River surfing championship coming to the Slam Festival
River surfers from across North America are heading to Kananaskis Country on Saturday for the first North American river surfing championship.
Seventy-two surfers from as far away as Montreal and Denver are registered for the Slam the Kan competition, which is the key event in this year’s nine-day Calgary-based Slam Festival. So far, the festival has included a skateboarding competition, a pool party, and a concert featuring Calgary bands Chixdiggit and High Kicks, which had around 500 people in attendance.
“Things are going really well. It’s been kind of overwhelming. This is the 12th year we’ve held Slam the Kan, but we’ve never held a festival or invited people from all over North America before,” said Jenna Henderson, director of client relations for the festival.
The festival is being spearheaded by the Alberta River Association, which was founded in 2005 and has steadily expanded in terms of the number of members and the number of surfing locations available in the province, ever since.
Within Calgary, the 10th Street wave on the Bow River is the best spot. It’s a naturally occurring wave in the heart of the city that is relatively easy for beginners who want to give river surfing a shot.
More serious surfers will head to Kananaskis River’s larger wave for the competition Saturday. That wave was built by Surf Anywhere, an engineering consulting firm which is another organizer of the festival. The Kananaskis wave is one metre tall and five metres wide.
The competition at Canoe Meadows off Highway 40 in Kananaskis Country starts at 10 a.m. Saturday with heats for both the men and women, with finals being held at 4 p.m. for the women and 4:30 p.m. for the men. Winners in both categories will take home a $1,000 prize.
Competitors will be judged on six categories including the degree of difficulty, using the entire wave face, and the variety of their repertoire.
“We’ve got people from Boise, Ottawa, Bend Oregon, Montreal and Denver, Colorado. People have been coming in from all over. It’s going to be a really great event. We’re hoping it goes really well and the championships can be rotated to another city next year so we can really keep this community going,” said Henderson.
River surfing tends to pop up in communities far from the coast when ocean surfers are looking to recreate their love of catching a wave closer to home.
Henderson is hoping the success of this year’s festival will help the community grow and, critically, build more waves. They’re currently looking at a spot just down river from the wave in Kananaskis as well as several locations in Calgary.