River Spirit Dragon Boat Team

Campbell River British Columbia

Our team’s number-one goal remains to raise breast cancer awareness through the non-profit society The Campbell River Dragon Boat Society. The whole team participates in many community events to increase the awareness of breast cancer and raise money for the cause. In addition to dragon boat festivals, our members participate in: Relay for Life, Run for the Cure, Cops for Cancer, Charity Golf, The Terry Fox Run, and many other local events.

Today team River Spirit has over forty female paddlers. Half are breast cancer survivors, the others are associate supporting members. At dragon boat festivals we try and compete in both the 'Women's Open' and the 'Breast Cancer' events.

River Spirit is not a 'for women only' club. In fact, our club couldn't run without the men who help us. They steer the dragon boat both at practices and in races, coach the team, trailer the boat to events and help in any way they can.

Our dragon boat is moored at the Fresh Water Marina in Campbell River. We meet in the parking lot just off Baikie Road. Our scheduled practice times are on Tuesday evenings from 4:30 to 7 pm, and Saturday mornings from 8:30 to 11 am. In the weeks leading up to a major festival we may paddle on Thursday evenings also. Our paddling season begins in early Spring and runs until late Fall.

On practice days we have two paddling sessions, each lasts one hour. The reason is for this is simple: we have over forty members and a dragon boat can only hold 20 paddlers, so we go out twice to make room for everyone. We don’t have two separate teams, each member lets our Captain know the practice time they prefer and she does her best to accommodate them.

Paddling a dragon boat can be a very relaxing, low-impact sport but it is often challenging. During practice, the team must often paddle up-river against strong currents, or against the tides entering Discovery Passage. The usual race distance at a Dragon Boat Festival is five-hundred metres, which our team can do in under two and a half minutes. During a festival a team will normally paddle four races, and throughout the paddling season, our team competes in all the major festivals held on Vancouver Island: Victoria, Nanaimo, Comox.

At this point you may be thinking, "I'd need to be ‘super fit’ to join the team and paddle in a race." You don’t. It requires commitment and a willingness to learn the technique, that’s all. For sure, we encourage all our members to keep in reasonable shape because doing so prevents injuries and promotes a feeling of well being. Most of our members do some type of personal training in the off season to supplement their paddling.

Our story began in March 2003 when a handful of Campbell River women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer had a vision. Having dealt with the ravages of chemotherapy and radiation, they were going to beat the odds and become survivors. With knowledge gleaned from Dr. Don McKenzie, they were determined to find a way to promote breast cancer awareness in Campbell River and starting a dragon boat team seemed like the right answer.
By May 24th, through major fundraising and incredible local generosity, River Spirit became proud owners of a Dragon Boat and trailer. Campbell River Fresh Water Marina provided free mooring for the boat (and does to this day), giving the team easy assess to the Campbell River estuary with its incredible beauty as a backdrop. It had all taken less than three months!