YORKTON - There is something unique about dragon boat races.
The boats are awesome with their dragon head bows, and with 20 paddlers working in sync thanks to a rhythmic pounding of the team’s on-board drummer, they are striking as they cut through the water typically six teams per race.
The races might be most familiar in Saskatchewan because of the Regina Dragon Boat Festival at Wascana Park.
“Dragon boat racing began more than 2000 years ago on the banks of the life-sustaining rivers in the valleys of southern China as a fertility ritual thought to bring good luck to the coming crop season,” according to www.dragonboatevents.com
“Over the years a second story was introduced to give the festival a dual meaning. Legend has it that Qu Yuan, a great warrior and poet threw himself in the river Mi Lo, as a protest against the political corruption of the day. The people loved Qu Yuan very much and raced out in their fishing boats to the middle of the river in a vain attempt to save him. They beat on drums and splashed their oars in the water, trying to keep away the dragons that occupied the rivers.”
The site also suggests “dragon boat racing is now the fastest growing water sport in the world.”
But what happens in that part of the world where winter reigns for months and waterways are covered with ice?
Well, you put runners under a dragon boat, modify paddles with ends which grip the ice surface, and you keep on racing.
The winter format of dragon boat racing began in China, making its way to Eastern Europe, where it came to the attention of Ottawa’s John-Scott Brooman.
Brooman explained he went to Budapest in 2015 to see the ice races there.
“I had kind of a first look at it,” he said, adding he was quickly “thinking how we could bring it back to Ottawa.”
Two years later the BeaverTails Ottawa Ice Dragon Boat Festival and races were taking place on the historic Rideau Canal.
“We brought it to North America,” Brooman told Yorkton This Week in a recent interview, adding since then the annual event (outside of COVID and weather issues), has been at the forefront of growing the sport here.
“There are a number of events in China,” added Brooman, who said it had been the hope of the ice dragon boat to have the sport as a demonstration sport at the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022, but COVID ended that dream.
“I would say it’s still Mr. Luo’s dream,” said Brooman of a Winter Olympic berth, but whether it’s on the International Olympic Committee’s radar is unknown.
In the meantime the Ottawa event will host the second IIDBF World Club Crew Ice Dragon Boat Championships Feb. 9-10.
It is something of a comeback event this year, as COVID and in 2023 weather, has meant no racing since 2020.
While Brooman said ice dragon boat racing is a sport, in the case of the Ottawa event more than 70 per cent of participants and attendees are “from out of town, so it’s a huge tourism draw.”
Now back after four years Brooman said he is hoping for a good turn out to begin reestablishing the momentum the event and sport has per COVID.
In the west you can check out the sport at the Sylvan Lake Ice Dragon Boat Festival Feb. 16.
