The 15^th annual Kananaskis Whitewater Festival was held over the weekend. Rain and cold temps made the event hard on the eyes and anything you wanted to keep dry but it didn’t stop well over a hundred paddlers from all over Canada from showing up to have a good time. Kan Fest is without a doubt one of the largest festivals in Canada and is the funest one that I’ve been to.

Auctioning off a Habitat

The Kananaskis River always releases at the same flow but large amounts of rain rose the feeder creeks adding the extra volume needed for the river to become considerably better than at regular flows. Point Break in particular was much sticker and powerful for the freestyle event allowing paddlers to display all of their best moves.

One of many interesting tarp set ups

On top of the Freestyle event Kan fest hosted a Down River Race, Boater Cross, Ball Race, Inflatable Race, and Obstacle course. The Down River race is always a favourite and involves sprinting the entire river at full steam then running up the hill at the take out. The whole thing only takes about 15 minutes but is extremely tiring because everyone goes all out the entire time. Coming up to the take out I was lagging behind, all of the leaders headed for the lower take out while myself and Mikkel St. Jean Duncan got out at the upper take out, laughing our asses off as we passed at least three people on the way up the hill. The Obstacle course was a course of obstacles and the Boater Cross was a head to head race involving Boaters and crossing… J

Prepping for the boater cross

I’d have to say that the premier event is actually the after party. The night started off with an auction with all of the proceeds going towards future improvement of the river. After the auction we were all lucky enough to have Shane Phillip blow our minds with his suppa funky music. This guy is awesome, he sings, plays the Guitar, all kinds of different drums, harmonica, and the didgeridoo all in the same songs. Definitely one of the best live performances I’ve ever seen.

Shane Phillip entertaining the crowd

Results for the events looked like this:

Obstacle course

1. Mikkel St. Jean Duncan

2. Trevor Sevil

3. Kelsey Thompson

Down River Race

1.Scott Feindel

2. Mikkel St. Jean Duncan

3. Kelsey Thompson

Boater Cross

1. Kelsey Thompson

2. JD

3. Mikkel St. Jean Duncan

Freestyle

1. Kelsey Thompson

2. Scott Feindel

3. Mikkel St. Jean Duncan

I’m not sure who the winners were for the Ball race or the Inflatable race, sorry!

Kelsey Thompson AKA hoop master