What a great weekend, the clouds were rolling in with a few sprinkling of rain here and there but all and all it was one of the best Alcan I’ve been to in years. I say that not just because of the venue or that the woman’s crew I was on got 1st place in our heat and placed 13th out of 22th in the woman’s category. My 1st ever medal for woman’s to boot to, sad that we just missed taking part in the woman’s guts and glory a 2000 meter race (when you get a bunch of teams paddling against the clock and doing wild turns. The one year that my team at the time made it into it…I was 8 months along.. my goal is to take part in it one day)

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I know nothing is forever set in stone but the future of Vancouver’s Dragon Boating Community has been in the hands of the City Council for the last 10 years trying to get a permanent building on False Creek. But since the Olympics are just months away, it just seems like everything is about the Olympics. I do have to agree with Todd, that if we were award the Summer Olympics, we might not have this much of a problem. Its just annoying that a year long sport and with this weekend festival that racks in over $2.4 MILLION dollars. Let alone this is Canada’s/North America’s Largest Dragon Boat Festival with 9 boat per heats (races) be being shafted for a 32 day event. I don’t get?

Last year we had four paddling centers on the creek that housed dragon boats teams but this year one had to close down because of where it was located to the Olympic Village with that the festival they host will no longer running. Which is sad, its the only festival around here where, you can do barrel races, paddle blindfolded and race all in different style boats. I heard rumors since late last season on a forum I visit about the city wanting to relocate another paddling center (the main paddling center that we use for all the festivals/regattas) to elsewhere on the creek. Which is fine with me but not sure where they want to put this new paddling center is bothering me and a lot of others.

The City had two open houses showing plans of development of the area earlier in the year. Though I wasn’t able to make either of them because they were only open for a few hours both days. Oi! So I don’t know what’s going to happen.

False Creek has been a keen place for Dragon Boaters since Expo ’86, three years later in 1989 Vancouver held it’s 1st Dragon Boat Festival, years later in 1996 Vancouver was the first city to host a Worlds outside of Asia. With this year marking the 21st Dragon Boat Festival which also might be it’s last one . Which is sad because this is one of my favourite festivals to attend.

When I started off in this sport, this weekends race was basically the only Dragon Boat event out there with one or two regattas. But now since this sport has grown so much over the years. You can find a Dragon Boat event almost every other weekend and all over the planet. I may not be paddling on the creek this season but I do consider the creek to be my home away from home for the last 14 of my 15 years.

If you are in the area this weekend, please come down and sign the petition to keep Dragon Boating on the Creek. No where else in the Lowermainland that hold up to 9 boat heats, other venues can run 3-4 boat heats, 6 if lucky. So please help save this amazing sport!!!!

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