This 3D archer learned a new sport for the ancient skills
Ben Fleguel, a 15-year-old Anishnaabeg, is a 'natural' shooter — but he’s not in it for the medals
When Ben Fleguel first picked up a bow, it took him only three tries for the lethally sharp arrow to pierce the deer in front of him.
The deer, however, didn't feel much.
Fleguel had aimed for a foam target, part of a setup common to the burgeoning sport of 3D archery. Shooters like Fleguel, rather than aim for a circular bullseye, move around inanimate prey in a natural setting, mimicking a real-life showdown.
That first hit, recalled by 15-year-old Fleguel as eminently "satisfying," launched him into a near obsession. For the next year, he'd work with coach Rebecca Watts, honing his skills in a special range filled with three-dimensional bears, deer and other wild game.
Fleguel's natural talent impressed Watts, who's been shooting for over a decade. "You could tell right off that he was an amazing young man," Watts said, remembering their first class together.
Fleguel enters his first serious contest Tuesday, representing Team Ontario at the North American Indigenous Games in Toronto.
The young archer says he doesn't practise for trophies or glamour. Instead, he's preparing for hunting season this fall.
For Fleguel, who lives in a community where felling deer and moose often stocks freezers with winter meat, the thought of foregoing guns and snaring game the same way his ancestors did instills a sense of pride.
"It means a lot, carrying it on," he said. That's why he practises nearly every night after a full day of work.
Fleguel's interest in archery "really surprised us," said Aricka Fleguel, Ben's mother. "We're not a family of hunters."
Aricka bought her son a "compound" bow for Christmas that year — which incorporates pulleys and a sight — as opposed to the more traditional "recurve" bow, which Fleguel says is harder to use and has a shorter range.
Fleguel practised with other young people from Curve Lake, first learning just to hit the target. But motion defines 3D archery. Shooters essentially stalk their prey, winding through a forested path and circling the animal to find the best vantage point.
The kids at Curve Lake eventually figured out how to gauge their distance to the animal and adjust their aim accordingly. "They did good," said Watts, a seasoned 3D archer herself.
Watts was asked to teach archery at Curve Lake First Nation last year. She recalls an explosive response from the community: it seemed like everybody wanted a lesson, "from the small kids, to the teenagers, even the adults," she said.
"I like to think, the little ones, they're interested in getting back to their aboriginal roots."
Mom's proud, too. "They're practising a traditional skill and keeping that part of our culture alive," Aricka Fleguel said, adding that her son can now pass on his hunting prowess to his own kids.
"It inspires reconciliation."
The next step for the Fleguel family is finding a mentor to teach Ben how to prepare the animal he's killed.
"It's one thing to kill an animal, but it's a whole other thing to respect that animal and use all of its parts," his mother said.
Fleguel agrees. To him, archery is less a sport and more a fundamental part of his Anishnaabeg identity.
"It's been a part of everyone's history for a long time," said Fleguel. "For it to die out would be a shame."