SARANAC LAKE — The Willard Hanmer Guideboat and Canoe race will return on Sunday.
The race originally began in 1963 in honor of Saranac Lake guideboat builder Willard Hanmer. It ran for 50 years. This year’s event marks the third time the “Comeback Hanmer,” has returned since its 10-year hiatus.
“We want to make sure that it is successful as it can be,” event organizer Sue Dyer said. “We’re people that watched the history of it when there were thousands of people lining the shore. We want to restore that love for guideboats and water activities — canoes, standup paddleboards and kayaks — we want to seem coming down the river again.”
Last year there we 57 boats and 81 different racers. With registration still open, Dyer hopes to improve on those numbers from a year ago.
“We get a lot of people the last day because there are fair weather paddlers now,” she said. “They go, ‘Let’s see if it’s raining,’ but we hope that every year it keep growing.”
Some familiar faces are expected to return to the event this year, including John Duprey, who will attempt to be the first guideboater in more than three decades to win the one man guideboat race for the third year in a row. Duprey has been practicing almost every day on Lake Flower, according to event organizers.
“John is out there, my son is out there. There’s a couple of other guys out there,” Dyer said. “They’re rowing against their own times from the year before. Those guys are pretty serious. It’s really fun to watch.”
The event, which starts at the Riverfront Park (next to the state boat launch), features multiple classes, including guideboat, canoes, kayaks and stand up paddleboard races. All classes will be mass starts.
Flat water races on Lake Flower for the men’s and women’s two-person guideboat and the mixed family guideboat will start at 10:30 a.m. That will be followed by a junior guideboat, canoe and kayak as well as, the stand up paddleboard race.
The down river races to the Saranac Lake Fish and Game Club will start at noon. This race includes one person guideboat, one and two canoe racing, one and two canoe pleasure, rub-a-dub pleasure, C-4 racing, one and two person kayak and war canoe.
This river race also features a 0.2-mile carry. Paddlers carry their boats over their heads across Main Street, through a parking lot and down a hill to put back in after the dam. There will also be food vendors and live music following the conclusion of the race.
Registration is available online at $20 per person. For more information about the Willard Hanmer race, visit https://tinyurl.com/bp8hkxme or contact Kathy Dyer at 505-235-1268.