Paddle Palooza: Cancer survivors paddle for health and healing

When Nan Condit first began paddling dragon boats and a solo outrigger canoe as part of her path to breast cancer recovery, she had no idea her passion would eventually morph into last weekend’s Paddle Palooza.

The gathering, held July 11-14 at the Polson Fairgrounds and the Montana Canoe Club in Big Arm, attracted top paddlers from around the world. It was organized by the Silver Lining Sisterhood, a Missoula-based group of “sisters” that began meeting in 2015 to support each other in the aftermath of breast cancer treatment.

According to the group’s website, www.silverliningmt.org, “We were brought together by the common experience of being in the trenches and trying to decipher how to move forward after the ‘battle’ – post-surgery, post-chemo, post-radiation, post-the life that we used to know.”

The group has grown to more than 350 members on its closed Facebook group, Silver Lining Support Group, and became a 501c3 non-profit organization in 2017, in order to help support and promote its mission.

Condit, president of the organization, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 and finished treatment in 2014. She was an athletic trainer for 15 years and earned a master’s degree in exercise physiology.

“Our big push is exercise as medicine,” she says. “That’s our mantra.”

She says exercise has been shown to reduce risk of breast cancer recurrence by up to 50%, and the upper body motion involved in paddling has proven especially beneficial.

It’s also a source of joy, inspiration and camaraderie, as evidenced by the Paddle Palooza.

Festivities kicked off at 6 p.m. Thursday with an opening ceremony at the fairgrounds that included members of a Pacific Islander club in Missoula, a Salish drum group, and a talk by 19-year-old tribal member Snpaqsin Morigeau about the tradition of canoes in both Native American and Polynesian cultures.

After asking permission to be on Salish and Kootenai lands and water, participants carried canoes over heads to the river, and then circled around the drummers while holding hands. The celebration, says Contin, “is all about bringing people together.”

Friday brought 500m and 1,000m sprint races to the Flathead River. Joey Alvarez, director of ARE Outrigger World, arrived with several matahinas, and paddlers preparing for the upcoming world sprints in Hawaii put the sleek vessels through their paces.

Hawaiian elder Kimokeo Kapahulehua from Maui was part of Saturday’s festivities, which began at sunrise with a 30-mile voyage from Big Arm to Lakeside and back. Kapahulehua had gifted Silver Linings with a fleet of six Tahitian-style outrigger canoes, which facilitate longer travels and are better able to navigate the sometimes-tempestuous waters of Flathead Lake.

On Sunday morning, a group of 12 paddlers gathered at the Montana Canoe Club for instruction on both solo outriggers and six-person crafts. The clinic was taught by one of Tahiti’s most celebrated athletes, Lewis Laughlin. He arrived in Polson after having carried the Olympic Torch during the 31st stage of the ceremonial relay that concludes at opening ceremonies July 26 in Paris.

The first Paddle Palooza was held in 2020, when Contin recruited 10 of her Silver Lining sisters to take turns paddling her little solo outrigger named Delilah from Polson to Somers. The only prerequisite was to be able to recover from a huli (a canoe flip), and climb back into the boat.

This year’s 30-mile voyage drew around 160 paddlers who took the six-person and one-person outriggers to Angel Point near Lakeside and back to Big Arm.

Contin originally met “uncle,” as she calls Kimokeo, in Hawaii when she paddled her first six-person outrigger canoe (OC-6). He told her then she would start a canoe club in Montana.

“At first, I thought he was crazy,” she recalls. But she remembered seeing outrigger canoes for sale in Kalispell that had belonged to a group that was practicing the Hawaiian tradition.

She tracked down the canoes that had been parked for 20 years beside a barn in Columbia Falls.  “We purchased those two old girls for a song and brought back to life.” They became Silver Lining’s first two OC6s and are still favorites.

“We’re sort of like those old girls,” she says. “We have lots of scars, and we still have a lot of mana (life force).”

Further fulfilling Kimokeo’s prophecy, the group leased the Big Arm property that is home to the Montana Canoe Club last year.

Silver Lining members head to Canada in August for the Calgary Dragon Boat Festival, and are organizing a one-day Dragon Boat gathering Sept. 7 at the Polson Fairgrounds.

“We’re just rebuilding what has been,” Contin says of this year’s event, which had previously attracted scores of paddlers and the ornate boats to the north end of the lake. Those gatherings subsided during the pandemic since they involve teams of up to 16, paddling side by side.

Next year’s Paddle Palooza is already on the calendar too, slated for July 10-12, 2026.

    Paddlers from around the world competed in 500m and 1,000m sprints on the Flathead River Friday. (Mike Bouchee photo)
  

    Nan Condit, president of Silver Lining Foundation, poses with Hawaiian elder Kimokeo Kapahulehua at the Montana Canoe Club in Big Arm. (Courtesy photo)
  

    Coach Lewis Laughlin keeps an eye on novice outrigger canoeists as the paddle a six-person vessel to shore. (Kristi Niemeyer/Leader)
  

    Proud paddler Betty Welch from Kansas City hefts her outrigger canoe at the end of a three-hour clinic Sunday in Big Arm. (Kristi Niemeyer/Leader)
  

    One of Tahiti’s most celebrated athletes, Coach Lewis Laughlin, instructed an outrigger canoe clinic in Big Arm Sunday morning. He also carried the the Olympic Torch during the 31st stage of this ceremonial relay that concludes in Paris. (Kristi Niemeyer/Leader)
  

    Last week's Opening Ceremonies for Paddle Palooza brought Native American and Polynesian cultures together in reverence for water and canoes. (Courtesy photo)