Our History

Did you know the Cold Lake Fish and Game Club has a 50 Year History?

Formed back in the early 1970’s, the CFB Cold Lake Rod and Gun Club was a very active organization that was hosting annual fishing derbies, wild game dinners, award celebrations, archery events as well as conducting Hunter Education training and Firearm courses.   

One of the big draws for the club at the time, which also led to very high club membership, was the agreement with CFB Cold Lake for accessing Primrose Lake for recreation fishing. Club members were allowed access for fishing as long as you had an Active CFB Base Military member included in your fishing group. Soon after some conflicts between military and non-military club members occurred, the club was moved off of CFB Cold Lake and was renamed as Cold Lake District Sportsman’s Fish and Game Association.

Around that time, the club had purchased our current quarter section of  land located just west of the Base back gate. The range is located in an unpopulated area and the road used to be in good shape due to the gravel leases that were still in operation and the road had been maintained by the lease holders as well.
In addition, there was a Cedar sided club house that was built and power was run to the new structure. 

But in the early 90’s, the opportunity for fishing Primrose Lake was closed and over time the club numbers slowly dwindled away as did most of club executives. Soon after, the community events, fishing derbies, wild game dinners and awards night fell away and eventually became nonexistent.   

The shooting range, which was once isolated, slowly started to have houses built on surrounding properties and was eventually only operated as a non-restricted 500-yard range with only a limited number of shooting tables. As federal gun laws changed, fewer people joined the club and was only about 50 members strong.

In late 2000’s the club had some new energy and the range was able to secure funding from the city of Cold Lake to build proper shooting bays with tables (25, 75, 100 and 600 yards), and soon after the club was approved for restricted/non-restricted shooting range with the ability to host action shooting events. The club was also able to replace structure's that were destroyed by vandalism with the help from RONA Cold Lake, Home Hardware Cold Lake and Devon Energy.

The road had some minor repairs to make access a little better but since the legal ownership of the road was questioned, repairs were kept to the basic minimum. Memberships grew rapidly and the club built an archery shooting range on top of the property, which had a static range as well as a 3D walking trail established around 2015. Soon the club had enough members to host a wild game dinner, several ice fishing derbies as well as several successful archery competitions.