Our Warriors of Hope are heading to Windsor this weekend to compete in a Breast Cancer Survivors dragon boat festival. They have been practicing on Trout Lake since ice-off and are in winning form. Windsor holds its races on the river that separates Canada from the United States. Out in mid-stream, one can watch the passing Lakers and ocean-going ships that can fit in the locks along the St Lawrence Seaway. The big boats require deep water; the dragon boats, not so much. Nevertheless, the Warriors want the deep water.
Paddling in shallow water, especially near a river bank, slows the dragon boat, as paddlers pull through water where their paddles cannot grab a full blade of water. Whatever current there may be in the river flows faster in the middle and slower along the shore, another reason to look for deep water. Paddling in shallow water may be safer if one wants to step out of the boat and wade, but dragon boat racing is about team work and endurance, not lily-dipping in the shallows. This will be the first competitive race for several ‘newbies’ in the boat but already they can keep in stroke, working as a team, as they do ‘starts’, ‘pyramids’ and ‘finishes’. That some of the Warriors are not accomplished swimmers does not keep their boat ‘Jane’ near the shore in shallow water. They go where the action is.
We know the Warriors are a very competitive team and they will represent the City very well at the races. How many of us, both in our personal life or our business life prefer to paddle in shallow waters? Is our comfort zone along the sandy shore where there is little danger and even less challenge and adventure? Do we hesitate to move out into the current and once there, put our skills and training to the test of being just that much better than the spectators in life? Are our civic leaders cautiously paddling in shallow waters or are they seeking new and daring entrepreneurs, encouraging them to come here with their ideas? The news of the Swiss company and its aerospace plans is an encouraging sign. Surely we should be looking at the production of goods manufactured here with the Ring of Fire rare earth metals, not just at the old tried and true transportation model. We need to be more than hewers of wood, carriers of water and diggers of ore.
Eco tourism must certainly replace the old tourism model of shallow water paddling that offers only a place to sleep and lake into which one can cast a line. The reliance on sports entertainment played on our fields and in our rinks is only a small market, that can just stay along the shoreline as more and more of the younger generation seem content to paddle in shallow waters with their electronic toys.
Hopefully we do not need such a drastic wake-up call as the women on the Warriors of Hope team received. Experiencing breast cancer was only the first step in their new life journey. Getting out from the shallow water and into the challenge of the current and surviving in the deep water was the next challenge. Have we as a City not had our wake-up call? Is not our crumbling infrastructure and high taxes enough to get us moving – out of the shallow waters of life and into the river of our future?
It is time to join the adventure that lies beyond the shallow water.
