Skeena Swim News
July 16 2009 » Skeena Swim » Vancouver Sun
Water polo player hopes to become first person to swim entire Skeena River
If all goes well — and there is plenty that might not — 33-year-old Ali Howard will soon become the first person to swim the entire 610 kilometres of the Skeena River in northwest B.C.
“My parents may think I’m a little bit nuts, but they’re excited and supportive of the endeavour,” she allowed in an interview Wednesday. “We’ll take every precaution to ensure I’m safe.”
Howard’s swim begins Tuesday in the Skeena’s headwaters near Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Park and is expected to finish at the river mouth in Prince Rupert 28 days later.
Howard is originally from Ottawa, where she played competitive water polo for the Ottawa Titans, placing second in the national championships. She currently lives in Telkwa near Smithers, and for the past three years has worked as head chef at the luxury lodge The Cliffs at Kispiox River.
The concept started last fall after Howard read a magazine article about Martin Strel, a Slovenian who swam South America’s Amazon River in 2007. She suggested Strel be enlisted to swim the salmon-rich Skeena, B.C.’s second longest river and still without a dam on its main stem or tributaries.
Howard recalls that her friend Shannon McPhail, executive director of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, had a better idea. “She said, ‘You swim, you do it.’”
For the past 1.5 months, Howard has been rigorously practising on two tributaries of the Skeena, the Bulkley and Suskwa rivers.
Punching through eddy lines. Tumbling down stretches of white water. Learning not to panic when she gets sucked into a whirlpool. “If you’re patient, you’re okay. You’ll get flushed out.”
Howard’s eight-person support team includes a first-aid attendant and photographer/videographer on two kayaks and two rafts. The expedition is costing about $30,000, money raised from donations and sponsors.
She hopes to navigate the entire river in her dry suit, personal floatation device, and helmet, with the exception of portages around two steep drops close to the headwaters.
She plans to use a river board — a sort of oversized boogie board — to help get through a shallow boulder garden at the start of the trip. A helicopter will help with slinging the rafts near the start and to supply food.
The goal is to raise environmental awareness of the Skeena watershed, ranging from a coalbed-methane development proposal in the headwaters to the threat of salmon farms closer to Prince Rupert.
Howard urges residents to come out and show their support as she passes through communities along the river and to share their experiences and produce a shared vision for its future.
In an earlier epic adventure on B.C.’s longest river, Fin Donnelly swam 1,325 kilometres down the Fraser in 1995. He is now a Coquitlam councillor and executive director of the non-profit Rivershed Society of B.C.
Donnelly said he has advised Howard that the first few days will determine her success: her ability to endure the cold water and to meet the psychological challenge. “You obviously have to be in good physical condition, but it is really the stresses on your mental condition that determine whether you can do it or not.”
For further information on Howard’s swim see http://www.skeenawatershed.com/swim.
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