South Saskatchewan Wildlife Association president Don Park knew they were in for a busy day at the Moose Jaw Gun Show when he went to open the doors at 10 a.m.
Dozens of patrons were already lined up outside and around the corner of the Moose Jaw Exhibition Grounds convention centre, leading to a packed venue the moment things kicked off.
That support continued throughout the day, leading to hundreds and hundreds of visitors checking out everything from the obligatory firearms and knives to special displays and even a handful of food vendors.
“We just love this kind of thing,” Park said during a brief break from chatting with visitors. “With all the negative gun stories we see in newspapers, it’s nice to see people turning out and enjoying our sport, enjoying going hunting and buying and selling guns and that’s what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years. This is just a really good way to profile what we do safely, legally and everything else.”
A total of 160 vendors were on hand throughout the day, with folks able to purchase weapons on-site with a PAL (purchase and acquisition license). To that end, members of the Saskatchewan Firearms Office were on hand to answer any questions and help out with getting folks signed on.
Having so much vendor support was a major factor in the success of the show, said Park.
“They’ve been awesome,” he said. “They brought so much inventory and they’re ready to sell. They’ve been pretty busy all day so I imagine they have to be happy with what we have here… a lot of them are excited about coming back and hopefully we can build on this.”
One highlight of the show was a collaboration between the SSWA and Biathlon Saskatchewan that saw a special station set up with an electronic shooting range. Visitors young and old could try their hand at shooting a realistic biathlon rifle used by actual athletes to refine their skills.
“The rifle reacts the same and everything, and if you’re using it as a training aid, the coach can tell exactly where the shot hit, so they can say ‘you’re two clicks right’ and you can make the adjustment,” Park said. “It’s all pretty high tech and a really neat piece of equipment, as well as being a great way to initiate the public into shooting.”
With as much success the show had this time around, there’s still lots of room to make things even bigger and better, something Park is naturally all for.
“This is a big building so we can grow quite a bit more, fit in a lot more tables,” he said. “It’s mostly word of mouth, so if the vendors spread the word and say they were treated well in Moose Jaw and there was a good turnout, more might want to come next year… we’ll take everyone we can fit in.”
Folks interested in checking things out can also do so from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.
