 The AWA sponsored a major rebuild of the Kananaskis River April 1-5. Our goals were to get the river back to where it was last year before the floods and to create a better whitewater facility that is faster, with more play features and teaching locations. We moved Green Tongue downstream, narrowed the river through the race course, added a lot of big rock and bounce to the river, moved the Notch downstream and rebuilt the Riverwalk so that it can handle more spectators in the future. We also worked with the Alberta River Surfers Association to install a new Surfers Wave.
A big thanks is due to all the people who contributed to making this happen.
Lafarge Canada donated 1100 tonnes of large size rock. Thank you Michelle Gurney, Heinz Knopfel, John Boyt for making this happen.
Inland Cement donated 250 blocks of concrete. Thank you Mark Southcote for your support.
Foran Equipment provided machines and staff for 6 days to move the materials and put everything in place. At times we had 6 excavators, 1 bulldozer, 1 loader and 3 rock trucks working in the river.
Tom Jacklin provided advice on our contracts and workplans.
Mike Holroyd and AJ Cole pulled down the slalom gates and wires so that the machines could work in the river.
Mike Mitrovic organized the materials in the parking lot and coordinated the delivery of rock and block to the various locations on the river where we were working.
AJ Cole ran up and down the river making sure deliveries were made to the right place and that we stayed in touch throughout the job.
Jeff Germaine took one Excavator up river and rebuilt Thunder Bunny, Lusk Creek eddies, and Point Break with a nice viewing platform for future events
Simon Coward spent a day rebuilding Santa Claus and Santa's Little Helper and dropping the new slalom post bases on the upper race course.
Neil Egsgard and the Alberta River Surfers took the night shift and built a new surfing wave structure below SLH.
Randy Clement supervised the hoes working on the takeout eddy and lower river trail.
Ken Coombes and Andy Volmerhaus helped with the lower river trail rebuilding on different days.
Mark Taylor and I planned out the project and then spent 4 days on site, rebuilding the Kananaskis Riverwalk, and supervised the entire project. Â Mark concentrated his time on the Upper Race Course and I took the lower race course and then we got to tweak each others work. Â
Many thanks to all those who contributed to this project.
I have not seen the river with the water full on yet so there are lots of questions about how our work will turn out. Please be careful as there are new features and rapids. The water should be on at 25 cms for the next several weeks and we hope to be able to get back into the river at the end of the month to correct any problems and to finish off the work that we started.
Have fun everyone and be safe out there.
Chuck Lee
