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Hashing by areas:
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Alberta
Updated
Alberta is a beautiful
part of the world (think Rocky Mountains) and has 3 million people, with
80% of them living in urban areas. The two big cities are Edmonton
(shopping mauls) and Calgary (cowboy tourist town). Both have good Hash
cultures with all the extras – full moon, kids and bike Hashes.
Calgary H3
was founded by a group of accountants, with Mike
‘Oombala’
Carr (ex Jakarta) the founding father. They first met on May 30, 1983 at
The Portuguese Society and attracted a pack of 15.
Stuart
‘On-In’
Crichton is the only regular Hasher left from the first run but he has
been overtaken in the run totals by ‘Dreary’
who is now approaching his 1100th run. King Shit
looks like being the second Calgary runner past the thousand mark.
Calgary have their share of good runners, including John Krusty
Malken who is a top class marathon runner.
The
weather can be a problem in the city. Calgary are proud of getting out
in all weathers –and have a -31degree run to their credit - but a grey,
rainy winter evening can get quite depressing. On the positive side the
rule that cars must stop for pedestrians is fiercely implemented (it
sometimes feels as if the whole of Calgary is a single great zebra
crossing) and hashers even approaching a road will find cars slamming on
the breaks to stop for them.
The local
beer is also good. When hashing in Calgary you should drink ‘Big Rock’
and this should be ordered as ‘a pint of traditional, please’.
There is a voluntary beer kitty for
those who want to drink after the run and car pools are arranged.
The Calgary Stampede Run
is one of the great annual Hash events.
Dogs seem to be something
of a problem in Calgary, and have caused endless debate at committee
meeting. For example a motion from ‘Whale
Wanker’ that
milestones should not be observed for dogs was carried. Indeed, while a
Hash should ‘have no rules’, Calgary have 6 relating just to dogs!
These include rule 4:
Any dog that bites will be banned!
All this, despite the fact that there is a separate dog Hash,
‘for dogs, their owners and their friends’.
On a less canine note,
Rocky Mountain H3 is also Calgary based and offers an
extra run in the summers ‘within a 90 minute drive of the city’.
It
was 1991 before Hashing started in Edmonton, with
EdmONtON H3.
They have a Canadian bloodline, being founded by John
‘Splash N Dash’
Cosco and Mike ‘Love Canal’
Rust, formally of
Vancouver H3.
They started with 11
people and since then the pack has grown to an average of 80, with 170
active members. The Red Dress Run is a big event and their website
boasts that ‘over 1500 Edmontonians have run
at least once’.
In 2002 Edmonton launched
an impressive, but eventually unsuccessful, bid to stage InterHash in
2006.
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Vancouver is the
commercial and cultural centre of the province. Anthony Ussher, a Brit
who leant his Hashing in Hong Kong, founded
Vancouver H3
in the mid-’80s. They run every Monday and there is a Howlers (Full
Moon) and a
Hugh Jorgen Memorial
Hash.
The latter deserves a
mention. It is men only, meeting monthly to offer
‘an adult alternative to the family oriented style of
other Vancouver Hashes.’
They gather at a strip bar, usually the famous
Number 5 Orange.
South Side
is an independent kennel who have the Thursday nightspot.
Victoria is located on the
southern tip of Vancouver Island (whereas Vancouver is Not on Vancouver
Island) and the
Victoria H3
is going strong with close to 400 runs under their belt.
Away from the city,
Comox Valley
have celebrated six years of occasional Hashing and by 2004 had reached
38 runs with Muff Checker doing 29 of these.
Lund
is
a holiday resort north of Vancouver and Ron
‘Nipple Detector’
Cochrane and Ann ‘Anniecockwilldo’
Snow hold occasional and popular Hashes here.
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Manitoba lies in the centre of the continent and
stretches from the USA to Hudson Bay. The province has a population of
just over a million people, with more than half of them living in
Winnipeg. However, the first two attempts at establishing a Winnipeg
Hash faded out and it is Thompson City
who can claim the oldest kennel in the province. They date to 1996, but
only run in the summer.
Winnipeg H3
finally got under way at the third attempt in 1998, when Denzil
‘TinMan’ Feinberg arrived from Cape Town H3 and Carmen ‘Cumming
Numb’ Lanoway from Munich H3. Even so only 3 turned up for the first
run, and that included the hares and founders.
Soon after that ‘Cumming Numb’ was posted back
to Germany but Winnipeg is now well established and claims (probably
inaccurately) to have staged the coldest Hash in the world with a run at
-46.
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The 'Edge of North America' as their tourist board
likes to describe it, is pretty remote and pretty wild. The The
population is 510,000 and increasing after long period of decline with
increased oil activity. There are two
Hashes; St Johns H3, founded in 1996 by David Stainless Steel
ex-Aberdeen, and the world's only snowshoe-only hash, the Avalon
Snowshoe Hash (ASSHash) founded in 2008 by Yeast Infection ex-Edmonton
H3. Both are based in St. John's (pop. 185,000 est. 2008).
Unfortunately, both hashes run/snowshoe on an on-demand basis only.
Check their Facebook groups.
With thanks to Yeast Infection
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Halifax H3
was founded in 1997 by Larry ‘Three Skins’ Clements and Bill
‘Gopher’ Polliz of Hogstown. They run occasionally at the call of
the GM |
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With 12 million people Ontario is the most populated
province in Canada and has two major cities, Toronto and Ottawa (okay
calling Ottawa a major city might be stretching a point).
Toronto has what is probably the most active and best
known Hash in Canada. The original group was
Hogan’s H3, founded by Duncan
‘Plunger’ Plastow and they had an all men policy. They were based
in, and named after, Hogan’s Pub which, being situated on the northern
suburbs of the city, gave easy access to countryside.
However in 1987 Duncan ‘Plunger’ Plastow
founded
Hogtown H3
and it was quickly obvious that most Canadians favoured a mixed Hash.
Hogan’s faded out and Hogtown went on to host Americas InterHash in
2005. They claim100 members, but their pack hovers around a relatively
modest 25-30 on any given week.
Oakville H3
offers a second Hash in the suburbs.
Ottawa H3
was founded in 1985 by Tony Egan (ex-Khartoum).
Elsewhere in the province
Sarnia H3, ’The
Chemical Waste Hash’, was founded in 1988 by Tom 'Scorecard”
Chesher (of Pattaya Hash) and Jerry 'Gypsy' Baljeu. Their first
effort was boosted by a large contingent from Detroit H3 and attracted
45 runners.
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Montreal H3
is a surprisingly young kennel, only being founded in 1996 by Ian ‘Dead
Animal’ Hepher, formerly of Madrid. They are an active group,
meeting every Sunday ‘we've run pretty much everywhere on the island
of Montreal and its surrounding areas.’
Runs often finish with a pool party or pig roast and
the Hash does a lot of community work including, but not limited to, the
annual Red Dress Run. At time of writing ‘Dead Animal’ was still
GM and was about to pass 400 runs. Two Harriets, ‘Foxy Lady’ and
‘Turkish Delight’ rank 2nd and 3rd with 300
plus runs.
A Quebec kennel was founded in 1991, claiming to
be the first French speaking Hash in the world.
L.A.F.F.T.E.R. H3 is
a second Quebec pack. They date from 2001 and only run in the
summer.
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Saskatchewan lies in the heart of the North American continent, it is
big, it is empty – less than a million people – and it is beautiful.
Hashing however is limited to the Toontown
H3. They are based in Saskatoon, the provinces biggest city
with a population of around 180,000 and were founded by ‘Mr.
Peeeenut’ of Edmonton. |
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There
is no Hashing in Northwest Territories, New Brunswick, Yukon, Prince
Edward Island or Nunavet, which covers a fair chunk of the world’s land
mass |
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