Shanna and I had the opportunity to watch the Provincial Canoe and Kayak Championship on Ramsey Lake this weekend. WOW. Who even knew paddling was a serious sport? I quickly became very intrigued after watching the first race. Bell Park was filled with so many young people and the canoes and kayaks were sprawled everywhere on the grass. When we got to the beach, we sat down to enjoy some races, and they were surprinsingly entertaining. There were 1, 2 and 4 person canoe and kayaks and war canoe races as well. The race distance ranged from 500m to 3km. The weather was holding up because it wasn't raining or too windy but it was still pretty cloudy and a bit chilly.
We had a chance to watch the older boys race in the war canoes and I was blown away by how fast they got going and how insync everyone was. The boat is not very large and 15 paddlers were crammed into it. It was amazing that they didn't tip and they were able to stay in their narrow, buoyed lane.
We also watched races with young girls in two person canoes. Instead of sitting, these girls had to kneel with one knee up. We could tell that this was a fairly hard task to master because several boats were struggling with their balance on the way to the starting line and two boats capsized during the race. We could tell they were begginers at this sort of race.
We did see a lot of very talented teams who looked like they had been training for years. It was great to learn about this sport I was so unaware of before this weekend.
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