Raid the North Canadian Championships
Start … stop …. Start
Susan McKenzie / 19.09.2003
“No, no. Wait!� race organizers yelled from the shore. “We have to wait for the safety boats.�
Backpaddle, backpaddle, backpaddle.
After a few minutes (though it doubtless seemed longer to the racers), the safety boats arrived, the second countdown began and they were off.
This first paddle is the longest paddle of the race, 43-kilometres along the Temagami River, in the region of Ontario that calls itself Canada’s Near North. The fastest teams are expected to take about eight hours to do this section before making the transition to the first mountain bike leg. But that’s assuming Isabel doesn’t get in the way.
Early autumn up here means cooler days, and cold nights. The leaves are not yet turning - a red maple here or there, but it’s all mainly green, but when the wind blows, it’s no summer breeze. And the wind is expected to blow today.
Hurricane Isabel, which walloped the South-Eastern United States, is making her way to the Mattawa region. Though she’d been downgraded to a tropical storm, the heavy rain (up to 40 millimetres) and high winds being predicted could make this flatwater rather choppy and cold.
The morning started out ominous, with a thick sharp delineation of cloud in the sky - the razor’s edge that seemed to mark the start of the foul weather. Though the sky got brighter, the sun never came out and as the morning progressed the clouds grew heavier, and darker.
Teams will be eager to get off the water as quickly as possible and one team at least was more than prepared for a wet, blustery paddle. “We have a secret for the first paddle section,� confides Running Free’s John Yip. “We want to stay dry for as long as possible, so we’ve moved all our gear into one big dry bag. Then at the first TA we’ll pull out our dry packs and load our gear into them for the bike section."
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