CARIBOU — Under a steady stream of rain Sunday morning at the Lower Lyndon Street Boat Launch, more than a dozen kayakers and canoeists set off on a 6.2-mile jaunt down the furious Aroostook River.
In its sixth year, the Aroostook River Spring Runoff Canoe and Kayak Race is designed to encourage locals to use the river, an asset Caribou is working to reclaim from the industrial facilities that once dominated its banks and kept residents away.
On this spring day, neither the rain nor the cold could stop competitors.
“Well, it’s raining and it’s miserable, so why not?” Jared Duggan, a kayaker from Washburn said. “It’s fun to just compete.”
The river ran high Sunday, covering an island usually visible under the Aroostook River Bridge and many obstacles that would typically greet paddlers.
“We were just looking at the course record of about 41 minutes, I wouldn’t be surprised if that gets beat today,” Caribou Parks and Recreation Program Director Neal Sleeper said before the race. “Just standing here and looking at the water going by, it’s trucking.”
He was right. The first- and second-place finishers both broke the previous record by more than a minute. Dan Swallow of Easton covered the course in 38:54 in a solo canoe, setting an aggressive pace from the start.
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Volunteers help Devon Searle (right) of Limestone into her canoe at the Lower Lyndon Street Boat Launch. Credit: Cameron Levasseur / BDN -
Two kayakers set off from the Lower Lyndon Street Boat Launch for the Aroostook River Spring Runoff Canoe and Kayak Race Sunday. Credit: Cameron Levasseur / BDN -
Dan Swallow paddles his Wenonah J-203 racing canoe down the Aroostook River. Swallow would win the Aroostook River Spring Runoff Canoe and Kayak Race in 38:54, beating the previous course record by nearly two and a half minutes. Credit: Cameron Levasseur / BDN
“As soon as you see it raining, there’s two different mindsets,” Swallow said ahead of the race. “[There’s] kind of your casual paddlers who are like ‘geez, it’s cold, I don’t really want to go out there and get wet.’ A guy like me, I love a high river because that just means faster times and I don’t have to paddle as hard to go faster.”
Ray Wirth of Monroe came in at 39:41 to claim the kayak open solo crown. Sunday marked the seventh race of the season for Wirth and Lesley Gregory, also of Monroe, the overall women’s winner in 43:54.
The pair, who help organize events for the Maine Canoe & Kayak Racing Organization, also competed in the legendary Meduxnekeag River Race from New Limerick to Houlton Saturday.
“When there’s a race you haven’t done, you want to do it,” Wirth said. “It’s kind of addictive.”
Devon Searle of Limestone competed in the race for the second time. Searle missed the 2025 edition because she was pregnant, and was excited to return to the river, even if the weather made her apprehensive.
“I really didn’t want to come,” Searle said. “But I made myself get out of bed.”
The race is one of the many ways that Caribou is attempting to revive its long idle and hazardous riverfront, a vision that is starting to come into view. Over the past few months, the city demolished a diesel plant along the river that had been out of service for more than a decade. Its neighboring steam plant, which towers over Route 1 heading into downtown, is also slated to come down this year.
A master plan for the riverfront should be complete by June, city officials have said, and Caribou recently received a grant to purchase a former train station and an abandoned starch factory to aid in its effort to remake the area.
“It’s a pretty vital asset. When you think about it historically, this is where the city was formed,” Sleeper said. “As urban sprawl happened, everything kind of moved away from the river. In today’s era, people are starting to come back to these areas.”
