The first event on the 2017 FreeStyle schedule is the Western Pennsylvania Solo Canoe Rendezvous, coming up on the first full weekend of June. It will take place at our usual home around the 10 acre pond at Cooper’s Lake Campground, near Portersville and Slippery Rock, PA on June 2/3/4. The Rendezvous is a cousin, you might say, in the FreeStyle family of events, with a different sort of format from the Symposia. While not a FreeStyle event per se, it has always had, from its beginning, a strong FS presence and flavor.
The Rendezvous is a gathering of solo canoe enthusiasts in particular (though tandems are very much welcome also), and though the event has a number of standard elements, there’s still a lot of making it up as we go along. It features various manufacturers and designers of canoes with demo models of their boats available for test-paddling; our local Three Rivers Chapter of WCHA with some beautifully restored classic wooden canoes; demonstrations of, and informal instruction in FreeStyle paddling techniques; assorted programs on various aspects of canoe design, construction, and use in the real world; food; occasionally some live, and very informal, “entertainment” on one or both evenings, courtesy (?) of whichever members of the Floating and Amorphous FreeStyle String Band may be in attendance, and their condition at the time; dead fish polo may be on the menu here or there, if there are folks into it; sometimes a heart-stoppingly Exciting and completely Silly Giant Schlalom Race; a Candlelight Paddle to music-over-the-night-darkened-pond on Saturday evening if the weather smiles; informal gear/boat sales and swaps; a pot-luck Vegetarian dinner on the Friday night that can’t be beat: and Goodness Knows
What-all. It is an opportunity to spend a long weekend just messing about in canoes with other canoe folks to the exclusion of all other reality. An event which is informal and laid-back to a fare-thee-well.
Everyone is encouraged to bring their own solo craft, since at least part of the experience is being able to look over (and perhaps paddle) a large array of classic solo canoes that you just don’t see all that often.
Details, directions, and all the rest are available at www.wpascr.org
Also look in the Forums for some more info here: WPASCR Info
See more Cross Post articles HERE