox Valley Regional District required a location for water intake and a pumphouse; the club traded the CVRD a parcel of land in exchange for a water supply for a fish hatchery that now supplies salmon fry for the Puntledge and Trent rivers.
Lying open on the table in front of Eggiman is a full notebook page listing the club’s initiatives. She’s been involved with the Fish and Game for over 20 years and has the succinct manner of speech and professional bearing that pegs her as someone who has a handle on things. Still, she looks down at the open page, presumably to remind herself of everything that goes on here.
Volunteering and membership
Members who choose to volunteer can help with elk relocation, fish and wildlife rehabilitation, fish studies in Comox Lake and Puntledge River, and much more, including Fishing Forever (a program where seniors and folks with disabilities can cast a line at the Fish and Game’s trout-stocked pond that’s surrounded by a wheelchair-accessible boardwalk).
For a couple hundred bucks a year, the club’s 2,500 members receive access to an archery course and the shotgun, indoor, and outdoor ranges. Those who don’t hunt or fish can use the membership solely for the boat launch or campground, a graveled loop in the trees where sandaled kids make easy friends.
The Fish and Game is a place where goslings drift among the reeds and mountains thrust upwards from wind-rippled water to frame the Comox Glacier. A place of serene beauty punctuated by gunfire. (“You get used to it,” says one camper about the noise.) When the sun finally sets, the shooting is over. And all is quiet at the Fish and Game until the sun rises again.
