One of Canada’s greatest sporting feats has returned to the spotlight.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant, certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest canoe race ever held. A team mostly made up of Flin Flonners won the race, representing Manitoba.
In the 1960’s, Flin Flon was the place to be for outdoor pursuits. The city boasted an active paddling community and the Flin Flon Canoe Club consisted of dozens of members.
At that time, two Flin Flon kids – Norm Crerar and Gib McEachern – formed one of the most feared tandems in Canadian paddling. Starting as kids paddling together on Phantom Lake, the two became a fearsome duo, winning canoe races across North America.
Perhaps the most important title the two won was the Trout Festival Canoe Derby. Crerar and McEachern were juggernauts in the festival’s biggest event, taking the title in the professional division for six straight years.
“Gib and I, we basically took the summers off (work) and we’d race from the Flin Flon race (on July long weekend) all the way through September,” said Crerar.
The race
In 1963, the Centennial Commission – a group of Canadians charged with special festivities for Canada’s 100th anniversary of Confederation – was formed.
Through the Commission, a group of lawmakers – led by then-MP Eugene Rheaume – proposed holding a massive canoe race, going across most of Canada over former voyageur paddling routes.
The idea was a hit. Plans began soon after, with a number of trial events held across Canada as auditions for paddlers. The canoeists who finished best in the trials would get spots in the big race.
Crerar and McEachern, along with a smattering of regional talent, got their in after a 10-day trial race in British Columbia.
The event was officially called the Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant – to many following along at home, it was simply called “the race.”
It was a massive undertaking. After gathering for the start in Rocky Mountain House, Alta., teams went down the North Saskatchewan River, through Cedar Lake, Lake Winnipegosis and Lake Manitoba, down to the Great Lakes, the Ottawa River and, finally, to the St. Lawrence River. The final destination: Expo ’67 in Montreal.
The trip would take 104 days in all, spanning more than 5,200 km on water and another 96 km of portages. A number of sprint races would be held along the way.
It would be, quite simply, the longest organized canoe race of all time.
Northern dominance
Nearly the entire Manitoba team was born and raised near Flin Flon. The team’s Big Six paddlers – Crerar, McEachern, Wayne ‘Salty’ Soltys, Roger Carriere, Joe Michelle and John Norman – all hailed from near Flin Flon and made their names paddling in events near Flin Flon. David “Davey” Wells, the team’s youngest paddler, and Jim Rheaume, the team’s chief voyageur – and Eugene Rheaume’s brother – were both Flin Flon products. Blair Harvey was often said to be from Winnipeg, but was actually a Flin Flon-born student at university in Winnipeg. Only one member of the team, Don Starkell, had no connection to Flin Flon. Crerar would serve as team captain.
Beyond Team Manitoba, Flin Flonners could be found all over the event. Almost the entire Saskatchewan team hailed from the Flin Flon area, including team captain David Kennedy, Peter Klewchuk, David Donald, Doug Simpson, Glen Dubinak, Mitchell McCrimmon and Ray Fieber.
“They were the younger guys who didn’t make our team,” said Crerar.
“Some of them were from Manitoba, some from Saskatchewan, it didn’t matter. We were Flin Flon, Manitoba and the Saskatchewan team was Flin Flon, Saskatchewan.”
The chief voyageur for Team Alberta, John Nikel, owned Foto-Music Supplies in Flin Flon, was an active volunteer with the Flin Flon Ski Club and, at one point, was the commodore for the Flin Flon Canoe Club. British Columbia captain Roy “Baldy” Jackson was also an ex-Flin Flonner.
“There was a big canoe culture in Flin Flon back then,” said Crerar. “There was the Gold Rush canoe derby, the major event of the Flin Flon Trout Festival, and there was a huge canoe club going at that time. There was all kinds of paddling going on.”
On the water
After finishing the first day in second place, Team Manitoba soared up the standings. The Flin Flon squad was at the top of the board more often than not, with the Saskatchewan team fitting well in the middle of the pack. Paddlers fought bouts of illness, unpredictable water and the elements through the first three weeks.
Team Manitoba developed rivalries with both Team BC and Team Alberta – two teams with Flin Flon connections through Jackson and Nikel. Together, the two western teams would be Manitoba’s stiffest competition.
On Day 21, the race’s route wound through The Pas. Convoys of cars made the trip south from Flin Flon, hoping to catch a glimpse of their boys.
Being back in the north, if only for a day, gave the team a taste of home – both literally and figuratively.
In the days leading up to the team’s arrival in The Pas, Crerar contacted his mother and asked her if she would bake him her famous banana nut loaf.
Word of the request spread through town like wildfire and people fired up their ovens. When Team Manitoba came through The Pas, more than a hundred banana nut loaves were waiting for the team – they kept some of them and doled the rest out to their competition.
Not long after receiving the home cooking, a navigational error scrubbed the team’s lead and bumped them down to second place behind Team BC. However, when another map-reading hiccup caused almost every team to miss a key turn, Manitoba clawed the lead back and barged through Ontario.
The sheer length of the race meant members of the team were gone for key moments. Crerar missed the birth of his daughter, while McEachern had to temporarily leave the team when he found out his dad had passed away.
Manitoba would never again give up the lead, storming past Quebec’s infamous Lachine rapids and coming home first in Montreal on Sept. 4, beating Team BC by almost two hours.
To add to the win, Team Manitoba came out on top in a final sprint race on Île-Notré-Dame, pipping Team BC to the finish line.
“The big race is over, and, as expected, Manitoba’s Centennial Voyageur Paddlers rule Canada’s lakes and rivers,” wrote Bruce Keddie on the front page of The Reminder the next morning.
After crossing the line, Crerar was interviewed by Canadian broadcasting legend Lloyd Robertson, then working for the CBC. When Robertson asked him about how so many paddlers came from such a small town, Crerar responded, “I wouldn’t say we have more opportunity, Lloyd, but they sure apply themselves in the lots of water and lots of lakes we have up there.”
The winning team members received about $2,500 each for the win, along with rewards from several sprint races held along the way.
Commemoration
Over the past year, interest in the race has surged due to Canada 150. Events commemorating the race have been held across the country.
“There were events in Prince Edward Island, in New Brunswick, in Quebec, all celebrating Canada 150. Most of the events were in those big voyageur canoes,” said Crerar.
Along with teammate Blair Harvey, Crerar and his wife Nancy went to Ottawa earlier this year one of those ceremonies, meeting Governor General Julie Payette along with several of his former competitors.
“She had time to stop and talk with each group of team members. The next day, we were introduced in the House of Commons. We had a get-together where people told stories, the highlights and the funny things that happened,” said Crerar.
“It was set up by some of the paddlers from the New Brunswick team. There were representatives from every team except British Columbia.”
While it’s been a long time since the team crossed the finish line in Montreal, Crerar is pleased that Team Manitoba has not been forgotten.
“It feels good. I think it’s really important that people understand. We’re trying to get more young people out paddling.”
Half a century later, most of the team is still around. Harvey splits his time between Vancouver and Flin Flon, Young “Davey” Wells is now Pastor David Wells, a church minister in Regina, while Soltys spends his summers in Alberta and winters in Mexico.
Rheaume lives in Penticton, while McEachern is in Vancouver.
Today
More than 50 years after Team Manitoba crossed the finish line, Crerar is still paddling. Crerar can be found on the water with his old partner McEachern.
When he isn’t holding a paddle, Crerar spends his time as a skiing instructor at Silver Star Mountain Resort in Vernon and organizes the Okanagan Military Tattoo, one of Western Canada’s largest military gatherings.
“That’s a big military marching, dancing, singing extravaganza,” he said.
Crerar still runs canoe events across Western Canada and plans to hold an event in Flin Flon this summer. Today, so many years after he and McEachern first paddled on Phantom Lake, Crerar still feels right at home on a northern lake, comparing northern Manitoba to Ontario’s Quetico region, known as one of Canada’s best paddling spots.
“I look at Flin Flon and the shield country up to the north and the lowlands to the south, and you’ve got the boundary country north. It is every bit as good, if not better, than Quetico [Provincial] Park. Nobody has developed that or capitalized on that and it kind of pisses me off in a way. If you’ve never paddled on the Churchill River, you’ve missed something. I think it’s the best paddling country in the world.”
“You get a canoe and head onto the lake, little portage to the next lake, another little portage to the next lake…you can go in any direction just about anywhere and it’s absolutely stunningly beautiful.”
