Joey Payeur
This past weekend was about much more than just racing for the local International Boundary Waters Dragon Boat Team.
Former Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce manager Annely Armstrong-Thorstad, who now lives in Ray, Mn. with her husband and fellow dragon boat teammate, Greg Thorstad, recounted how the team stepped up in a moment of crisis that occurred near where they were stationed at the 10th-annual Bemidji Dragon Boat Festival this past Thursday.
“We were waiting for our turn to join the ‘Parade of Boats,’” Armstrong-Thorstad recalled.
“On the corner four trailers away from where we were sitting, a pedestrian got hit by a vehicle and it was really bad,” she said.
“When it happened, everyone in that area started screaming.”
That’s when Armstrong-Thorstad, who now works for the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society assisted-living facility in International Falls, and the rest of her team jumped in to be Good Samaritans themselves.
“We have some nurses and paramedics who are on our team,” she noted.
“One of our team members, Brenda Leuttjohann, got right in there to help out the guy and stabilize him until the ambulance got there.
“I could see there was about six feet of blood coming down the road from the accident scene and I knew right away I didn’t belong there, so I made sure I backed up the crowd that was starting to gather,” Armstrong-Thorstad added.
The injured man had to be airlifted to hospital, with local news media covering the scene.
“You can make out our team jerseys on the TV footage from when we were there helping him,” Armstrong-Thorstad said.
The condition of the man was not known as of press time.
When the situation settled down, the local contingent had to refocus its energy and ended up being one of the most talked-about teams at the event, according to Armstrong-Thorstad.
“Other people couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that we had paddlers from both Canada and the U.S., and we’re paddling in international waters,” she said.
“We were the only ones there who had a real festival dragon there [named Guoji],” she added.
“There were a couple of homemade ones but all the teams were cheering for Guoji.”
The squad, with just 16 paddlers compared to the maximum 20 for most of the other groups in the 60-team field, powered their way to a 33rd-place finish with a total combined time of 4:55.57.
The highlight of their two races was Round 1, when their mark of 2:25.52 was good enough to put them in 25th spot.
They then faded slightly in Round 2 (2:30.05).
But finishing in the middle of the pack hardly took the shine off the many positives of the weekend for Armstrong-Thorstad.
“We had a woman in her 60s who, for the past two years, had wanted to paddle in the [Fort Frances] Dragon Boat Festival,” she noted.
“It was on her bucket list but she couldn’t get on a team.
“She asked us in Bemidji and we said, ‘Sure, come on,’” Armstrong-Thorstad added.
“It turns out she’s an avid paddler and done lots of canoeing and kayaking.
“We had three people on the team this weekend who had never dipped their paddles in the water before the competition,” said Armstrong-Thorstad.
“They all did great.”
The local crew didn’t walk away empty-handed, either, as they won the award for “Best Team Look” based on overall team presentation (continuity of jersey, paddling form, etc.)
They also finished second in the “Best Jersey” competition.
As a bonus, Armstrong-Thorstad said she picked up a bevy of good ideas she plans to suggest for next year’s dragon boat festival here.
“They have an award for ‘Best Team Camp’ based on how well you decorate your tent,” she remarked.
“There was one team that had a stripper pole; another team was decked out like Vikings,” she noted.
“And we’ll definitely have some teams coming up for ours who haven’t come before,” Armstrong-Thorstad added.
“They were floored to find out there was festival only two hours away and they were all teams who want to have fun, just like us.”
The local team, which has 32 team members total signed up, expects to have a full complement of paddlers when it heads to Superior, Wis. for the 2015 Lake Superior Dragon Boat Festival on Aug. 21-22.
“We should have 22 coming along and a lot more Canadians this time,” Armstrong-Thorstad said.
“It was just because of it being on the long weekend in Canada that we didn’t have as many this time.”
