After nearly four hours of paddling a canoe over 67.5 kilometres of roiling river and a treacherous stretch of rapids that toppled seven of the 17 boats that tried to pass through, Pat Turner and his paddling partner Mike Vincent had no time to lay off the accelerator as they approached the finish line buoy on Saturday.
Right down to the last stroke, they still had Trevor Robinson and Graham Smith breathing down their necks for bragging rights in the Northern Hardware Canoe Race.
Turner, the 2016 Alexander Mackenzie class champion, and Vincent, who teamed up with his wife Fiona to win the centennial Northern Hardware race in 2015, got what they were after, winning by less than a boat length in three hours 38 minutes 36 seconds, just one second ahead of the two Saskatoon paddlers.
The difference, according to Turner, was the decision of his 52-year-old partner to go wide into the Fraser current as they went through the confluence of the two rivers, where the current was just a bit faster than the path taken by Smith and Robinson.
“Mike reads the river as well as anyone and he was in the stern and kind of controls the strategy in the boat,” said Turner, 56. “The river was incredibly challenging. You make a mistake and you pay. If you go in the wrong spot and don’t know how to handle yourself you can go in the fast water, but it comes with a cost.
“Those guys (Robinson and Smith) are two of the top 10 paddlers in North America when they go and race. They have amazing skill and speed and they’re a little bit younger than us, too.”
Robinson, 45, in his first Prince George race since the 1992 marathon canoe nationals, was reminded how steep northern B.C. rivers can be. They don’t see rapids on the South Saskatchewan like they did Saturday on the Nechako on the Upper Whitemud section.
“It was a lot of fun coming down through the rapids, it’s a fantastic river and so beautiful,” said Robinson, “The hills as you’re coming down are absolutely amazing, a super-fun race to paddle. We kept hearing how easy the first rapids were and that you had to watch out for the second ones and I’m glad there were other boats there to tell us that those were the easy ones, but they were massive.”
Among the seven casualties of the Upper Whitemud, not far from the start at Isle Pierre, was the canoe containing Greg Blackburn (Turner’s winning paddling partner in 2016) and Bob Woodman. Until they capsized it was a three-boat race. They recovered quickly but could not catch up to the two lead boats and finished three minutes off the pace.
Smith, a former competitive kayaker and former world champion in outrigger canoe racing, did all he and Robinson could to try to leave Turner and Vincent behind but they did not have what it took to get into the clear.
“I think we always knew the likelihood was that we would come to the finish together so we just wanted to do what we could to make it hard for them and they just had a bit more speed and they were just a little better than us today,” said the 40-year-old Smith.
“We put on a couple of bursts in the second half after all the rapids and they stuck with us fairly easily. They were working hard but so were we and we couldn’t get a gap.”
Fiona Vincent of Regina and Edith MacHattie of Saskatoon won the women’s Alexander Mackenzie race, finishing fourth overall. They came into the rapids with a pack of paddlers and ended up taking on a lot of water but did not have to go swimming.
“I wasn’t sure about the rapids because I hadn’t even seen them before getting there and we were with some other boats and didn’t line up properly,” said MacHattie, 43, who sat in the stern. “We hit some big stuff we shouldn’t have hit and we just kept going.”
Tom Blackburn and Harry James topped the masters Mackenzie class, finishing fifth overall in 3:43:33. Maja Jacob and Christian Filbich won the mixed class in 4:04:03.
The husband-and-wife team of Jacqui and Kevin Pettersen had the fastest canoe on the Simon Fraser route, clocking 1:25:09. Craig Evanoff captured the standup paddle board class in 1:34:07. Evanoff did the race last year on his board and while there are no rapids on the shorter route, it’s still quite tricky remaining in a vertical position.
“The worst part on a paddle board is the wakes from the jet boats going by because they hit you sideways,” said Evanoff, one of five paddle boarders in the race. “It was a great race and a beautiful day. At least this year the wind was blowing downriver for the most part, except for the last little bit, and that helps a lot.”
Twenty-nine boats entered the 35km Simon Fraser race from
Miworth to Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park. Jerome Turan paddled solo in a kayak and posted the fastest overall time (1:22:19). Caledonia Nordic Ski Club coach Graeme Moore and his voyageur canoe crew of Bobby Kreitz, Aedan Miller, Brent and Euan Murray, Liam, Martin and Cory Williamson were third-quickest in the race from Miworth (1:27:08).
