Somewhere Between 90 and 2,880 Miles We All Meet

I woke up as the Outing Club van pulled into the parking lot of the Old Forge visitor center, the mist was just beginning to clear off of the lake and I was terrified. Hamilton's Marathon Canoe Racing Team was one of the first groups to arrive. As we took turns registering and jumping around to stay warm I saw more and more people unload boats and start the process of duct taping food for the day within the reach of their canoe seat. The more I watched the other racers, the better I began to understand exactly how big the 90 Mile Canoe Classic Race is to so many people from the Adirondacks, generations of families paddling to win or couples who know the Adirondacks as their home and paddle every year to virtually pay testament to its beauty. I felt separated from many of the other racers, I don't really have any specific connection to the Adirondacks nor have I been paddling since birth, I guessed that this feeling would stay with me even after the race was over since it is really only a weekend.

The 90 Mile Canoe Classic Race, has been held in the Adirondacks ever year for 32 years, it is a massive events with hundreds of racers and many different boat categories. It helps the local businesses to flourish and lets the community of the Adirondacks know that there are paddlers out there who love this place enough to spend three days totaling about 20 hours of paddling pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into it, to put it lightly. Running from Old Forge to Saranac Lake the race is split up into three days, with designated starting and stopping points. It is impossible to truly describe the feeling of paddling in that situation to anyone who wasn't there, but I will say that it felt like a tsunami out on the water sometimes and if you weren't running on the canoe carries you were going to get pushed out of the way.

I won't go into detail about the pain and suffering that went into my boats approximately 17 hours of total paddling, but I will say that I could not have been more wrong about feeling like an outsider by the end. During the last half mile of the last day you come around this bend in the lake, and at that point you can see the buoys marking the finish line, standing on shore are literally hundreds of people cheering and when you pull up and step out of your boat it doesn't matter that you weren't born and raised in the Adirondacks and that you haven't lived and breathed water your entire life, you are a paddler and you finished the 90 Mile Canoe Classic. During the award ceremony the most beautiful part was when they called up the oldest age group of people who paddled the 90 this year, it was two couples who were both in their late seventies, and they were just beaming. Were they the fastest in their categories? No. Were they the best paddlers? No. But they clearly had this passion for the sport and the race and the wilderness that many people may never find in their entire lives. As I watched them stand up there all I had to say to myself was, "I sure know that I am going to be coming back up here next year."