A good paddler knows that consistency breeds success. This summer, it seemed, that even Mother Nature knew that. The unrelenting hot dry drought conditions, though detrimental for farmers and well owners, has been conducive to paddling, allowing our sprint paddlers to train daily in sunny conditions.

Five athletes from SLCC competed in the Eastern Ontario Division regatta in Ottawa last weekend. Local paddler SLCC’s Parker Friendship and Gia Venter, a seasoned young paddler, who arrived here from the Wascana Canoe Club in Regina, Saskatchewan in early July, competed in K2 (two person kayak) races for the first time this summer in the U11 Division. Twins Mathieu and Nicholas Symons, paddled together in the K1 (one person kayak) & K2 U14 Division. Enthusiastic young Keira Wilson (not in photo) competed in U8 Division in K1. Coach Sebastien L’Abbe (not in photo) competed for the Eastern Ontario Division in the individual and team kayaking events at the Ontario Summer Games in Mississauga Ontario.

Rhiannon Murphy, our Head Coach, has qualified in the C1 (one person canoe) 200m race at Nationals. Rhiannon is a very versatile athlete and paddles both K1 & C1. Coach George Willes has qualified for the K1 200m competition at Nationals in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. As it is his first year in Nationals, his whole family of six will be heading down to Halifax next week to cheer him on and enjoy some east coast family time!

The club will be offering fall training for age 6-adult new and experienced paddlers who would like to compete in next summer’s regattas. For more information, go to www.sydenhamlakecanoe club.com

Results: Kiera Wilson, Silver and Parker Friendship, Bronze (K1 100m). Gia Venter and Parker Friendship, Bronze (K2 200m); Nicholas Symons, Bronze (K2 500m), Gold (K1 100m); Mathieu Symons, Bronze (C15), Bronze (K2 500m),  Silver (K1 100m).

Despite the ominous start to the day last Saturday, July 9, which began with thunderstorms, four new novice paddlers headed out to compete on the Gananoque River to win ribbons in War Canoe, K1 and K2 events, carrying on a 110-year-old tradition of friendly competition at the Gananoque Canoe Club that began in 1906. Sydenham Lake Canoe Club, now in its 19th year at its Sydenham Lake location, has its roots in the Kingston Yacht Club in the early 1900s, so, Sydenham and Kingston paddlers have in effect been paddling against Gananoque for well over a century.

As the first U15 event of the season, the 100, or so, young paddlers were bursting with enthusiasm, determined to achieve their personal best without tipping their boats in a series of 200 meter single and team events at the Gananoque Canoe Club.

Parker and Peyton Friendship, Jack MacInnis, Kiera Wilson and her cheerleading sister, Charlotte were all in attendance. Though Sydenham won’t be hosting an event this year, there are four more regattas that the SLCC paddlers can look forward to participating in. The next U15 regattas will be held in North Bay, Carleton Place, and at Rideau Canoe Club in Ottawa.

Coach Rhiannon Murphy, an eight-year veteran at SLCC, says, “Parents often can’t believe that they are sending their children out alone to compete in a tippy sprint boat, but are often surprised by their own children’s confidence, determination and success. They are also amazed by the supportive audience of parents and fellow paddlers who enthusiastically cheer on the last paddlers over the finish, just as if they were the first. It is really all about having fun as a family and being active outdoors. If you don’t over focus on the results, the children enjoy themselves and just concentrate on achieving their personal bests that they have worked all week to master”. The Sydenham Lake Canoe Club offers day camps and lessons to children and adults who wish to improve their paddling skills, or just get out on the water for fun and fitness. For more information visit www.sydenhamlakecanoeclub.com

Over 250 young paddlers from six different paddling clubs across Ontario competed at the Eastern Ontario Division Championships, which took place at Sydenham's Point park on August 8 and 9. The small but mighty Sydenham Lake Canoe Club hosted the event, which included competitors from the Rideau, Ottawa River, Carleton Place, North Bay and Gananoque Canoe Clubs. Most of the paddlers competing were aged 11-15 but paddlers as young as eight years old also took part.

It was thanks to a grant from the Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation in the summer of 2014 that the Sydenham club was able to restore their course, making it once again a nationally certified one where these kinds of provincial qualifying events can take place. The event was the first of this summer’s qualifying events for the Ontario Championships, which will take place August 15 at the Rideau Canoe Club in Ottawa.

While the Sydenham Club is a considerably smaller club than most, with just six competitors ages 8-16, its members did amazingly well in their events. On Saturday George Willes and Sebastien L'Abbe placed second of 11 in their final K2-500M race. Matt Symons placed first in his K1-1000M race and his twin brother Nic placed third in the same event. Both will move on as direct entries as two of the top seeds in the division. On Sunday the Symons brothers placed first in their K2-500M race, crossing the line well ahead of the pack, which made for a very exciting race. Also of note was Ian Ramzy, who placed second in the K1-100M sprint and he will also move on to the Ontario Championships. Eight-year-old Parker Friendship, the club’s youngest competitor, competed for her very first time and did her personal best in her U11 event.

One of the reasons that this small but talented club does so well is because of the dedication and talent of their coaching staff. Head coach Cia Myles-Gonzalez, a former member of the club for nine years, has been coaching the team for two years now and currently competes as a paddler with the Balmy Beach Canoe Club in Toronto. She has recently qualified to race in two C1 events and two C2 events and in four war canoes at the upcoming Ontario Cup Three Championships in Ottawa on August 16. Gonzalez credited her team for being “dedicated and working very hard towards the event despite the challenges that come with being a small club”. Gonzales also spoke of the home club advantage, saying, “It really helps to know the lake and the course. Sydenham Lake can get really windy and our team has had experience with those conditions, which is an advantage”.

Assistant coach, 16-year-old Rhiannon Murphy is also a long time member of the club and a talented paddler in her own right. Rhiannon will be competing in three events including the K1-100, K1-200 and C1-6K at the national level at the upcoming Canadian Nationals, which will take place in Ottawa at the Rideau Canoe Club from August 25 - 29. Should she place in the top three, she will move on to compete internationally.

Helen Parfitt, vice-commodore of the club, credited Roger L'Abbe and the club’s sprint paddlers for working tirelessly setting up the course prior to the weekend’s championships and she thanked the 30 officials and the 30 community volunteers who helped to make the event run so smoothly. The event is not only an exciting day of racing for competitors, their families and supporters but also attracts between 500-600 people to the area, which is a great thing for economic development in the Sydenham area. Anyone interested in joining or learning more about the SLCC can visit www.sydenhlakecanoeclub.com or call Helen Parfitt at 613-376-6613. 

Genevieve L’Abbe, a 17-year-old Sydenham Lake Canoe Club sprint paddler and Junior National Team Member, successfully competed in Montreal at the National Team Trials regatta last weekend for one of five positions on the Junior World’s Women’s Kayaking Team.

L’Abbe will be on her way to Portugal this summer to compete in the ICF Canoe Sprint Junior & U23 World Championships Regatta, which will be held in Montemor-O-Velho, Portugal on July 24-26.

“I feel very fortunate to have made the team as it was a real battle to make the 5th spot on the team. When the points were added up after the National Team Trial qualifying event last Saturday, I ended up beating my competitor by one point. It was my faster time in the 500m race that got me on the World Junior Team”.

It is going to be a busy summer for L’Abbe. who will be graduating from Grade 12 this week. She will be spending a month in Montreal training with her new five teammates who are all from different regions of Canada. “I am looking forward to getting to know them and learning to work as a team” says L’Abbe. An Ottawa paddler will compete in the individual K1 races and K2 races, and she, and her other three teammates, will compete in the K4 events”.

“My family and friends have been very supportive in helping me get to this level. If my family hadn’t become involved in the Sydenham Lake Canoe Club, I wouldn’t have been introduced to the wonderful sport of sprint kayaking. Knowing previous Olympian, George Jones, from the Canoe Club for the last seven years really helped me keep my eye my goal. I had heard him tell stories about the comradery that he had experienced paddling back in the 80’s and it made me think that I wanted to do that too. I guess, for lack of a better word, you could call him my hero. My biggest challenge in the next month will be the cost of traveling to Portugal as Canoe Kayak Canada only partially covers the fees. I may have to pass around the hat this summer and ask for a bit of help. I feel fortunate that I am a part of a good community”.

Sprint Kayaker, Genevieve L’Abbe is training hard these days to compete in the National Team Trials in Montreal June 18-20. This 17-year-old former Sydenham Lake Canoe Club paddler will be up against kayakers from across Canada, battling for the opportunity to compete in the ICF Canoe Sprint Junior & U23 World Championships Regatta in Montemor-O-Velho, Portugal on July 24-26.

A Sydenham resident, L’Abbe now paddles in the national capital region for Ottawa River Canoe Club. “When my Sydenham coach realized three years ago that there weren’t any female paddlers in the Sydenham Club in my division, she told me that I would have to go elsewhere to find the team boat training crew that I needed”, says L’Abbe. That summer, Genevieve was invited to paddle for the larger Ottawa River Canoe Club. They offered her a place to stay and three team mates, so she has been paddling with the club ever since.

Now a member of the Ontario and National Junior Team, only her family and coach (and perhaps her neglected friends!) know how hard she has worked to improve her power and stroke rate to make it to this level of competition.

Though L’Abbe was used to training twice a day, for the past two months, she has been training more intensively. As a Gr. 12 student, the additional training on top of her busy school schedule is difficult. “I fall asleep at every opportunity even in class sometimes” says L’Abbe. Her teachers have sometimes been known to let her sleep. School will soon be over for Genevieve with the Montreal National Team Trials 200 and 500m regatta looming just close ahead. She says, “I know who my competitors are, and I know that I will have to have a good start and maintain my maximum stroke rate throughout in order to gain one of the four coveted spots on the Junior World Team. It is a goal that I would like to achieve as I have never competed at an international regatta overseas, but I know if I don’t make it, I will still have a bit of a rest and a whole summer of paddling on the lake to look forward to.”

by Helen Parfitt

Sydenham Lake Canoe Club will be offering an exciting variety of paddling programs this summer. SLCC, now in its 18th year at its Sydenham location, has its roots in the Cataraqui Canoe Club, a sprint racing canoe club established in 1886 in Kingston. The season will begin in mid-May with the After School Learn-to-Train Program. This program will allow youth who intend to register in the sprint paddling program to get a head start on the season. The Master’s program starts the same day. This program is for those 18 and over who want to paddle either recreationally or competitively. Paddling is a fun way to work out as it works the upper body, abdominal core, and back muscles. In July, the club will also be offering the Canoe Kids Day Camp and morning Kayaking Lessons.

The Canoe Kids Day Camp and kayaking lessons program are similar to the Red Cross swimming program in that there are attainable skill levels that paddlers can achieve. The week-long program involves paddling, and playing on-the-water games that indirectly lead to skill development. At the end of the week, paddlers will receive a bronze, silver or gold ribbon and certificate to recognize their level of achievement. “They can complete all three levels of the program in less than a month if they choose, or they can take one or two skill levels per summer,” says Parfitt.

The club will continue its tradition of offering its Competitive Sprint Paddling program, an intensive competitive paddling program for paddlers who enjoy the fun of serious competition. Sprint paddlers train daily to compete on weekends in divisional and provincial canoe and kayak CKC-sanctioned regatta events held throughout Ontario. These regattas are also open to any youth or adult paddler registered in our week long programs.

It will be a particularly exciting summer in Sydenham this year, as SLCC will be hosting the Eastern Ontario Divisional Regatta on August 8 and 9 at Sydenham Point. Sprint paddling athletes, age 15 and under, from all over Ontario will descend on Sydenham for two days of racing to determine who goes on to the Provincial Championships in Ottawa. “You never know where this sport will take you,” says Parfitt. “Genevieve L’Abbe, age 17, from SLCC, whose first competition took place right here at the Point at the age of 9, is now a member of the Ontario and National Junior Team in kayaking. She will be competing this June in Montreal in the hopes of going to the World Junior Cup in Portugal in July.” For more information on our programs go to www.sydenhamlakecanoeclub.com.

Over 90 paddlers from across the province endured the less than ideal weather conditions at the Ontario Canoe Kayak Sprint Racing Affiliation’s (OCSRA) O Cup Fall Classic event, which took place at the Point in Sydenham on an unseasonably cold and rainy September 13. The classic was hosted by the Sydenham Lake Canoe Club (SLCC) and 92 paddlers competed in a number of 200 metre canoe and kayak races as well as open and masters events. The event also included a 6000 metre team pursuit race open to paddlers of all ages.

The fall classic was the fourth race in the OCSRA's Ontario Cup series and it was a chance for paddlers to gain points that could lead to their joining the Ontario paddling team. The SLCC to date has 60 members, and thanks to a grant from the Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation that the club received in November 2013, it also now has a nationally sanctioned regatta course, which menas that major paddling events can now take place on Sydenham Lake.

Five paddlers from the SLCC competed on Saturday. Sebastien L’Abbe placed fourth in his heat in the 200metre K1 under 14 event. In the same event Ian Ramzy tipped his kayak and unfortunately was disqualified. Twin brothers Nicholas and Mathieu Symons, who competed in the under 12-200metre K1 event, placed fifth and sixth in their heats respectively. George Willes placed 2nd in his heat in the Boys K1 200m

Helen Parfitt, SLCC vice-commodore, explained that for the SLCC paddlers the event is not really about winning or even placing since the majority of the paddlers are quite a bit younger than many of their competitors. “The benefit of this event for our younger paddlers was to have the opportunity to compete on “home turf” and to have one additional opportunity to compete with paddlers from all across Ontario. Our young paddlers have had only one All-Ontario competition to date so our aim was to see how they fare ‘racing up’ with older paddlers in the U15 events”.

That being said, one Sydenham paddler, Genevieve L'Abbe, who is currently a member of the Ontario Team and who competed on Saturday as a member of the Ottawa River Canoe Club, placed first in the U 17 women's K200 event and her result will go towards her Ontario team's ranking status. Genevieve also raced in the 6000m team pursuit event and though her team did not place in the top three, it looks as though L'Abbe as a solo paddler is poised to make waves.

The seven clubs who participated on Saturday were Balmy Beach, Richmond Hill, Cobourg, Gananoque, Carleton Place, Ottawa River, and Sydenham.

One of the primary concerns of those competing, coaching, officiating and observing on Saturday was trying to stay warm. Prior to their races the Symons brothers chose to paddle around in their boats in an effort to keep their muscles from tensing up. One coach told me that wearing the right clothing is key. “It's all about layers and choosing the right kinds of fabrics. Wool is good, cotton is a no-no,” one coach said.

This year’s Ontario Cup was won by the Balmy Beach Canoe Club of Toronto, who took home the highest number of points overall. Saturday’s event attracted over 160 visitors to Sydenham and organizers wish to thank the many generous local sponsors and volunteers. For more information visit www.sydenhamlakecanoeclub.com

The Drew Cumpson Indiegogo fundraising campaign is set to end in 5 days, and the goal of $35,000 is within reach. As of Tuesday evening, August 19, the total raised was $28,370, only $6,830 short of the goal.

That's quite a jump from the $7,500 that had been raised back in July when the first story about the campaign ran in the Frontenac News. Since then the campaign has been embraced in Kingston, where Drew lives, in Guelph, where he is enrolled in university, as well as in Frontenac County, where he is from.

The original plan was to spend the money raised on the operation to implant a diaphragmatic pacemaker into Drew so that he would not need to be on a respirator. This would enable him to leave St. Mary's Hospital, move in with his family and continue his education at Guelph University. While the campaign has been going, he has heard that the cost of the operation may be covered by OHIP so some of the money raised may be diverted to other needs he has, which are many. He is still working on the fundraising campaign, but is also working to find a location and make further arrangements for his operation.

The campaign is receiving a boost in its final days through the efforts of the Leaders in Training at the Sydenham Canoe Club summer camp. They ran barbeques at the camp and each camper paid $5 for the lunch. The $300 proceeds will be given to Drew. “Some parents even sent along some extra money when they heard that the proceeds were going to a good cause”, said one of the fund-raising team members Ian Ramzy. “It isn’t much, but every little bit counts”

Some of the older campers, LIT and coaches remember Drew from when he used to work at the Township of South Frontenac Day Camp held at Sydenham Point.

“He was very athletic. and  he was always smiling and singing”, said Kayleen Lambert of the Canoe Cub. “He was really good to the kids. The younger campers had never met him, but were intrigued by the description of the lung pacemaker, and were saddened to hear that he would be unable to go home until he has this device.”

by Helen Parfitt

Sydenham Lake Canoe Club’s Coach’s Junior Sprint Canoeist, Cia Myles-Gonzalez, who trains in Sydenham and paddles for Balmy Beach Canoe Club, and Midget Sprint Kayaker, Genevieve L’Abbe, who now paddles for Ottawa River Canoe Club (ORCC), both qualified to paddle at the National Championships in Regina, Saskatchewan next week. Both paddlers had a very good season leading up to the Ontario Championships. At the Ontario Championship Regatta in Ottawa, both girls proved that Sydenham produces strong women. A very versatile Myles Gonzalez won a gold medal in both the C2 200m and 500m, and the C4 500m. She won a silver in the K2 200m and a bronze in the C1 500m. L’Abbe won a gold in the K1 200m and 500m and K2 500m, and a silver in the U19 K4 500m.