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By Laura Robin, Ottawa Citizen
The third annual Spring Runoff Festival in the Trailhead parking lot is a great place to pick up a bargain canoe or kayak or to get ideas for trips.
If you’re looking for new ways to get out on the water this summer, a good place to start would be the third annual Spring Runoff festival in the parking lot of the Trailhead store on Scott Street next Saturday.
You’ll be able to shop for bargains with about 300 new and used canoes and kayaks for sale, or cruise for outing ideas at booths set up by about 25 groups.
Everyone from the Y Canoe Club and the Friends of Gatineau Park to The Ottawa Valley Tourist Association and The Ottawa Orienteering Club will be on hand.
You can also learn new skills: 1000 Island Sea Kayak will be putting on introduction-to-sea-kayaking courses at 10 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Westboro Beach. Or learn how to stand-up paddle board: a group called Stand Up for CHEO will be putting on one-hour introductory courses at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., also at Westboro Beach.
The sea-kayaking courses cost $35; the stand-up paddle boarding ones $25. For either, you must preregister before next weekend by e-mailing Trailhead.springrunoff@ gmail.com or dropping into the store. And if you end up loving the sport and buying a sea kayak or a paddle board, you get the cost of the course refunded.
“The courses are a pretty good deal,” says Karen Fitzgibbons, Trailhead’s retail manager. “You’re getting instruction and the equipment rental.”
Even if you’d rather stay on shore, you can wish some other adventurers on their way. Trans CanEAUda is a group of eight friends, who are embarking on a canoe expedition from Ottawa to Inuvik, N.W.T., to raise funds for two non-profit groups dedicated to cleaner watersheds: CPAWS and Ottawa Riverkeeper. Next Saturday at 3: 30 p.m. they will portage from Trailhead to Westboro Beach, then depart on their voyage at 4: 30 p.m.
You can also bid on items from kayaks to day-long adventures at a silent auction, with all proceeds going to the Red Cross for relief efforts for the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
The event goes from 9 a.m. to 5: 30 p.m. on Saturday, April 30. See Trailhead.ca/SpringRunoffFestival for more details.
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