FREESTYLE VISITS QUIETWATER SYMPOSIUM AND CANOECOPIA
For many of us living in the more northerly parts of the country, the waning days of February find us starting to get antsy about putting a canoe on the car and heading for the nearest river. Problem often is though, that most of the time the water’s still on the hard side, and the air’s still mighty chilly. What to do? Well, heading south often works, but this time how about heading for the Great Midwest for a couple of weekends at gatherings of canoes and canoe folks. Well, come on then, let’s hit the road…
The Quietwater Symposium – March 2, 2019
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
This event had its start in 1996. As the name 
perhaps suggests, there is certainly a very strong paddling presence but there’s much more. As their own description declares, QWS “features handcrafted and historic watercraft, biking, hiking and water trails, conservation and watershed groups. A number of outfitters and liveries are represented to support the outdoor adventures, and a growing selection of outdoor-oriented retailers as well.”
FreeStyle Canoeing was present here as an “official” vendor. With our own booth, we were able to set out an array of print materials about All Things FreeStyle. We also had a couple of monitors running – one with a slide show of some 40 photos of paddling and Symposia, and on the other a 17 minute video of clips of “everyday” paddling using FS techniques on some Florida and New Jersey rivers. These proved popular with passers-by, and gave us many opportunities to engage with folks.
The one-day event takes place in the Agricultural Pavilion at the University. This is an enormous building consisting of an immense open concrete floored space, as well as a large dirt-floored “arena” adjacent but under the same roof. Both areas were filled with assorted vendors.
Paul Klonowski, Tim Burris, Marc Ornstein, Anita LoVan, and Bruce Kemp were on hand to help take turns monitoring the booth. FreeStylers Lynn and Rafael Dominguez were just two booths down from us, on this day representing the Western Michigan Coastal Kayak Association. We ran into a number of old friends and acquaintances there too, whom it was real nice to see, along with a couple of our newer friends in the form of folks who have recently attended one or another of our Symposia.
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Several canoe manufacturers were present, among them John Diller and his son Ben of Savage River Canoe, and Stan and Kathy Zdunek of Slipstream Watercraft, who have become “Friends of FreeStyle” in recent years through their participation at the Western PA Solo Canoe Rendezvous. Wenonah Canoes and Northstar Canoes were here today too, as was the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association chapter for this area. Lots of boats!
But there’s much more than just paddling represented. Check out this display of refurbished axes, hatchets, saws, and other woodworking tools. There were six tables of stuff like this.
…and a musical interlude with guitarist/songwriter Jerry Vandiver, and Lacie Carpenter on fiddle, performing some paddling-themed songs
FreeStyle had a wonderful time at Quiet Water. It was great fun visiting and talking with so many nice folks. If you’ve never attended, you should seriously consider doing so. You’ll be glad you did.
CANOECOPIA, MARCH 8-10, 2019
Alliant Energy Center, Madison, Wisconsin
Canoecopia has a distinctly different flavor than QWS, and in almost all ways is on a significantly grander scale. The fact that it’s a 3-day event might give you some suspicion that we’re talking a pretty major event here. The show floor is a truly massive paddlesport shop; in a manner of speaking, Canoecopia is really an extension of Rutabaga Paddlesports Shop in Madison, which produces the expo. The event started around 1981 and has been conducted annually ever since. It has grown tremendously through the years to the point where it quite rightly declares itself “the largest paddlesports consumer event in the world,” routinely hosting over 20,000 people every year, with about 100 speakers, and 12 rooms in which the speakers present their programs.
At this year’s edition, there were about 250 vendors, each representing some aspect of paddlesports. These included boat and paddle manufacturers; paddle clothing and PFDs; camping gear; small RVs; canoe & kayak trailers; outfitters from around the Midwest and beyond.
There were some state tourism bureaus (even Florida was represented… that’s a long ways away!), and a number of National, State, and Provincial Park systems, along with community groups of all paddlesport-related descriptions. All of these are in one expo center, but also spilling over into the attached hotel, where two speaker rooms were located, as well as a small pool for on-water demonstrations.
It’s frankly huge, and can seem overwhelming. Spending the entire weekend there is the only way to take it in, and even at that there’s no way one person can really take it all in. There’s just so much to see and do, and the speakers, on all topics, are quite expert in their fields.
Our FreeStyle Activities were piggybacked onto the American Canoe Association table, where we were able to distribute some of our literature, and talk about FreeStyle a bit with folks who stopped by. People come to this show from some very long distances indeed… we spoke with folks who came to the show from Quebec, Oregon, Texas, and just about anywhere in between.
A happy side-benefit to coming to Canoecopia was the opportunity to connect with many of our FreeStyle friends, here in a variety of capacities – either as vendors or perhaps as presenters. Among them were Charlie Wilson, Dan Cooke, Sue Plankis, Rob Kesselring, John, Marilyn, and Ben Diller, and several participants from our various events. FreeStyle Instructor Lynn Dominguez gave two talks entitled “Get Started Canoeing, Now!” which was an excellent introduction to canoeing for beginners, and raised some interesting points to consider for veteran paddlers, as well. She also presented an introduction to FS maneuvers in the small pool; the crowd was really WOWED by sideslips! Charlie Wilson gave a great presentation on Body, Boat, Blade, which is a quite informative talk about why the boat does what you tell it to do.
And there were certainly a lot of canoes to be found. Present were Swift, Northstar, Wenonah, Mad River, Novacraft, Old Town, Sanborn (Merrimac), Esquif, Onak, and of course Savage River as just mentioned. Each had a large number of boats displayed, covering lots of square footage. Canoe Paddle makers included Badger Paddles, Bending Branches, Fritz Orr, and Sanborn, all of whom offer somewhat different styles of paddles.
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So that was FreeStyle’s March Road Trip. We’re all back home now, and thinking back on it all, and checking our photos just to be sure, we can say that we did indeed have a real good time. It was mighty fine…
Next year’s dates for these events are March 7 for QWS (which will be rebranded as Quiet Adventures Symposium, or QAS), and March 13-15 for Canoecopia. We’ll hope to see you there!