As the temperatures drop, folks head to the community arena to play beloved winter sports such as curling.
The Wells Gray Curling Club holds matches every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening at 7 p.m., and are always looking for new curlers. No experience is necessary to join. For more information, email WGCurl@gmail.com or call WGCC president Kerry Miller at (250) 692-6043.
A bit of curling history
The sport has been in Canada for quite some time, originally brought over by the Scottish and played to pass the time during long winters. Over the years, friendly games would be played between neighbouring towns and eventually, regional and provincial competitions emerged.
The Montreal Curling Club was the first organized sporting club in Canada. Iron curling stones, shaped like tea kettles, were used in Montreal and the Ottawa Valley until mid-1900s. While the material isn’t used today, they can be seen all over the “country in trophy cases, as hog-line sentinels, as historical curios or even doorsteps at the local club,” according to Curling Canada.
With the creation of the railway, the sport of curling moved west and clubs were established in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in the late 1870s and 1880s. By the end of the nineteenth century, curling was brought to the British Columbia interior by Scottish miners. The first club was formed in Kaslo in 1895.
Fun fact
Did you know “hog-line” is a term used in Scottish agriculture? According to Curling Canada, a lamb before its first birthday was called a hog. Eventually, the term hog was used to describe a straggler, weakling or the most likely of the herd to picked off by prey. In curling, a stone that just barely made its way into the playing area was called a hog.
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