In the community of Greenhill, just outside of Parrsboro, you will find Down by the Bay Archery. Tucked away on the Minas Basin, Dorothy Best has created an archery community that not only draws those from Cumberland County but pulls people from as far as northern New Brunswick and Cape Breton.
Opened in 2021, Down by the Bay Archery is a traditional archery club. This means the archers use longbows or recurve bows without any modern aids like stabilizers or mechanical releases.
As of March 2026, the club had 39 members, including 15 youth. Members come from as far as Amherst, Five Islands and the Springhill area.
“Over the last five years we’ve built up enough bows to provide people the chance to come out and try archery with us three times free of charge. And then once they join and get their Archery Nova Scotia number they can come to the tournaments with us. It is starting to really take off now,” says Dorothy.
To grow both membership and the local archery community, Dorothy does her best to keep the club accessible. All yearly memberships are under $30 and for those 10 and under membership is free. Dorothy also doesn’t charge anything for her coaching.
“I’m just trying to get the whole archery thing on the go and get people interested in it,” she says. “And the community is amazing. They support us wholeheartedly.”
That support includes a dedicated team of volunteers who help with fundraising for things like new targets, which they try to buy at least one of each year. It also comes in the form of all the people across the Maritimes who come out for the club’s two-day tournament in August.
“We have 80 some acres and we have two trails, there are usually 20 animal targets on each trail, and they’ll do one trail in the morning and one in the afternoon and then the next day they reverse it. We usually provide supper and we have BBQ for lunch, and they usually get their guitars out Saturday evening and sit around the campfire and play music and just reconnect,” says Dorothy. In the colder months the club moves inside and uses Parrsboro High School.
Dorothy only got into archery five years ago. She first tried horseback archery and then got the chance to use her horse bow at an indoor session where she got some practice in and pointers on her form. Then she and a friend heard about an archery tournament in Truro.
“We went down to see what it was all about and I was hooked right there. I came home and started going to the archery shoots and then I said, ‘we can do this,’ and I formed my own club. My husband and I cut out the trails and then we started having a two-day shoot.”
She also received help from her friends and neighbors when starting the club and says it’s only through the help of all their volunteers that they are able to keep growing.
Drawn to a sport that would allow her to spend more time in the woods, Dorothy found herself appreciating the focus and the concentration that archery demands. She also enjoys that with archery you are competing against yourself, constantly trying to improve your own score. She was also instantly taken with the community the sport provides.
“The group of archers that we first hooked up with were amazing. They were so friendly and helpful. They just bent over backwards to show new people how you’re supposed to do it all.”
Just a few years after getting started, Dorothy won gold at the 2023 national championships in PEI and then took home a bronze medal the next year. Dorothy also won gold in the Women’s 50+ Traditional category at the 2025 Canadian Outdoor 3D Championships at Lac La Biche, Alberta.
“I am 72 years old and it’s the first time that I flew [in an airplane]. That was an experience in itself and I caught a lot of laughs among my fellow archers,” says Dorothy.
On the first day of the competition Dorothy says she was a little nervous and didn’t perform as well as she would have liked, but by the second day she settled into her groove and had a great second and third day and was very pleased to get the gold.
“My goal five years ago was to just hit the target. It didn’t matter where, as long as I hit it,” laughs Dorothy, reflecting on her five-year journey.
And for those who want to try archery themselves, Dorothy says come on out to Down by the Bay Archery.
“There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you want to learn how to focus and concentrate and improve yourself, it’s a fantastic sport.”
