CANADA DRY VICTORIA DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL
Where: Inner Harbour, 900 Wharf St.
When: Aug. 9-10
Admission: Free
Information: victoriadragonboatfestival.com
Chinese culture will be on display this weekend — on land and sea — during the Canada Dry Victoria Dragon Boat Festival.
The annual summer event, staged by the non-profit Victoria Dragon Boat Festival Society and presented by Fairway Market, settles into the Inner Harbour for two days of activity, beginning Friday with an outdoor family movie night that is free to attend.
Dragon boat races will take place Saturday on a 250-metre sprint course, with more than 40 teams and 1,000 paddlers from across B.C. and California participating. The water portion of the event was adjusted this year, due to ongoing construction at the Belleville Terminal, near the CPR Steamship Terminal building and Blackball Ferry Line. Races will be held from 8 a.m. onward on Saturday only, after spanning two days in 2023.
Breaks to accommodate ferry and plane arrivals and departures are built into the race schedule, which spans the majority of the morning and afternoon. “You get a much more compressed day of racing in one day,” said Dominic Lai, an organizer with the Canada Day Victoria Dragon Boat Festival.
The popular event — which premiered in 1997 — was postponed in 2020 and 2021 as COVID-19 presented significant logistical challenges, and in the years since, related cost increases due to inflation have presented hurdles.
Postponing the event was not entertained by organizers, so the happy medium was a condensed paddle schedule.
“There have been some challenges with mass-participation events, not just Dragon Boat events but in general, so we’re encouraged to see the [race] numbers are the same,” Lai said. “[That way] the festival gets to stay local, and can continue to celebrate traditional Chinese culture in the heart of Victoria.”
The event gets underway Friday night with exclusively on-land activities, including a free screening of the Jack Black comedy, Kung Fu Panda, on the pier near Milestones restaurant.
Cultural programming runs the gamut Saturday, offering a variety of traditional Chinese artisans and performers — including Sichuan face-changing performances, lion dances by Wong Sheung Kung Fu Club, and performances by Chinese Dance Victoria and Victoria Chinese Opera. The schedule gets underway at 10 a.m. at Ship Point near Wharf Street.
Two stages of music, active until 6 p.m., include performances by Esquimalt Singers and Dancers, West Coast Soul Collective, Carmine, Naden Band of the Royal Canadian Navy, Hot Pot, and The Hit List.
“What the festival is trying to do is make sure the sport side comes out, but also balance that out with cultural programming,” Lai said. “Dragon boating is a cultural sport, so there’s a few thousand years of history that is reflected in the public presentation of it. Ensuring things are done in a proper way is important, and that balancing act is something that takes careful consideration throughout the year.”
The community aspect is an important one for the festival, according to Lai. Fairway Market locations in Greater Victoria are selling paper lanterns as part of the festival’s Lights of Courage campaign, which raises money and hope for those battling cancer. The impact of the campaign, with proceeds benefitting the BC Cancer Foundation, will be explored further at the Chinese Canadian Museum in Fan Tan Alley later this month. “That has been a key part of the festival, but it is evolving this year. We’re taking the opportunity to create a bigger, more impactful difference in Victoria.”
Victoria is in the unusual position of having two dragon boat festivals — the Vancouver Island Dragon Boat Festival, a separate festival staged by the Fairway Gorge Paddling Club, will be held Aug. 24-25 at the paddling club’s home base on Jutland Road on the Gorge Waterway. But the combined efforts of both can mean only good things for the Chinese community in Victoria.
“We’re trying to bring Chinese culture and Victoria together in a unique and localized way,” Lai said. “When you think about traditional Chinese culture, it can be quite extensive. But it can also be a localized form. That’s what the festival really celebrates. It is a tradition within the context of Victoria, and I think that is what makes it special.”
