Canoe-kayak race draws hundreds to Meduxnekeag

HOULTON – Despite a snow squall the day before, Peter Blood couldn’t have asked for better weather during Saturday’s Meduxnekeag River Canoe Race.

The event chairman said Saturday the sun came out just in time for the timed races, which got under way at about 10 a.m. and drew about 150 racers and several hundred spectators.

“It was a beautiful day. We just had unbelievable weather,” Blood said after the event.

This year’s race, which raised about $2,800 for the Dollars for Scholars program of Houlton and Hodgdon, was held in memory of Elwood Scott, the program’s founder and longtime principal of Houlton High School. Blood said this is the first time the event has been held in somebody’s honor.

The Meduxnekeag River Canoe Race, the seventh race in this year’s Maine Canoe Kayak Racing Organization circuit, is the organization’s northernmost race. The organization, which is affiliated with the American Canoe Association, fosters the sport of canoe and kayak racing in Maine and promotes the concept of competitive sportsmanship.

Because of high water levels, the normally 8-mile-long race on the Meduxnekeag River was reduced this year to a 7-mile run beginning at Houlton’s municipal boat landing and ending at the covered bridge in Littleton.

Hundreds of people turned out at the boat landing to watch the race starts, Blood said, while groups of 50 to 60 spectators watched from two bridges along the race course and at the covered bridge.

Blood said 96 boats entered the water this year, with racers from as far as Bath and New Brunswick vying for top spots in 24 different race categories. Fred Ludwig of Houlton recorded the fastest overall time, finishing in 35 minutes flat, in the long kayak category. (Complete race results will appear in a later edition of the Bangor Daily News.) Winners walked away with wooden trophies, and racers from outside Aroostook County were presented with bags of potatoes.

Blood, a member of both the Maine Canoe Kayak Racing Organization and the local Dollars for Scholars, has helped to organize the race for nine years. Blood said he and fellow Maine Canoe Kayak member Clint Cushman picked up the event from the Houlton Rotary Club, which had hosted it for 26 years.

Cushman and Blood made the Meduxnekeag race a point series race on the Maine canoe-kayak circuit. When the race became profitable, Blood said, they looked around for a way to give the money back to the community and found Dollars for Scholars.

So far, he estimated, the race has raised $18,000 in scholarships for the program.

Just as important, Blood said, everybody had a ball.

“It was a great event, and we all had a beautiful time,” he said. “And we got a standing ovation at the end of the event.”