Archery on Fire in Toronto

The popularity of Archery in Toronto is up 1100% compared to 2009, says Toronto Archery Instructor Charles Moffat of CardioTrek.ca. As an archery instructor Moffat has done archery promotional work for TSN and CBC News and is currently working on his second archery book.

"Back in Spring 2009, when I first started coming to the Toronto Public Archery Range, you would see maybe 3 or 4 archers there on any particular day. On a really busy day you might see 5 or 6 archers. In contrast in 2013 we saw 30 to 40 people at the archery range on a regular basis during the Summer. Even in Autumn numbers would hit 20 to 30 people at the range regularly, and it is largely due to all the new people who started doing archery in 2012 and again in 2013."

We are fortunate that in Toronto we have the Toronto Public Archery Range at E. T. Seton Park - without it many Torontonians wouldn't have a place to go and shoot. There are only two large public archery ranges in all of Canada, located in Toronto and Vancouver.

Which means that Torontonians can do archery all year round if they're willing to brave the freezing colds.

"What we really need is an indoor archery range. Either built by the city or sponsored by a big corporation like CIBC," says Moffat. "The CIBC and other big Canadian banks have been stepping up in recent years to support recreational sports and amateur sports, because it is those amateur sports that makeup the backbone of professional sports and Olympic athletes. If we could twist the arm of the CIBC into building an indoor archery range that would make a big difference to help Canadian archers in the GTA to become more competitive."

But getting big corporate sponsors like that is both difficult and rare. You need to be really organized to get the support of such companies.

"The other alternative is crowd-funding. If someone were to make a successful kickstarter campaign to build an indoor public archery range it would go a long way to promoting archery even more in Toronto," says Moffat.

So why not you?

Moffat laughs. "Too busy working! That is the problem with pipe dreams. They need someone who has plenty of free time and are willing to do all the leg work to get the ball rolling."

"Besides I love shooting outdoors anyway. It is just the problem that like myself, many people hate being cold while doing a sport."