Number
The 'Another Birthday' Run of Jonners and Boomerang. How old are they? Well, last year on
run 831 it was Boomer
83rd birthday and Jonners was a no-show, but in 2021 at run 805 Jonners was there to
celebrate his 51st birthday. That makes this run
Boomerang's 84th and Jonners' 54th. Not only because Boomer is 30 years older than Jonner, and technically a generation older - that
being defined by the average period during which children are born, grow up and begin to have children -, but Boomerang has been using his birthday
as an excuse to set a hash and serve his brand of scotch, Whyte & Mackay since run 387. That run, according to the write-up, was well attended and
"No doubt Boomer's offer of free liquor and food had something to do with it.", or maybe it was because it was one of his farewell runs too. Then he came back
to setting run 448 in 2007. The first run that Jonners and Boomerang set on their mutual
birthdays was on "run 653 in 2015. Boomer's crowning achievement in birthdays was being the poster-hasher for how to
make a cake on a hasher's head on his 69th birthday. That
was on Dark Side 181 in 2009. On this run no such preparation and torments of the two birthday hasher
were done, thus escaping with no egg or beer in their hair. As to what actually went on I will leave the telling to the Hash Scribe. The few photos we have
are in with the write-up.
The Brydon Park 'Hash-past Mystery Photo' RunSome time in 1996 a hare set a run and then forgot about it, but there was evedence of it left in a monochrome photo of a bunch of hashers at a BC. It remains a mystery when the photo was taken, and where the photo was taken. The photo from the event was posted on the main page of our photos galleries with a question to hashers asking if anyone knew where the photo was taken. See the two response on the Photos page. All these years the building in the photo couldn't be found. Base on hasher response I was looking in the area of
McKenzie at Shelbourne.
Then, while looking for trail ideas I stumbled on a building that looked like the one in the photo, but in Royal Oak, a location far from the
previous suggestions. I thought that make a theme
for a run. I would set a run in that area with a stop at the mystery building, hoping that some of the
hashers who were on the original run also turn up on this run and the location would jog their memories.
Wet Taco agreed to help me set it. Hash Flash couldn't make it, but I got a photo of those who did turn up.
Richard the Turd is in both group photos. Dikkus was hashing in 1996, but was not in the older photo. Searching for
trails set in Royal Oak in the 1990's I find jsut
two; run 164, April 12, 1997, Squilchuk's Easter Run, and run 138, April 6, set by
Dikkus & Throbus. Dikkus swears that
the BC in the photo was not on his run, but then that makes CUS' 100% certainty that the photo was taken in 1996 an uncertainty.
Turd couldn't remember. The mystery remains a mystery, or maybe a certainty an uncertainty. We have a
write-up expertly scribed by Sir My Cocks A'Fallen. If you believe you know which run the older photo was taken send an email to
Contact Us
(Click here).
The Francis / King Park 'Just Another Hash In The Woods' RunLooking for my sun screen caused me to arrived a bit late, only to discover that most of the run was in the shade of larger trees. They were not moving very fast (the hashers not the trees), so I was easily able to catch-up, despite difficulty finding 'elevated' trail marks. Dikkus had decide not to risk using traditional flour on the ground, but was using chalk on posts, rocks, trees etc. In 2021 he was left paranoid by his encounter with a Capital Regional District bylaw officer ithreatening a $300 fine for each hasher running the trail without a permit (see the full story in my 2021 postponed 799 run comments). Back in 2021 I had researched this and an annual permit for a non-profit community group wanting to hold events in CRD parks appeared to be free, but maybe we would have to register as a legitimate (sober) 'non-profit'. Its seems easier just to dodge the law. The odds are in our favour that nothing bad will ever come of the hash running trails on CRD lands. We have set hashes in Francis / King park for about 27 years (in 1998 Squilchuk set run 188 there), and only in 2021 did we have an issue. While setting the BC for run 452 I had a close encounter with a CRD parks attendants while attempting to hide a sack of beer in the bushes. Not at all suspicious, but I also had just dropped a can which sprung a leak. It was spraying beer everywhere. The officer hadn't notice, so I quickly threw the can in a puddle. It floated, so I stepped on it to hide it from view. He turned towards me. I smiled and waved at him. Not really knowing what else to do, as if it was totally normal to be standing with one foot in a puddle wearing running shoes while holding a large heavy looking garbage bag. Nothing came of it. That hash went as almost-planned (best you can hope for). On this hash, including the hares there were 14 hashers (I am counting Just Benjamin, Slippery Dick's young son), and no CRD bylaw officers. Hash Scribe has written a good write-up and some photo captions have been cross-linked to text in the write-up - a new feature that I am still debugging. Photos came from both Hash Flashes.
The 'Daiquiri Day' Hash This gallery is a very small one as the Hash Flash was one of the hares,
and also in charge of providing the daiquiris at a strategic point on the trail. There are no photos of the daiquiris and only two photos of the
down-down, and our Hash Scribe took the day off, so the press on this is scant. 
We had 10 hashers show up, so at the daiquiri stop there were seconds, and maybe thirds
for all those who wanted more. I they had a punch to them. These were delicious, served in small plastic rather than the normal
glassware, and kept cold
in a thermos. A perfect refreshment for a hot July day.
Especially after another one of Yeasty's 'ambitious' trails. Most of us continued onto the
pub afterward to enjoy dinner and the nice weather on the patio. As is typical all mixed drinks served on a VH3 hash find a place of honour in our VH3 Hash Drinks web page where you can
find a Daiquiri Recipé
(click here) along with its history.
The Canada Day Hash This gallery took a long time to assemble photos given neither official Hash Flash made
it to this hash. I had almost forgotten what had happened, but fortunately our Hash Scribe captured the most important parts of the event.
What I do remember was it was a very short trail basically staying inside of Uplands Park. Unlike Blue Ball's 2017 live-hare hash run 693 this was dry and free of any shiggy or
apparent difficulty. I suspect true
trail was less then 3KM (we didn't work all that hard). The photos are from myself (Stroke) and Muck Sucker. I found his photos from July 1st
at the end of October in a Drop Box folder describing its content as 'Downloads' - he seemed
surprised that I hadn't noticed them.
The run started at the Cattle Point parking lot, '(near the porta potty)' -
perhaps a
portent of an event and charge describe in the write-up.
The BC was at the waters edge just under 180 meters from the start. Thus
the
BLAB had no problem finding the FRB at the BC. The following gallery has a new feature with a link
in the caption text back to a highlighted part of the scribes write-up. This way I can link the story found in the photos to
relevant part of the story that the scribe provides in his
text. I can also be a bit more lazy about how much text I put into the captions. This new feature can be found in the captions for Muck Sucker's down-down, and
Dikkus and Ice Breakers' shared punishment.
Malort -'Kick Yourself in the Balls' Hash
This was a windy but sunny day run with the added benefit of trying a liquor, new to me, named Malört. I had to look it up and everything I read indicated that it has a bleak favour. A punishment rather than a pleasure.
Malört (literally moth herb) is the Swedish word for wormwood, which is the key ingredient in a bäsk, a bitter-flavored type of Swedish brännvin.
Brännvin is a Swedish liquor distilled from potatoes, grain, or wood cellulose. What makes Malört taste so terrible might be the evolved
ability of our palate to avoid the consumption of things that are poisonous to us. It is high in thujone, which is found in the oil of wormwood that
excites the central nervous system and can cause seizures and other adverse effect. Other drinks that contain wormwood are
Artemisia absinthe and vermouth. I suspect (hope) that the government authorities regulating food and drugs are not allowing the level of thujone in these drinks
to go above the danger level - likely the alcohol content is more dangerous to human health. In any case it retained its 'warning flavour'. I think
I was the odd one out as I didn't mind the flavour, finding it interesting. Malört tasted to me like old socks, and I later found a humourus description that
supporting my assessment; “It’s like if shame and regret were left to ferment before being distilled through an old, sweaty shoe.” - Nora Rose Allen.
This was a windy but sunny day run with the added benefit of trying a liquor, new to me, named Malört. I had to look it up and everything I read indicated that it has a bleak favour. A punishment rather than a pleasure.
Malört (literally moth herb) is the Swedish word for wormwood, which is the key ingredient in a bäsk, a bitter-flavored type of Swedish brännvin.
Brännvin is a Swedish liquor distilled from potatoes, grain, or wood cellulose. What makes Malört taste so terrible might be the evolved
ability of our palate to avoid the consumption of things that are poisonous to us. It is high in thujone, which is found in the oil of wormwood that
excites the central nervous system and can cause seizures and other adverse effect. Other drinks that contain wormwood are
Artemisia absinthe and vermouth. I suspect (hope) that the government authorities regulating food and drugs are not allowing the level of thujone in these drinks
to go above the danger level - likely the alcohol content is more dangerous to human health. In any case it retained its 'warning flavour'. I think
I was the odd one out as I didn't mind the flavour, finding it interesting. Malört tasted to me like old socks, and I later found a humourus description that
supporting my assessment; “It’s like if shame and regret were left to ferment before being distilled through an old, sweaty shoe.” - Nora Rose Allen.
Mill Hill Regional Park HashHaving done a bit of scouting of this area a week or two earlier the hares kind of sooped me, so I had to be at this run too see how these hares made use of the area. I did the walking trail so missed most of the adventure, so the day after the run, and before the trail marks had faded away, been eaten, or been scuffed out I came back to the start and followed the running trail. Going to all that trouble I tooks some 45 photos as I went. Yeast Infection had his phone GPS track where he went while setting the trail, and
had sent me the data from the phone. I then combined that with
my photos that I took of the trail made the following day, and then figured out how to combine a mapping of Yeasty's tracking
data and the photos. Click the image in this comment to see the results. There are 6 sub-galleries off the photo
icons on the map gallery. There are also many links off the map gallery captions including some historical images and two video on
the Pacific Fleet Dive School, and Cole Island. Of course it was a dry sunny day, and those who missed the run missed the fun,
and some interesting terrain, and a dead deer. The deer was probably killed by a cougar only
meters away from an elementary school. Either that or children are more vicious than I remember when I was a kid.
In any case we also have a great write-up by our Hash Scribe, the 'official' photos by our Hash Flash who was also with the walkers, and an
interactive Google Map with the hares orginal trail recorded as he set it - show perhaps what parts of the trail the
runners missed.
The 1st GM's Kilted HashMissing this run - a replacement for the annual Tutu / Black Dress / Red Dress Runs, as all these were improper/undesirable - I looked forward to the photos and the write-up. I wished to live vicariously through the photographers' lenses and the text from our Hash Scribe. This run was scribed by Oh Candida, since our regular Hash Scribe was unable to attend. While waiting for the reports from the trail, the next day I tried to run it on my own,
but it took
so long for me to find the trail marks, especially around the Crystal Pool, I had to give up 2KM into the trail (having run much more than
that to find the trail). Also, my lame right leg was about to give up on me. I now have photos from 4 hashers (Oh Candida,
Goes Down Well, Beaver Fever, and Deep Shit), and it took over a month for them to all come to me, but that was ok as it gave me an excuse
to do other things. Oh Candida followed the Scribe's habit of getting the write-up to me well before I had any photos to go with it,
other than her own photos. Through the photos I learned that both Dikkus and Richard the Turn enjoyed running in matching school girl
skirts, but it turns out that others had their own skirts (but not matching school-girl skirts). An eye opener, but the hash embraces
differences (or should) and guys can wear matching skirts these days 
The Scribe has done a fulsome report of the event; however, she did not mention that
supporting a charity is one of the key reasons to have these runs, since 2008. Click on the Victoria Hike for Hospice logo to go to
our Red Dress run history page, and click the 'Sort Year in Descending Order' button. Yes,
this year's charity was the Victoria Hospice, and we collected
a modest $200 for it. Maybe next year we will join the 'skirt twins' and have our 1st Annual Skirt Run. One of a trend
of many odd 1st annuals (4 so far).
The May Day Hash
The hares originally warned me of potential rain, but Victoria (our Camelot),
Victoria, that's howconditions are. The rain may never fall till after sundown.
By eight, the morning fog must disappear. In short, there's simply not, a more congenial spot, for happily-ever-aftering than here in Victoria!
Our Hash Scribe, in his excellent write-up, comments on the morning clearing of the weather, and he added at least two new
words (dingleberries, and chicanery) to our vocabulary of 27,341 terms, indexed in 4,226 files.
I actually had too look up 'dingleberries',
and included a link to the definition in the write-up (hint, it's not what you normally want in your beard). The hares thought this was
the second May Day run that they have set, but the first was
May 3, 2009, run 483, and the second May Day hash was actually on May 1st, 2010, run 509
.
Stoolie Andrews was tied to the May Pole in 2009, and so volunteered (or was suggested) that he could be the 'virgin' (well, ok, 'May
Queen
King') of the 2023 May pole.
The Matheson Lake Spring Flower HashI missed this run so haven't a lot to say. Originally this was going to be the 'Return to the Scene of the Crime Hash' alluding to the 2022 March 26 run 819 when the last of our home brew was stollen from Boomerangs car. Ironically I found one of those stolen silver bullet cans (click here to see it) only a few day from the anniversary of the theft. Due to some challenges getting to the orginal starting location, the start had to be moved, and the theme of the run changed for crime to 'spring flowers'. Missing this run also meant that I missed tasting Boomerangs homemade plum brandy. Maybe he'll bring me a taste of it to the next hash.
The Easter Routeshuffle HashI told Wet Taco (my co-hare) that it has never rained on any of the runs I have set. I think he said, with a smile. "There's always a first time." It didn't rain. I designed the trail using two criteria; A) It had to be near Wet Taco's place (just because), and B) It had to be lazy, so I used a computer application to give me a trail (almost). I used Routeshuffle (click here).
Later we realized it landed on Easter weekend.
We now needed Easter Eggs. Wet Taco got those, and the beer, and we decide the Easter Eggs had to be the hounds' reward at
the BC. It chilled off by the time the rabble made it to the BC, so we did religion there. A
search of
the VH3 website for the word Easter only finds it in 67 web pages out of 4,214
.
The last VH3 Easter run was in 2021, run 795, The Fool on
the Hill (or Easter) Run
. We had 24
hashers make it to the on-afters. I had planned with Turkish Delight (who bowed out of doing the trail) to hang out at
Browns Socialhouse
,
watching Broken Thong's luggage (from Montreal HHH). Broken had to split right after the run. Browns has sofa's and a
fire to sit by, and, as Browns doesn't do reservation, Turkish could warn the staff to prepare for 15'ish (so I under counted)
hashers. We got their largest table for 14, then two more tables for 4 (hashers just kept turning up!). The run had 25 hashers on it.
A run on a resurrection weekend, with just one less hasher than the Peach Pit Memorial run a month earlier (seems like bookends). At least
one hasher who had planned to come didn't. I hope all is well with him.
There were 15 hasher
on this rural run. Notable was Hooter Shooter, returning from an overseas journey from lands where the water spirals backwards.
She also had to drive in from Sooke (almost as bad). Well, ok, Shigella comes all the way from Salt Spring, so that's amazing! Oh,
and it was her 100th VH3 run. Hooter will soon be helping Boomerang hare run 848, 'way out in soon in Sooke', so we shouldn't
razz her too much, or she might get us all loss - a very long YBF up a steep hill. We were an enthusiastic group, and the trail was
sufficiently devious to have the runner passing the walker more than a couple time. It was fairly mild, in a 'Pineapple Express" way, but it
didn't rain. I still had something up against a nerve in my right leg, but being bored of being a walker, I decided to run the trail.
I had to recover the next day. Later I ran the trail I was going to set after this one, and then came clean with my physiotherapist. He
rightly told me I should be building up to '20 minutes', and no more (let alone double that time). We have photos and an excellent write-up,
with evidence that I was walking some of it.
The Peach Pit Memorial Hash Peach Pit would have been impressed by the turnout,
if dogs can be impressed like we humans can. She might have just been a bit bewildered: '
What are all these pig people doing here.
How am I going to get a good sniff of them all. So much work!
' We had 26 hashers and some hounds show up. Last time
we came close to that number it was
in late August on Salt Spring Island
. When it was a lot warmer, and there was birthday
cake. I enjoyed this run, and it wasn't that wet and mudy (for a Blue Balls run). It was truly a Blue Balls run with a guarantee of
'wet' and muddy feet, unless you were me, and had the excuse of having not 'read the memo' (so to speak)
That's if you followed
the trail as intended. I missed the warnings and forgot to bring a set of dry shoes and socks. I wasn't alone. A group of
us took a leisurely, mud and water free, shortcut. After some time, we thought the runners had gotten loss, the various parties -
the wet runners, the wet walker, and the dry walkers all come together for the BC and religion. It was about time for Just Brittany to have
gotten named, and for having taken the 'Eagle' route and needing assistance to crawl up a shiggyful hill, she was named "Root Grabber".
Click on her photo and you'll see what happens after some namings. When hashers have just too much flour near by.
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| Goes Down Well & Hot Nuts |
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The 'Setsubun --Japanese Spring Festival ' Run
Setsubun was February the 3td, but the 11th was the closest hash date to it. The hares put some planning into this event. They even found some roasted soybeans to perform the ritual mamemaki ('bean scattering') where the beans are thrown at someone wearing an oni (demon or ogre) mask while shouting, 'Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!'
('Devils out! Fortune in!'). This was done at Pioneer Square Park next to Christ Church Cathedral, the home of the Bishop of BC's Anglican Diocese.
If the hares hadn't brought there own oni I would have though this choice of location for scaring away demons to be an interesting choice. However, the hares
had organized three hasher to be red, blue, and yellow oni. Prosucker was the yellow oni, but looked a lot more like a giant Pokémon Pikachu. We did
this tossing of beans at the beginning of the hash, but not at the start of the run/walk. The real start came at the end of a
short walk to Beacon Hill Park
.
Earlier in the week there was some concern that the soybeans would be dangerous to birds, but Goes Down Well found beans that were 'bird friendly', while maintain
their special properties of being demon unfriendly. Along with the beans there were appropriate Japanese snacks and treats at a special stop at
Ogden Point Pier
. There we has a lottery to choose who would get to perform another practice of
eating ehō-maki, a 'lucky direction roll', like a futomaki roll, but with eight ingredients (8 being a lucky number) while facing in the direction of the year
of the Rabbit's lucky compass direction - based on Chinese astrology the auspicious directions of the Year
of the Rabbit will be the north, south and southwest. We ate a shared roll facing southish. We had a visiting hasher of the Kabul HHH by the name of
Chocolate Starfish. The weather behaved itself. So did the hashers - no demons or birds were harmed making this hash.
The 30th Annual Robbie Burns Day Hash
Darn it I missed this hash. I was in San Jose for the weekend, at something I couldn't avoid. It seems to have had a good number of hashers out for this event. I discovered via the grape vine there were 32 of them, mostly wearing something in tartan or plaid. All there for the wee dram of good scotch used to toast the birth of a great poet, January 25th, 1759. I am sure they read a poem or two, and at the on-afters maybe did-in a haggis and pehaps did there best to mangle Burn's Address To A Haggis . My first scotch was a the age of 14 at a Robbie Burns day supper along with a appetizer of banock. I learned from the readme that Just Seamus had the honour of being the first hasher this year to be named. He will forever be known on the has as "Shitsqueak". On reading that in the write-up my first thought was that he and Wet Taco should set a run together.
The 'Lexi 'ooker' Run I didn't see
much of what the runners saw, but true to this being a Hardhooker run some of them found one or more
hooks,
and there was a YBF as well.
It was a lovely spring day, even though it was January, and colder weather and snow was to come. We have photos from our two Hash Flashes,
and some that I took (the Webmeister), and of course an excellent write-up from our Scribe. If he isn't too careful he might get himself
reelected next year!
The 28th Annual New Years Day Run/Walk and Polar Bear Swim
Yes, there has been 28 runs on New Year's Day, of which 11 Muck Sucker has set. See the new 'Victoria Hash House Harrier New Years Day Runs' list page (click here) with a sortable list of New Year's Day runs and their Hares . We had a New Years run in 2022, but there wasn't a polar bear swim, it was very snowy, and there was no potluck on-afters. This year it was back to tradition except only Garry Glitter (A.K.A. Homer) did the polar bear dip in the cold ocean.
Glitter (when he was Homer) and Slow Cooker are the runners-up for having set the most New Year's Day Runs having set 5 of
them, so perhaps tradition was that important to him (crazzy guy!). We have photographic evidence too - of his lone dip in the ocean,
as if that is enought to attest to his insanity, or bravery. At least the weather was very mild for a New Year's Day run.
The
last polar bear run was in 2020
and then we had about 11 polar bears. One this hash the Hare 'autohashed', and meeting the walkers at the BC admitted that he
was thinking that the trail was maybe too ambitious. He then wandered off to find the runners and short-cut them reducing
their run by maybe more than a KM. We had 17 runners and walkers, including the hares. A gallery of photos and a write-up
are being edited and published and will be linked in soon.