Alderville First Nation welcomes back its classic Regatta with new additions

Alderville is planning to hold the Alderville Regatta with a wide range of canoe, kayak and paddle board races as well as a marathon swim race on Aug. 3 at Vimy Ridge in Alderville. – Photo supplied

By Rick Garrick

ALDERVILLE – New paddle board and kayak races have been added to the Alderville Regatta’s classic gunwale, single, double, and war canoe races this year on Aug. 3 at Vimy Ridge in Alderville. The Alderville Regatta, which was last held in about 2018, will also include live music by Justin Cooper, children’s activities, and a canteen.

“We’ve never had the paddle board or the kayak, so this year is going to be pretty neat,” says Alderville Head Councillor Dawn Marie Kelly. “We’ve had the family practices since the end of June, every Wednesday. We had about 15 people…last Wednesday, and it’s really exciting because we have really young kids.”

Kelly says the Alderville Regatta includes men’s, women’s, mixed 16 and under, and over 50 single canoe races; men’s, women’s, mixed, and mixed 16 and under double canoe races; men’s, women’s, and youth mixed 16 and under war canoe races; men’s and women’s gunwale canoe races; mixed 16 and under and mixed 17 and over paddle board races; 16 and under and 17 and over kayak races; men’s, women’s, and mixed 16 and under marathon canoe races and a marathon swim.

“We put the age category at 16 and under because we have a whole pile of youth that are under 16,” Kelly says. “There’s been lots of capsizing over the years and this year, we have Barry Marsden, he’s been involved with the Regatta for years, and he’s going to be the spotter if someone capsizes and he’ll go and retrieve them.”

Kelly adds that the Alderville Regatta is open to anybody who is interested in participating, noting that years ago, groups of boaters would watch the races from further out on Rice Lake.

“There would be tons of passersby, they’d all float in the centre and watch the races from there,” Kelly says.

Chelsea Lloyd, a planning committee member for the Alderville Regatta, says the Regatta is an opportunity to spend time with her cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends who live in Alderville.

“I live off the territory so just getting to come back and connect with the community and participate in the races is really special,” Lloyd says. “[The Regatta] just sparked a life-long love of the canoe and the lake here on Rice Lake.”

Lloyd says she particularly loves the gunwale races.

“We stand on the gunwales and race that way,” Lloyd says. “I have won a few and got mostly seconds and thirds.”

Lloyd says the most competitive races are usually the men’s and women’s single races.

“[My mother] has won it a few times and my cousin Paige has won it and my sister Whitney,” Lloyd says. “But I’ve never won the women’s single, so that is always something I’ve strived for.”

Alderville Elder Wendy Crowe says she always enjoyed the gunwale and crab races at the Alderville Regatta.

“I always won the crab race,” Crowe says. “That’s where you put both your knees right up as far as you can into the front of your canoe. You’ve got to cross the (finish) line straight going forward, but if it’s windy then your canoe would turn around so it’s a challenge to get your canoe turned straight. My dad had a nice cedar-strip canoe and it was heavy enough that the wind didn’t blow it too much.”

Crowe recalls one gunwale race where she and the other racers underestimated an older competitor who was racing with curlers in her hair.

“The gun went off, we got on our gunwales and she was just gone,” Crowe says. “She just took it like nothing, there was about 10 of us in the race and I’ll never forget that, I’ll never underestimate anybody again.”

Former Alderville Chief Dave Mowat states in an e-mail message that the Anishinabek are a canoe people who have been plying the waters for millennia in dugout, birch and bass wood canoes.

“What we see at Rice Lake is a melding of old world shipwright techniques with local materials and historical designs — the cedar strip became hugely popular as an example,” Mowat states, noting that Rice Lake and Peterborough were the heart of canoe building in the 19th century. “When it came to the racing and the competition aspect of the canoe however, the Anishinabeg were separate from the recreational herd. Their skill was natural and so in early regattas they had to compete separate from their [non-Indigenous] counterparts, or race against each other, because it went without saying that they were in a class of their own.”

Mowat states that manomin (wild rice) was an important commodity in the Peterborough region and the trade was provided naturally by the Alderville and Hiawatha First Nations.

“The Peterborough Examiner would report annually on the crop and its condition, on its price and its abundance,” Mowat states. “In 1910, for instance, it reported on the festivities also surrounding the harvest, and at Sugar Island this involved picnics, baseball games, canoe races, and much feasting on ducks, black bass, and wild rice. The canoe was at the heart of it all, as a tool, a mode of transport, as a component of the traditional economy and the reason for the regatta.”

Mowat states that the Alderville Regatta, in the contemporary sense, probably had its roots in the early 1960s.

“(The late Elder) Glen Crowe was the best known advocate, promoter and paddler from the south side of Rice Lake and it was he who for decades stood behind its annual presentation,” Mowat states. “A volunteer and community booster unlike few others, Glen was also an excellent canoe racer, both sprint and marathon.”

Mowat adds that the Alderville Regatta was an important homecoming during the first week of August, long before Alderville’s first pow wow began in 1995.

“It was the Regatta in which our cousins and families from over the border would come home to race and visit and celebrate the history of the canoe,” Mowat states. “There would be barbecues and corn, and 50/50 and the grocery hamper draws, and planks set out on pop cartons for the attendees to sit and cheer the racers on.”