How did the hugely successful Henderson Lake Dragon Boat festival get started? With Karen Johnson and Wendy Aitkens

This year marks the 24th ATB Financial Lethbridge Rotary Dragon Boat Festival. The speakers will share some of the festival’s early beginnings. What is it about, and how did it start? The abreast of Bridge Dragon Boat Team has, for 25 years, provided a social and recreational environment that embraces a full and active lifestyle for cancer survivors. An overview of their history and how that helped to inspire the development of the Lethbridge Dragon Boat Festival will also be discussed.

Speakers: Karen Johnson and Wendy Aitkens

Karen Johnson is the Festival Chair for Dragon Boat Canada, President of the Dragon Boat Association of Southern Alberta, and coaches the Coulee Cruisers and the u24 Junior Cruisers. She joined the sport as a team-building activity with other City of Lethbridge employees in the first year of the festival, 2002, Dragn’ R Butz. Finding a new passion for the sport, Karen was instrumental in starting Team ID just after the 2003 festival in hopes of paddling through a longer season and traveling to other festivals. Karen was the assistant coach of Team ID for the 2007 and 2008 seasons. In 2008, the Rotary Festival made a concerted effort to improve the skills of local dragon boaters and decided to “beef up” the training provided to the festival teams. With fellow coach Dave Hunt, Karen agreed to take on the Head Coach. Karen has been the ATB Financial Lethbridge Rotary Dragon Boat Festival race chair since 2010.

Wendy Aitkens was conscripted into the abreast of Bridge Dragon Boat Team in 2007. She had never even seen a dragon boat, but the first time she rode in one, she was impressed by the women around her and decided to join. She has been active on the Board and in the boat since. In her other life, she worked in the museum community at Fort Calgary and the Galt Museum & Archives, and currently volunteers at the Lethbridge Military Museum.