The roar of the dragon returns to the Harbour City, and that’s something worth roaring about.
The Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival is Friday through Sunday (July 8-10) at Maffeo Sutton Park downtown.
Dragon boating is a sport like no other and it’s so much more than a speedy splash in the sea. For some it’s also a celebration of survival, and that’s why participation matters so much. The boats in the survivors’ divisions are filled with women who have beaten breast cancer. Maybe they can win a dragon boat race for good measure, but win or lose, they’re taking a deserved victory lap while we watch from shore, inspired.
It’s impressive, too, to see 20 paddlers stay in sync for two and a half minutes, never slowing their pace, duelling with crews in adjacent lanes and finishing the 500-metre course seconds or even hundredths of seconds apart.
And while the women and men in these boats are paddling with a first-place finish in mind, sportsmanship invariably wins the day. The athletes in the platinum division, for example, will happily swap high-fives with competitors in an almost-as-precious-metal division.
This year is the 14th annual festival in Nanaimo and we’re lucky that keen, hard-working volunteers have established us as a can’t-miss stop on the dragon boat circuit. The organizing committee counts on us to be spectators, sponsors and supporters. In return, we get a huge tourism boost for our city and a fabulously vibrant weekend with fast-paced racing and poignant moments, and all for a good cause, benefiting the Nanaimo and District Hospital Foundation and Nanaimo Hospice and hopefully at the same time, raising breast cancer awareness.
The Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival proves dragons are real. Now hear them roar.
