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Hi Everyone,
We just finished up 2 days of intensive therapy for the Kananaskis River with a great team of collaborators. And then I got to take it out for a test drive last night. I think we HIT IT OUT OF THE BALLPARK!!! Wow it was amazing how nice things were, and how much fun it was. The Kan is back.
Okay so there are some things that are not working perfectly yet. But for doing something in a very short time frame with no ability to test and reshape it, it is a pretty spectacular. The river is still flowing between 24 – 27 cms right now. Some of the rock will shift over the next week, so hopefully some of the things we worked on get better as the river makes it own adjustments. As we get to summer flows of 32 cms in mid-May, when Barrier Dam is operational again, the rapids will be different again.
I want to take a moment to tell you about our team.
Without the support of Lafarge Canada and the Alberta Disaster Recovery Program we could not have completed this project. Lafarge donated another 1000 tonnes of Class 4 rock that allowed us to rebuild many of the features on the Kananaskis River that had rolled away in the flood last year. Combined with the 1200 tonnes that we picked up in early April, we have been very fortunate to have such a generous corporate sponsor for this program. With all the heavy construction in Alberta going on this year, this rock is selling for over $100/tonne. Hats off to Michelle Gurney, Heinz Knopfel and John Boyt who squeezed us into Lafarge Exshaw quarry’s very busy schedule to get us our building blocks.
Alberta Disaster Recovery is providing the funding that we needed to transport the rock and to get it all put into the river and to rebuild the slalom gate system.
We had wonderful support from the team at Foran Construction who organized all the equipment and worked tirelessly with us to put the rocks just right. Big kudos to Don & John on the Excavators, our rally driver Lucas on the Rock Truck and Curtis and Mark who took special care of the team. Very professional and genuinely caring about making sure that we were able to complete this project for all of you.
TransAlta was able to give us another 2 days of water off time and I want to thank their folks for making this opportunity to get this public recreation infrastructure open for the 2014 whitewater season. Â
This week we had great support from our paddling community:
- Greg Buchanan organized the loading and shipping of rock and materials,
- Greg Hunter directed traffic and disassembled old gates and wires, Â
- Paul Manning-Hunter and the ASCK crew took down the training gates
- Patch Bennett took one Excavator up to the top on the 2nd day and tuned up Thunderbunny, Point Break and points in between.
- Neil Egsgard and the Alberta River Surfers tuned up the new Surfing wave
- David Ford (World Champion and 5 time Olympic kayaker) was on site both days and provided his extensive expertise in shaping the features and cleaning things up so that everything is more useable, faster, and more fun for everyone. David’s international experience from 5 Olympics and 25+ years racing at every whitewater course in the world was invaluable to us.
- And of course, Mark Taylor schemed and strategized with me on making this all happen. Mark rebuilt the lower teaching eddies below the race course and then worked on Green Tongue and the upper race course. His contribution to whitewater sport cannot be overstated and I want to thank Mark for his support for the vision of the Kananaskis Whitewater Centre over the past several years.
- I had the good fortune to work on the lower race course and then the middle race course, but without the input from David and Mark it would not have been nearly as good as it turned out to be.
We all need to thank the current Board and past Directors of the Alberta Whitewater Association, Alberta Parks and the Lower Kananaskis River Users Association for building and maintaining the whitewater paddling facilities on the Kananaskis River. There have been times in the past when their commitments have wavered and people questioned why invest time and money into the Kananaskis, when we have such wonderful natural rivers to paddle. But after last year’s flood destroyed the Kananaskis it reinforced how important this recreational infrastructure is to our paddling community.   Â
Thanks to everyone who is involved and contributing. We will be unable to get back into the river until the fall to correct any problems, but we plan on going back to make some adjustments and fine tune everything then. This summer the AWA has a team of people working on site to repair trails and rebuild the slalom gate system. If you see something that you think needs attention, please contact me or one of the Campground staff for assistance.
From the top side looking down and from water level, everything is reasonable safe – as safe as any Class III rapid can be. It appears to be suitable for rafts and all the nasties that were left after the early April construction were dealt with. But as with any whitewater river, there are many hazards that people need to be careful of:
1.      never paddle alone
2.      do not paddle beyond your personal limits without the support of experienced and trained companions,
3.      if in doubt – scout. If still worried – carry around
4.      swim defensively, feet up until you reach the eddy. Â
5.      watch out for underwater hazards and try your best to avoid the ones poking out of the water too J.
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The Canoe Meadows Group Campground opens this weekend for the 2014 season, I have a few weekends available this summer and most weekdays are available. To book the campground go to our website: Â http://www.albertawhitewater.ca/canoe-meadows-campground and then look under the calendar for the available dates. On weekdays you only need to book for 5 sites to use the facility. We hope to convert this over to individual camping for 2015.
If you are still reading this post, the AWA will be organizing a work party for May 9-10-11 to do the stuff by hand that we couldn’t do with the big machines. Camping is free for the weekend if you volunteer to help out. Bring a wheelbarrow and work gloves, a shovel or rake, chainsaw or wrenches and we will put you to work on fixing things up for the summer. I promise to give you a little time to paddle too.
I hope to see you on the river soon.
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Executive Director
Alberta Whitewater Association
Box 162, Lundbreck, AB
T0K 1H0
403-628-2336
Celebrating 5 decades of Whitewater Kayaking in Alberta
