Well folks - it took a Dirty Old Man to resurrect the Fort McMurray Hash House Harriers after a long summer hiatus.  Somehow or other, one of the world's more northerly sets of mangy Hash Hounds stuck to their mutt quality breeding and skipped the prime hashing season (summer) in favor of waiting for a cool chill to return to the air before setting paw to trail in search of hare.

Anyway, Dirty Old Man had heard rumor of a goat trail somewhere out back of the old cemetery in Abasand, and having scouted the area last week, he saw fit to invite the hashers out this weekend for a spectacular, yet fear inducing, romp through the woods of the Horse River valley.  A half dozen well mannered purebred hashers showed up, yet dozens upon dozens of former hash mutts and mongrels stayed home to feast on their feces, as mutts and mongrels are prone to do... shame on you.

Fall colours were strong, and permeated our jaunt.  The trail was well marked, save for a tiny bit of confusion about arrows pointing "out" from the Hash Holds that nearly made a few of us miss going into the hash holds to begin with.  Dirty Old Man led us through fossil encrusted banks of limestone, and past the boiler and well from an ancient salt mine in his enduring efforts to educate us Hashers about the vast history of our region.  Then he took us up a goat path to the edge of the earth.  We tracked along the edge of the earth for a ways, being careful not to step over said edge, which was exactly half a step to the left.

And to top it all off, as a bit of a post-Hash Hash, Dirty Old Man led the pack a little ways into the woods and then told us to find our way out - any way except the one that we came: a lesson about how easy it is to get lost in the bushes... if anyone sees a lost hasher in that area in the near future, let us know please, cause we lost one of the virgins in there.

Post hash: the circle was conducted, our 2 virgins were "non-drinkers", plus we forgot any semblance of song sheets, so we gave them a hip-hip-hooray in the circle and then dismissed them unceremoniously.  Dirty Old Man was down-downed one half of a stubby beer for setting a fine and shiggy trail, and then finally, we just had to down-down Drippy Dick, as this was the first hash ever that we've seen Drippy not be the clear FRB (Front Running Bastard).  He was a down-right lazy hasher this time out, so whether for punishment or for congratulations and reinforcement of proper hasher comportment, he was down-downed to a weakly sung verse of "Fuck-a-Duck".

On-In: Brewbakers hosted four of the seven hashers for a post-run refreshment and socialization.

If ya wanna know more, you should a been there!

Much thanks and a few extra bacon flavoured doggy treats to Dirty Old Man for getting us off our mangy butts and out to a Hash run again!

On-On!

Cunning Linguist