The Moose Mountain Wildlife Federation has consistently been a part of the community for the past 17 years and has supported wildlife throughout Saskatchewan.
“The event is pretty much sold out,” Jim Brown, president of the Moose Mountain Wildlife Federation, said of the fundraising supper held on Saturday, April 7. “We have a lot of new faces here this year too which is really nice.”
The Moose Mountain Wildlife Federation has over 300 members covering communities in and around Stoughton, Kisbey, Lampman, Arcola, Carlyle, and Manor.
“It’s a big community and we work really well together,” Brown added.
Some of the larger undertakings include this fundraiser as well as Archery Club, which runs two nights each week during the winter months.
“We have 90 youth that participate and we do our best to keep costs down for families; in turn the parents often volunteer back in some way to help us,” Brown explained. “Stoughton 4-H this year also brought 12 kids once a week as they were looking at getting into it and we already had the facility here for them to use.”
“We’re also currently raising money for land purchases. It seems every two years we have land offered to us and that’s land that can never be bulldozed or developed, it’s to be left the way it is.”
“The clubs across the province work well together, one club will have a project and everyone will put a little money in and it gets done. It works good.”
Other projects that the Moose Mountain Wildlife Federation has been completing includes archery in Stoughton school as of March.
“Equipment costs between $5,000 and $6,000 to set everything up; we’ve previously set it up in Carlyle and are open to doing it other places as well,” Brown stated. “Otherwise we’re maintaining our dock and parking lot at Alameda Dam. And we try to facilitate two days of fishing during free fishing weekends. We held one in March at Kenosee and 54 people came out to ice fish; then in the summer we try to get boats together for free fishing in July – we don’t always get to with other obligations that members might have – but we keep trying.”
Over the past 17 years the Moose Mountain Wildlife Federation has also contributed $179,000 to Habitat Trust – just over $10,000 a year.
“We wouldn’t be able to do what we do if it wasn’t for the sponsorship of businesses in this area. We have 130 that have donated to this event this evening and without them it would be pretty difficult to run,” Brown said with gratitude. “We’re also always looking for new members and active members – we meet the second Monday of every month other than July and August in Arcola.”
Membership, Brown says, has altered slightly in that a good part of the members are fisherman as opposed to hunters, which he attributes to the part the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation has played in taking over the administration of the Fish Hatchery at Fort Qu-Appelle.
“It all goes to a good cause, everyone here are volunteers, and all the money goes to wildlife or wildlife related programs. We’ve sponsored kids to go to camp: Estevan has an outdoor camp and there’s a Candle Lake camp. There are also $500 bursaries given out to five schools in our area – Stoughton, Arcola, Manor, Lampman, and Carlyle –to give back to the communities that support us.
Overall the night was a great success for the Wildlife Federation, but it also raised the largest 50/50 draw ever as the Moose Mountain Wildlife Federation’s portion is being donated to the Humboldt Broncos.
“Everybody knows someone related in some way to the accident and money won’t solve anything, but what else do you do?” Brown said.
Raised for the Broncos through the 50/50 was $1,392.
Guest speaker for the evening was Heath Dreger, President of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation. He spoke to projects at the provincial level which included the fish hatchery, a land management agreement, a game management plan, the Habitat Trust and their adopt an acre program, and discussion around the possible change to written permission to access private land.
