Ice dragons race across Dows Lake
By Arianna Paquette
Ottawa played host to the Ice Dragon Boat Festival — the first of its kind in North America — on Feb 17-18. Rather than having participants paddle their way around Mooney’s Bay, the winter-themed version of the popular Dragon Boat races had teams propelling themselves across a 200-metre stretch of ice on Dows Lake.
Other Ice Dragon festivals, supported by the Ice Dragon Boat Federation, have been held in China, Mongolia and Hungary. But this one was a first for Ottawa.
Sixty teams signed up for the competition, which included three heats. The top teams in each division then raced for the event championship.
Warm weather on the competition weekend forced organizers to skip some planned heats and move directly to championship rounds.
Two Ottawa-based teams — the Galley Girls and The Valecraft Velocity — won the women’s and mixed competitions respectively.
Teams named Vermont Fire and U.S. Sculliwags spoke to the international attention drawn to the event.
The idea for the festival came from a trip that Dragon Boat Festival CEO John Brooman took to watch an ice race in Budapest. “When I came back to Ottawa, I talked about it with my staff, and we figured that integrating it with Winterlude would be the best way to go.”
He said that the reception for the ice event exceeded his expectations. After selling out the 30 team tickets in eight minutes, organizers decided to double the number of participating teams to 60.
There were entrants from all over Canada and the U.S. There were even inquiries from Australia.
The ice dragon boats are similar to regular dragon boats. According to the federation’s website, “The ice dragon boats are attached to a sled equipped with two sets of skate blades. The paddlers ‘row’ using ice sticks with rubber tips, which mimics the water rowing motion of dragon boating. The sleds are also equipped with standard steering and brake equipment.”
Ice dragon boating is the same as summer dragon boating: paddlers work in unison, in time with a boat-side drummer, while a steersperson guides the boats.
Teamwork is essential to dragon boating, as paddlers must sync up their rowing with each other in order to move the boat.
Real estate agent Michael Sulyha has been an avid paddler since starting up with the sport 12 years ago. This year, he was the team captain of the Frosted Flakes, a new team that, like most of the other participants, had never tried ice dragon boating.
Sulyha said the most surprising thing about dragon boating is the relationships and friendships participants make. “My paddlers are basically my family, and we travel together, compete together and have fun together.”
These strong relationships are what help a team reach success in competitions. “You can throw any number of people on a boat, from any background, and they’ll probably be able to go through the motions and work as a team, but unless you have those bonds and time together on the water — that’s where you’ll see great improvements,” declared Sulyha.
Ice dragon boating teams have about half the rowers of their warm weather counterparts, with only 10 paddlers, one steersperson and one drummer.
Matthew Robert, from 22 Dragons, a Montreal-based dragon boat club, helped organize the festival. He said that after conducting a test run with the sleds when they arrived, there were a few surprises about the differences between dragonboats and ice dragon boats.
“Obviously the biggest difference is that this boat is on skates. They’re also faster than we anticipated them to be, and when you stop paddling in an ice dragon boat, then you’ll be gliding for a longer amount of time,” explained Robert.
Brooman credited the Chinese Embassy, NCC, federal Department of Canadian Heritage, and Ottawa business consulting firm Donna Conna for supporting and funding the festival.