hi to you all.
im from wales in the UK. what is there to hunt with rifles(.223 and .308) around the moose jaw area.

also are you allowed sound mods on your rifles over there.

i will prob ask loads of questions over the next coming weeks as i might have the opportuninty of working over there. fingers crossed.

ta

remyltr

I lived in MooseJaw for awhile and still get there quite a bit. As a non-resident alien there's not much available to you without an outfitter, sad but true. Even coyotes in Sask. need a liscence if I'm not mistaken. You might dearly like gopher shooting with the 243 though. Alot of people use these little "varmints" for target practice and at least there aren't any restrictions on that.

the chef

As mentioned before, a non resident alien in Sask needs an outfitter to hunt game animals and then only in some parts of the province. Even as a Canadian and former Sask resident (Regina more or less), I can't hunt deer in some areas of the province, including the at family farm. Alberta has other options for a non resident alien, but you're about 3 hrs from the border in Moose Jaw.

Bird hunting is different. Last I looked, non residents couldn't hunt pheasant at all, but could hunt anything else on their own. Land access is generally a matter of asking politely. It is illegal for a landowner to request compensation in return for access. If you are interested in geese, send me a PM and I can get you pointed to some big time goose hunting in the area.

"Sound mods" will get you sent to jail. The population density in Sask. is a bit lower than you are used to and there is no need even if it were legal.

Cheers,
Dean

thanks for the info.
im just into shooting vermin than big game.vermin over here is fox,crow and rabbit,so anything that is a pest to the landowner i will spend all day plugging.
would be very interested in the offer of goose shooting if i manage to secure the job im after.

strange that sound mods are illegal,any reason why,may i ask.
is there a chance of me being able to e mail any of you two about moose jaw,as i dont want to mess up the thread on here

ta

ltr

I think this kind of conversation is best done in the forum. You never know who else might be interested in the info.

Sound mods over here are treated the same as so called silencers and the polis throw up at the thought of these in private hands! derf

can you tell me more about moose jaw as a town,like what its like to live there,shops,garages,supermarkets,pubs/bars,resturaunts.what are the local people like with strangers etc.any gun shops!!!
how much industry is there.what do people do for employment.
how much tax do you pay on your wages
cheers

Little industry, it's dependant on agrigulture a lot. Lots of truck drivers live there and work on the road elswhere. Not much to do, not much to see. If you like bird hunting it will be good to you. The people are going to be neighbourly and love to drink. There's not much else to do other than socialize and drink. One thing you'll learn to appreciate the sky. Prairie skys are like none other-huge and stretching from unbroken horizon to unbroken horizon. Go out in the country at night and look at the stars, you'll be blown away.

the chef

Helo;
I think you'll find it quite a change after overcrowded Britain, miles and miles of Nothing. A cop once told me its possible to clock speeding cars on the Trans Canada there, 10 miles away.
Grizz

thanks.i live in a quiet rual village and have always looked into moving further into the countryside over here to get away from the crowds.
crow and prairie dog shooting will be just fine with me.
ive checked out the house prices and they are so much cheaper than ours.
is there many shops there of any nature.i know there is one gun shop there.or most of peoples shopping done in regina(watch my car get robbed i believe)
is it worth me bringing my landrover over or suv's cheap enough.cant really find any mention of car dealers in MJ.
cheers

It might be worth bringing the landrover. My dad actually had one when we lived in MJ in the early 70's Rovers were hard to find and dad bought his from a priest of all people. Suv's here are worth around $60,000 Can so you can judge for yourself. There is almost no quality shopping in southern Sask. so not many interesting "shops"

the chef

Get your hunting licence and head North East to the Pasqua Hills. You can hunt Moose, Elk, White Tail & Mule Deer and Black Bear. But you can't hunt on a Sunday.

Hello;
Saskatchewan is an economically depressed area and the only province, where Natives outnumber whites, most of whom have left for Alberta. That's the reason Real Estate is so cheap there. The latest ploy by the Provincial government is to try and talk Alberta farmers into selling their high priced land and move to Saskatchewan, where they can buy several times as much for the same price. Unfortunatly, years and years of NDP governments have resulted in high taxes and the infrastructure has deteriorated severely, which negates the supposed advantages. They've even turned paved roads into gravel, because they are cheaper to maintain. Now, do you still want to move to Moose Jaw?

you paint a bad picture of the area.what do you mean by the high taxes?
so from what you are saying people are moving out of SK into ALB.i cant find many houses for sale over the net.
the average income for MJ is just a bit more than the national average,is this to encourage people again to move there??

thanks again for the info

the reason that a lot of people are moving to
alberta there is a big oil boom in nothern
alberta lots of mega projets in the oil patch
lots of money and jobs the shear size of the country is what amazes a lot of people from the
U.K.

I think the whole Sask. as an economic back water is way over blown. Taxes are high by Alberta standards and about average by Canadian standards. I'll bet a lot of cash they are really low by UK standards. The NDP are a left of centre party, but they made Sask. the first province in the counrty to have a balanced provincial budget (yes they beat Alberta to the punch) in the 90's after the general economic idiocy of the 80's. The provincial conservative party was forced to dissolve itself after forming a series of criminally corrupt governments in the 80's that destroyed its credibility and gave the province its first ever deficits. The economy is humming along and only a deal with the federal government has prevented Sask joining Alberta and Ontario as the only net losers in the federal tax redistribution system. This deal was made to help address some of the infrastructure issues noted above. The somewhat higher than national average income in Moose Lips is a reflection of a general shortage of labour in the West. Sask and BC are both feeling it and it is bad, almost critical in Alta. I know you can get $12-$14/hr flipping burgers in both Ft. McMurray and Calgary and would assume elsewhere as well. House framers in Calgary start at ~$30/hr and the best guys are making $90-$100/hr. 2 years ago contractors were charging ~$3/sq ft for framing a house. Today you'd need to be lucky to be charged less than $7/sq ft.

Secondary highways in Sask are being turned back into gravel. This is a long term problem. The Rural Municipalities (rural counties) are largely resposible for for maintaining them and have had a declining tax base for the last 80 odd years. The rural population of Sask. peaked in the 1920's and has been sliding ever since. Basically, ever more sophisticated farming technology (i.e. great bloody huge machines worth more than most houses in Sask) have steadily increased the amount of land one person can farm. Fewer individual farmers means fewer mechanics etc. and the downward population spiral begins. Added to this, grain handling companies have largley abandonned the old system of elevators in every town and built a few huge elevators to service entire regions. The rural highways are seeing greatly increased heavy traffic at a time of critically low tax bases. When I moved to Alberta from Regina, the thing I noticed immediately was the relitively low number of abandonned farms. It seems that Alberta's oil industry is geographically widespread enough to keep a lot of people in the countryside, not as farmers but as welders and roughnecks and the like. Abandonned farms are a good thing from my point of view. They are a good place to start looking for partridge and I find Alberta over crowded.

remyltr, if you are thinking of bringing a vehicle over, it sounds like you are planning to stay a while. If so, look at getting a Sask. driver's license, even if you don't strictly need one. When I was in Sask., all you needed for a resident's hunting license was a Sask. driver's license (and to pass a simple hunter's test). With a resident's license your hunting opportunities will go up exponentially. I can't help at all with the hunting test, but if you have similar documentation from the UK, it MAY be accepted. If not, the test isn't a big deal.

As mentioned above, you need a license to shoot coyotes unless you are a landowner (or are helping a landowner with a problem animal? Not completely sure about that) and there is a season. This is because coyotes (pronounced ky-yutes locally, definitely not ky-yoo-tees, except by possibly untrustworthy foreigners of doubtful morals) are considered a renewable resource and not strictly vermin. Selling your hides to some one with a trapper's lic., or getting one yourself gives you a chance to subsidize your shooting. For some reason, my uncle was selling coyote hides in Saskatoon for much higher prices than I've heard people were getting in southern Alta.

Cheers,
Dean

Editted because I just can't spell.

dean
thanks for the reply and all the much needed info.from your experience its not that bad of a place.
i should here in the next 24 hrs if the company has the permission to persue my application further to the point i could be around 6 weeks from getting my arse over there.
i will bring my landrover over but only when the wife has dealt with the house etc over here. ive got to get a container for all the furniture and toys so i might aswell shove two landys init aswell.
i will just go for the prarie dawgs 1st as im into long range pluggin.i will have to get my head around your firearm/game laws too.
cheers mate

Sask is a great place to live, will be even better when we defeat the NDP in next election. Have lived and hunted in the four western provinces. Welcome, I will be only a hour and a half drive from you. Would love to take you varmint hunting.

thanks for that unfortunatly you offering to take my husband killin varmints!! has not convinved me its the best place to live lol any other good things about sask or good ole moose lips! ?

how long have you been there?

was born and raised in Sask. Been other places and came back, been here now for 30 years.

Dear Mrs Remyltr,

Saskatchewan is a naturalist's paradise. It is the rattlesnake capital of Canada. They are found in the basement of just about every home.

The province is infested with muskrats so called because they don't smell good. They run around your house all night long, the moment you turn out the lights, and clatter in the dishes. But they are harmless.

There are lots or prairie dogs but in Saskatchewan the word prairie dog is a euphemism for what you in Britain call the Norway rat.

The most scenic place in Saskatchewan is Mount Saskatchewan which is almost a meter high except after a snow storm and then it can attain a hight of three meters. You are just as likely to get snow in the middle of July as at any other time.

The provincial bird is the vulture and the provincial mammal is the feral dog. The provincial flower is the poison ivy.

There is a huge proliferation of prison farms and lunatic asylums for the criminally insane. They are just about everywhere in the province but in particular they are clustered around the Moose Jaw area.

Enjoy

In southern Saskatchewan, when they find a tree more than a meter tall, they put a fence around it and call it a Provincial Park.
Grizz

To continue in this train of thought, Have you actually looked to see where Moose Jaw is? Yup, it is about 6 feet from the Moose's butt. A friend of mine who was in the Air Force told me he once spent a week in MJ one weekend and the highlight of the visit was a nonstop WC Fields radio program!
All kidding aside,at least on my part, I have a lot of relatives in Saskabush and they move away and then always return to it, so there must be some attraction.
Something to watch for is, if you buy farm type property, you WILL be on a well so take note of the ammount of water on hand AND the quality. I looked briefly at properties there and was somewhat attracted to the cheaper land and houses along side of Diefenbaker Lake.
Yup, there are many redeaming features to Saskabush! derf

quote:

Yup, there are many redeaming features to Saskabush! derf

Just compare house prices in Calgary.
Grizz

thanks for all that helpful info have now told him to sell all his guns and am making him take up deep sea fishing as i gather its such a popular sport round there!!!!???

quote:

Originally posted by remyltr:
thanks for all that helpful info have now told him to sell all his guns and am making him take up deep sea fishing as i gather its such a popular sport round there!!!!???

Heck, just wait till he finds out about the "deep sea fishing" opportunities in Saskatchewan! derf

Ted you forgot to mention, they would have to plug their sled dogs in at night, so they would start in the morning.

If they bring their own sled dogs from Britain they will have to get the plugs changed and get a converter.

Lots of good info here regarding the trees, muskrats etc but also a few errors.to get a Sask hunting liscense one needs a Sask Health Services card. The regulations specify a certain period of residency as well but the card opens the doors and I have never heard of them checking how long someone was really here.
Fox and coyotes are considered fur bearers and not varmints to explain why they are not available without a liscense to non residents.

As well as gophers, or ground squirrels there are rabbits, crows magpies etc that can be shot without a liscense. Once you establish residency then whitetail, mulie, moose, elk, pronghorn, coyotes, fox are all available.

Besides the agricultural service industry Moose Jaw is home to a Canadian Forces Base andhome to a NATO pilot training center.

Moose Jaw has recently built a spa using hot water from underground sources and a small casino. Not much for museums, etc but Regina is less than an hour away and has a few additional attractions as a symphony and a center of the arts that gets most shows that tour the larger centers as Calgary or Edmonton.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Gorsline:
If they bring their own sled dogs from Britain they will have to get the plugs changed and get a converter.

It's highly likely (so likely that I will bet on it) that their sled dogs are not equiped with a block heater. They'll have to be fitted with a locally purchased lower rad-hose heater, for example.

Frans

quote:

Originally posted by Murf:
a few errors.to get a Sask hunting liscense one needs a Sask Health Services card. The regulations specify a certain period of residency as well but the card opens the doors and I have never heard of them checking how long someone was really here.

Now that you say that my memory has improved. After 12 yrs I got the Health Services card confused witht the driver's lic. Thanks for clearing up my error.

Dean

quote:

Posted 12 June 2006 09:20
Ted you forgot to mention, they would have to plug their sled dogs in at night, so they would start in the morning.

Then of course, in summer, the temperatures get hot enough to make a Mexican swelter.
Grizz

If you are making a move to Sask. for an extended period of time you may be a "landed immigrant" sooner than you think and can then hunt as a resident there. You fellows from Sask. what is required for a res. qualification, a Sask. health card or something?

I would not bring your land rover. The steering wheel will be on the opposite side of those in N.America and it will be tuff enough for you to be driving on the opposite side without doing it in your rover. Depends on how long you are going to be in Sask. You can probaly get a decent car or truck for $10,000 or less and sell it when you go back accross the pond.

I am presently in Australlia. My wife is a teacher and is here on a teacger exchange for a year. We left our car and a couple trucks in Alberta and bought a toyota camery(steering wheel on the right side of the car) here for $9000 Au. Will sell it next Dec. before we go back home.

Hope you get to go to Canada and hope you get a chance to do some hunting in that wonderful game province of Sask.
\
Robin down under

hi all

sorry ive been away but ive been concentrating on preventing scamming sites.
im still awaiting a decision from the company to what is going on with my empolyment over there.they are sorting my work visa out so that takes a while!!
i think if it all goes to plan i will be staying in MJ for a while if not permanently.fingers x.
thanks for the info and i think i will sell my rifles because its a ball ache getting them over there with the red tape.
do you need a gun locker to store your firearms in???

Secure storage is what the law says. Some use a gun safe, others have a locker room and some use a cable system to secure the gun to a wall. Ammo must be stored seperately from the gun.

Contact the Firearms Center re. bringing your guns nto Canada. I know that hunters have an option to either get a temporary permit or apply for the same prmits Canadians get.
The newgov't ismaking noises re.dropping the registration of long arms but they will almost certainly keep regulations on importation.

PM me if you have additional questions as I live 40 miles from Moose Jaw.

hello;
Suggest you talk to Frans. He went through this and has experience with some of the frustrations that go with it.
grizz

thanks grizzly,ive had the info back from frans and im looking into it.

just had some feed back from my prospective employer and just awaiting the decision on my work permit from the Sask government.

ive got a medical after that and fingers crossed im over there!!!!

thanks

well its happening!!!!

all going well ive got my start date for work,so should be over there just before 8th jan 07.
my rifles are staying here in storage with the firearms dealer.he can export them over to me after ive sorted the paperwork out your side.i think the easier option.
my heads up me bum as loads to sort out this end.
so thanks again for your time and info and hope to touch base with atleast one of ya all

cheers

"...are you allowed sound mods on your rifles..." Nope. They're illegal in Canada. Sell 'em before you move here. There's lots of really good whitetail deer hunting in Sask. Plus coyotes and other game for the .223.
Wales will fit into the land area of Sask. Miles and miles of flat nothing is being polite. That will be the biggest culture shock. There's no jumping on a train and nipping down to Ontario in a few hours. The whole land area of GB will fit in Ontario alone. It's 1691 miles from Moose Jaw to Toronto, Ont.
Don't be selling your firearms too hastily though. You'll need Canadian permits to own them. Go here for info on that part.
http://www.cfc-ccaf.gc.ca/info_for-renseignement/factsheets/moving_e.asp

cheers sunray

plan is to get over there then sort the paperwork out in regina for exporting my rifles over.when i come back to the UK for a break in the summer then i will bring over the rifles.shame about the sound mod as its a cracking piece of kit and does wonders for the grouping.
saying that its also good for your hearing as no protection is needed even when its on the 308.
i take it im allowed a 308 and a 223 in canada.also got a semi auto 3 shot shotgun but probably sell the .22 semi ruger as wtf am i going to shoot with that!!!!