CHAPTER 2 Le BELVIDERE

Through the nineteenth century the few established gun clubs in Canada had very slowly followed their southern neighbour's enthusiasm toward trapshooting. But, in the early 1880's, with the visit to Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario, of the sharpshooting duo of Bogardus and Carver, the innovative clay target opened a complete new vista of shotgunning opportunities.

In 1884 Sir John A. MacDonald was Canada's Prime Minister. The Governor General was Lord Stanley (who would give North Americans a legend of enjoyment with his presentation of a hockey trophy), and while George Ligowski's new "birds" were starting to make inroads into the Canadian sportshooting market, the first basic steps were being taken to establish moving target shooting in Canada's smallest province.

Prince Edward Island had only been a member of Confederation for eleven years and was still in turmoil over the terms of joining. Lucy Maud Montgomery was only ten years old, and in the winter small iceboats were still making harrowing crossings of Northumberland Strait between Cape Traverse, P.E.I. and Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick. In early May, in the capital city of Charlottetown, Thomas Dodd, a local hardware merchant read a small pamphlet of © advertising literature and sensed that it just might be of interest to some of the local hunting fraternity who were good ammunition customers. He passed the paper on to Dr. Ernest Blanchard, a shotgun enthusiast who, in Dodd's estimation, would give the brochure serious attention. The literature related the excitement of the new Ligowski target, and the spring loaded traps that propelled them.

Nestled on the eastern ridge of the Atlantic flyway, Prince Edward Island was then, as today, a

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