Local archer extraordinaire, Emerie Watson, took home a bronze medal from the 2018 Canadian Archery Championships in Truro, Nova Scotia earlier this month (Aug. 5-12).
Watson, 17, won the hardware in the field championships event while competing in the compound-cadet women category. Contestants walk along a trail and fire at round targets as they move through the course.
“The weather was hot and very humid but despite that the shooting went really good the first few days,” says Watson.
She also competed in target championships in the same category, finishing a respectable fifth after two days of shooting.
For that event, Watson says the wind was throwing everyone off their game.
“It was bad conditions for shooting,” she points out, saying on one of the days a tent put up for the event blew away.
However, having competed at the last five national championships, Watson wasn’t as put off by the conditions and was able to laugh it off with the other contestants, who she has become close to over the years.
One such pal, Kristen Arsenault, who is from P.E.I., narrowly beat her out in the open shoot, a head-to-head contest.
Watson says the pair competed at the youth world championships in Argentina together, so the competition between them is always fun.
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Coming from a family of archers, pulling the bow string back is in the blood for Watson. Her sister Sydney competed at the national level and her father Scott is her coach.
“I remember I would sit at the range all the time with my toys and refused to shoot all the time, but then one day I just did,” she says, estimating she was about six years old at the time.
The sport has taken her many places since then. One of the most memorable was her time in Las Vegas at an archery festival last year.
“It’s this giant shoot and it’s really funny because people are just walking around the hotel with bows, they are in restaurants just holding their bows and arrows and I was thinking, ‘That’s kind of dangerous.’”
This year is a qualifying year for the next youth world championships in Spain, so she is currently trying to get good scores to ensure she gets to make the trip.
“It seem to be going well so far,” she says. “My next few shoots will determine it, which is Sunday of this week and provincials [in Prince George] in a couple of weeks.”