The community of Bridgetown can be found nestled alongside the Annapolis River. It is there that you will find a club with a sign on its exterior that reads “Bridgetown Lawn Bowling Club – Home of Champions.”
And that statement is no exaggeration—for over 100 years, the Bridgetown Lawn Bowling Club has fostered decades of renowned talent, family history and connection that spreads beyond the town’s borders.
The club first existed on the front lawn of resident R.J. Messenger, cropping up sometime around 1919. It later moved to the property of a nearby neighbour before finding its home on Chipman Avenue when a small club house was built in 1942. Then, in 1977, with two government grants, a modern clubhouse was built around the old one and the greens were expanded.
“It’s a small club, the smallest in the province, but I like to think we’ve always punched above our weight,” says Jackie Foster, member of the Bridgetown Lawn Bowling Club and Canadian National Team member since 2011. “We don’t have the population necessarily to draw from that the other clubs in Nova Scotia do, yet we’ve seen success provincially, nationally and internationally. I like to think that our bowlers have put Bridgetown and Nova Scotia on the map.”
When it comes to measuring the club’s success, the Bridgetown men’s lawn bowling teams of 1973 and 1975 often come to mind. Both teams were inducted into the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame in 1983 for their Canadian Men’s Fours Champion wins, with the 1973 win marking the first time a Nova Scotian team had claimed the title.
The list of accomplishments from members of the Bridgetown Lawn Bowling Club is plentiful, including the 1992, 1993 and 1995 Canadian Men’s Singles Champion Mark Gilliand, the 2002 and 2004 Canadian Women’s Pairs Champions Annette Tidd and Debbie Foster and the 2015 and 2016 Canadian Junior Men’s Singles Champion Braeden Campbell.
But for Jackie and her sister Tammy Foster-Veinot, no club win is as special as the 2022 Canadian Women’s Fours Championship.
When they were kids Tammy and Jackie played at the club for a few years, mostly against the seniors while spending time with their mom Debbie Foster, who ran the junior program. But they were both heavily involved in aquatics at the time and eventually left lawn bowls.
That was until 2005 when they both returned to the sport in their 30s.
The sisters would go on to join their mom on the green once again in 2006, but this time as teammates. Together they would compete at many provincial championships and spend 15 years competing at the national level together, including the moment they captured the 2022 Canadian Women’s Fours Championship title in Ontario alongside their longtime family friend Lorraine Bezanson.
A little over a year afterwards Debbie passed away at 72, having competed at 39 Canadian Championships, winning five gold medals and 12 silver and bronze. She also represented Canda while competing in New Zealand and Northern Ireland as a member of the national team.
“My biggest career highlight, and I think Jackie and I would agree, is having the opportunity to play with our mom,” says Tammy.
But the sisters each have their own accomplishments as well. For Tammy, soon after she came back to lawn bowling, she started coaching.
“Because I came back to Bridgetown as a schoolteacher in 2008, I had the opportunity to bring kids to the green with me,” says Tammy. “I took a couple to youth nationals in Montreal when they were just twelve years old, and one of my bowlers, Braeden Campbell, won a bronze medal. He stuck with the sport and went on to be quite successful himself, earning a spot on Team Canada”
She also has had the opportunity to join the regional coaching network with Bowls Canda and through that attended the 2022 World Junior Championships in Ireland, working with two of Canada’s U25 athletes.
And with Jackie being a national team athlete for over ten years she has had the chance to attend multiple Asia Pacific Championships, World Bowls Championships and Commonwealth Games.
“Every opportunity you get to represent your country and wear the Maple Leaf is a privilege. But I would say a major highlight was my first Commonwealth Games in 2014 because it was the first time I competed at a multi-sport event and just the atmosphere of the athlete’s village, seeing the other athletes, and when we had downtime being able to go watch other sports and just be part of that. Definitely pretty special,” says Jackie.
But something that has recently brought the sisters a lot of pride is the success of the Bridgetown Lawn Bowling Club’s B3 (bowls, beverages and BBQ) event. This social bowls event originated in Regina in 2019 and with a Saint John club trying it out in 2025, Bridgetown decided to give it a go this summer. Starting in July, on Wednesday nights the club invited people to come out for a low-stakes opportunity to try lawn bowling.
“The comments we’ve heard from community members have been so positive- hearing the energy, laughter and music. Forty-two participants tried B3- that’s more than our membership. It’s just been a real positive boost for us,” says Tammy.
Right now, the club’s membership is hovering around 30 people, with members ranging from four juniors to a 90-year-old gentleman who comes from Falmouth once a week. But the sisters are confident in the club and the community it has created.
“A few years back, just before COVID, we were worried about keeping the doors open. But the community certainly supports us in various ways. And in return, we try to support local when we have visitors to our club, whether it’s through accommodations, through food that we pick up to supply at the club, that sort of thing. So, it’s a real community effort and I hope that we give back to the community just as much as it has supported us,” says Jackie.
For those who are looking to try the sport for the first time, they say come on out and allow the sport to surprise you.
“I think people have a perception perhaps about what it’s all about and that certainly changes when they try it. People have talked to us after and said, ‘gee, there’s a lot of strategy involved in this’ or ‘that’s harder than it looks,’” says Jackie.
Tammy adds that lawn bowling is a sport for life that can provide so many amazing opportunities. “Because it’s a smaller pool you may be able to rise more quickly and have an opportunity to travel, to be as fortunate as Jackie and I have. And it’s also a sport that they can come back to in 20 years like we did. And who knows, someday you might play with your grandchild.”
To learn more about the Bridgetown Lawn Bowling Club, you can visit the club’s Facebook page.
