A Different Sort of Race

Wind and threatening skies might deter Mark and I from paddling, but not others.  278 boats, most with multiple paddlers, took on the Kenduskeag Race on Saturday, paddling, carrying and scraping their way along the 16.5 mile course.  It's that sort of dedication which makes the Kenduskeag Race a great rite of Spring!
The day was mostly rain free, but low waters made for a challenging run for the participants, who often had to get out and free their boats.
A few pictures from streamside:

An early kayak heads through

Love their expressions... 

Does Old Town make a four person Loon?  Did the team make this from three separate kayaks?

About half the number of boats from last year, but a good crowd, considering..

A canoeist boosting himself off a rock, probably not for the first time

Gumby! A race tradition! Stuck on a rock - something new!

Having a pusher for low spots was a necessity

Zip Kellogg, standing in his white suit; another tradition

And yes, the low waters did take a toll on the boats, as well as the paddlers:

Congratulations to the finishers!  More complete coverage at the Bangor Daily News and Mike's Kenduskeag Stream Race Site.   You'll especially want to watch video with the race start and scenes along the way to see how much team 131 had been through by the time I got their picture. Kevin Bennett's video, at the Bangor Daily News site, also features Gumby braving 6 Mile Falls and the four person Loon being portaged.  A special congratulations to Ray Wirth on his top five finish!
Ironically, heavy rain is in the forecast for the next few days; if only the dancers had remembered to ask for express delivery....

Pretty Bony....

What a difference a year makes!  Mark in the Kenduskeag Race in 2011:

(Photo courtesy of www.kenduskeagcanoerace.com) Mark's story of the race here.

Approximately the same spot this year:

Last year, on the night before the race we strolled along the Kenduskeag Stream Walk, eying passages, put-ins and take-outs.  As we scouted a steady stream of serious racers paddled by, practicing their routes.  This year there were still a fair number of folks on the stream including this trio headed upstream: 

As we wandered along, some actual river vultures kettled above on the thermals.  Tomorrow those live birds will be joined by hundreds of other river "vultures" hoping to see some canoes and kayaks capsizing.   

It should be a different sort of race than previous years, one for the record books.    We watched as one man pulled his canoe out at the Upper Kenduskeag Stream landing.  "It's as dry as I've seen it in twenty years," he told Mark.  Though he didn't run the entire stream tonight, he wasn't going to miss participating in the contest tomorrow.  It's that sort of loyalty which makes the race a sure sign of spring. And this is probably late, but Ray Wirth offers tips to this years paddlers in his latest post at Waterlines. Good luck to all the participants!

903 Paddlers and 1 Greenland Paddle: The Kenduskeag Stream Race by Mark

"You're beating me with a stick! That's not even a real paddle!" was the good-natured shout from a fellow kayak racer as I eased past him. I had impulsively decided the night before to run the 16 mile Kenduskeag Stream Canoe race and here I was cruising along in my sea kayak with my homemade cedar Greenland-style "skinny stick" paddle.

The Kenduskeag Stream Race is a traditional celebration of Spring in Bangor, Maine, hundreds of canoes and kayaks converge for the race. Many paddlers are in wild costumes with decorated boats. But what kind of boat do you take on a race that involves 10 miles of mostly flat water, followed by two mandatory portages up steep river banks, and miles of rocks and class II/III whitewater? This race is tough on both boats and bodies. Since the water was high this year, rocks would be mostly buried, and with the Wilderness Systems Zephyr 16, I thought I had a boat that was nimble enough for whitewater but efficient enough for the long section of flatwater.

And initially, it did seem like a great choice, as I passed boat after boat. I got a lot of favorable comments on my "cool looking" skinny paddle. I'm pretty sure I was the only person using a "Greenland Stick" paddle in the race this year. Sea kayaks and Greenland paddles are both made for efficiency over long distances and I was cruising along just great, despite the sub-freezing air temperatures and the biting head wind. That all came to an end, though, when I hit the mandatory portages. Sea kayaks do not portage very well - especially roto-molded plastic boats with cargo. They are long and heavy and a difficult carry for one person.

The first mandatory portage at a place called Flour Mill wasn't too terrible - there was a small hill but it had a nice gentle path leading up it and some grass over the first section that I could drag the boat on. I hoisted the 58 pound loaded boat onto my head for the last 150 yards along the gravel path so as not to destroy the bottom of my boat. That was hard to do after 14 miles of paddling! Then, it was back into the water and a quick quarter mile paddle under the Route 95 Bridge to the second mandatory portage at Valley Ave.
(see the course here)
I got out of the boat at Valley and looked with incredulous eyes at a steep 25 foot bank to the road level. It took just about all the strength I had left to drag the boat up the near-vertical slippery slope. I thought it must have snagged on some of the small saplings along the way...but, no, it was just a lack of strength. I got it to the top, dragged it to the road and put it on my head again to get across the road, then slid it on the grass down to the put-in, thankful that I wouldn't have to carry the boat again until after the race.

After the Valley Ave portage, I hit the heaviest whitewater of the race, since I had taken the optional portage around the boat-eating Six Mile Falls. It's a section called Shopping Cart because some nameless vandal in years past decorated it with stolen grocery carts. There were no carts there this year...but there were some substantial drops and some tight lines that had to be made. It was quite a roller-coaster ride and the kayak and paddle did great in it. I mostly used extended strokes to get extra power from the paddle to drive it to the lines I wanted. Going through the drops, I found myself using an extended trailing stern brace to provide stability and to keep the bow pointed into the waves. It was at the Shopping Cart where Mike Alden had set up his camera, capturing the paddlers going through, including the watermarked photos of me. He has a great collection of photos and other race related information at his site, KenduskeagStreamCanoeRace.

After one final enormous standing wave that soaked me to my chin, it was smooth paddling through the canals and tunnels of Bangor to the finish line and the final take-out down by the Sea Dog restaurant. I was very happy to have finished without major damage to boat, paddle or body! In fact, I felt remarkably good despite all the paddling and carrying. After a brief rest and an excellent bowl of free Sea Dog chili, I dragged and carried the boat one last time to the car and stowed it on the racks.

My time for the race was 3:04; pretty good for a first time run. I'm happy just to have finished at all - only about 65% of those who started the race this year did. Congratulations to Ray Wirth, author of Waterline on his top ten finish! If I want to improve for next year I think I will practice on Six Mile Falls so I can run it instead of portaging it. Also, I should train more with carrying my boat up and down hills; maybe with some kind of sling system so I can do a comfortable shoulder carry instead of balancing it on my head. Head carrying works well for me, but it takes a lot of energy to get the boat from the ground up over the head; it puts strain on the neck and it's really hard to see where you are going.

All in all, it was a fantastic race and a lot of fun. My thanks to the Bangor Parks and Recreation department and all the volunteers for putting it all together year after year!

The canals of Bangor

Summary: 6 miles launch: beach at Hamlin Marina. Lots of parking, flush toilets. Dana’s Grill closed on Labor Day : (
Update:  Dana's Grill is now McLaughlin's and is open later in the season.  Bangor's kayak dock has moved to the south corner of the docks.
 
The Kenduskeag canal is one of the prettiest paddles in the Bangor area. You can launch your boat from the kayak dock on the waterfront. But, for a longer paddle, we launch from Hamlin Marina in Hampden, and ride the tide up and down.
This may not be the best paddle to do in the spring, when high water keeps the downstream currents in the Penobscot and Kenduskeag fairly high. It’s also not a paddle to do on a spring tide, especially if there’s been a lot of rain recently. A spring tide is one of the higher tides of the month which come right after a new or full moon. Spring tides can also be identified by time: high tides which occur between 11AM and 1:30PM. This is a picture of Hamlin Marina at a high spring tide. The normal edge is shown by the arrow at the grass.

The water height at the edge looks to be about 8 inches deep, Mark shows how high it is.

I guess it wouldn’t ruin a car, but I suggest unloading near the beach and moving the car back to the rear corner while you’re paddling. More importantly, some of the bridges on the canals are low, when water is flowing over the edge at Hamlin Marina it may be grazing the bottoms of those bridges, trapping you below them if you haven’t started up the Kenduskeag, or above them, if you’ve squeezed under the bridges on an incoming tide.
Another view of the marina.

The paddle to Bangor is enjoyable because of the variable terrain. Hamlin Marina is located by an old sawmill, the shore is built up of stacked logs. A beaver waits out the high tide on a lodge built in the cribwork.
Lots of flowers bloom along the shore.

At the first corner, eagles are frequently found. Once while paddling we surprised a poor eagle and it dropped its half eaten fish on our boat.
Then around the corner is Hughes gravel pit, whose shores seem to be a collection of scrap metal. Beyond that is a second marina, and informal RV park, and across the river the Cianbro plant in Brewer(also built by cribwork.)
Next are oil storage tanks, and sewage treatment plants, handily located on both sides of the river. But up ahead is the high 395 bridge, in elegant white cement.
Above the bridge is an asphalt cement factory, and then Bangor’s waterfront comes into view.
In the 1800’s thousands of schooners piled the Penobscot, landing in Bangor and leaving loaded with timber. By 1983 Bill Caldwell, author of Rivers of Fortune, claims there was no place to anchor a boat. He was riding on a Coast Guard ice breaker which wound up mooring on a pile of junk near a railroad track. Now there is a dock, divided between guest and summer slots.
Just beyond the docks is the opening to the Kenduskeag. The Kenduskeag Stream was over 400 feet wide when settlers first came to the area. By the 1800’s businesses had narrowed the stream to 250 feet. Warren Manning, a Boston landscaper, thought to install the Norembega Mall after the Great Bangor Fire in 1911, removing dilapidated building and cribwork, and replacing them with canals reminiscent of Venice.
The first bridge is a railroad bridge, then come three pedestrian bridges, followed by two street bridges, while you paddle beside parking lots, banks and the new courthouse. The second street bridge, State Street Bridge plays an infamous role in Bangor history, since it is the bridge from which Charles Howard, an openly gay man, was thrown to his death in 1984. There is now a garden on the south side of the bridge dedicated to his memory.
Above State Street bridge the buildings shift to older buildings built in the early 1900’s. And beneath the bridges, pigeons lurk and unidentified pipes carry who knows what. The canal divides about the Norumbega Mall, the north side has pedestrian bridges going to Norumbega Hall, which currently houses the University of Maine Art Museum.
Central Street is the next road bridge. Notice how the Bangor Savings Building echos the curves of the Franklin Street Bridge.
After the Franklin Street Bridge the canals shift to being a river, overlooked by Condos and a streamside path. Further up, you’ll pass under a pedestrian bridge built on the base of the old Morse Covered Bridge.
On some tides you can paddle up under Valley Avenue Bridge, and after that rocks in tend to make the stream impassable. Looks to be as far as we can go!
Time to turn around and head downstream.
Norembega Mall is also an enjoyable stroll, here are some shots from an evening stroll, note how low the canal is.
And the fine brickwork on the older buildings.
Finally, these footsteps appeared by the edge of the canal just below the State Street Bridge. Who has read Stephen King’s It?