Dragon boats buoy Cherry Festival
<p>The Drinkers of the Lake paddle their vessel in Flathead Lake during the dragon boat expo at the Flathead Cherry Festival on Sunday.</p>
POLSON — Dragon boats took the water in Flathead Lake yet again on Sunday, this time as an exposition at the annual Flathead Cherry Festival.
Among the teams participating in the expo were the Drinkers of the Lake, a Polson-based team made up of the Flathead Lakers environmental group and the Flathead Dragonflies out of Kalispell, among others.
Dragon boats are canoe-like boats that seat 22 people—20 paddlers, a helmsman, and a drummer. The paddlers paddle in synchronization to the beat of the drum. Generally, competition is held on a 500-meter course. A good time for a dragon boat crew to travel that distance is around 2 minutes and 25 seconds.
“We’re trying to get a whole bunch of people interested in the sport,” said Greg McCormick, team captain of the Drinkers of the Lake. The Drinkers competed locally last year in a race in Kalispell and will again this coming September.
The Flathead Lakers, the group with which the Drinkers are associated, are an environmental group primarily focused on keeping the water quality in Flathead Lake and its watershed as pristine as possible.
For some, like Doug Schmitt of the Flathead Dragonflies, the expo was another step toward getting a dragon boat race like the one held annually in Kalispell to Polson. Schmitt thinks that with the interest in the area, that could be achieved as soon as next summer.
Schmitt, a Polson resident, began racing with the Dragonflies this spring. He’s excited about the interest being generated in dragon boating in Polson.
“Several of my neighbors came out to watch today,” Schmitt said Sunday. Multiple spectators approached him after the Dragonflies’ expo and asked how they could form a team.
Linda Brownell of Polson was one of the spectators sitting lakeside to watch the dragon boaters.
“I’ve been trying to get down for the race in Kalispell and haven’t been able to,” Brownell said.
She and her husband, Bill, were some of several people on Sunday closely watching the paddlers. They had come to the lakeshore after seeing the event listed on the festival’s schedule.
“I love the different ages that participate and different experience levels that participate,” Brownell said.
She was right. The Drinkers of the Lake range from ages 24 to 80.