I recently visited the four Atlantic Provinces, which has beautiful places to row! Nova Scotia was my first stop and has three established clubs: Halifax Rowing Club, Mic Mac Rowing Club and North Star Rowing Club. A developing fourth club is located in Antigonish near Cape Breton (more later on that!)

Rowers dock after early morning row at Halifax Rowing Club

Halifax Rowing Club is located on the Northwest Arm, a coastal inlet in Halifax. The rowing club itself has an amazing view of the inlet with recognizable landmarks like the Dingle Tower surrounding it, and remarkably flat water (at least when I was there!). An active masters program at HRC keeps the club up and running and like most clubs across Canada, people were at it in the early morning! HRC also has a developing junior program with very engaged athletes. Those I met attended a Learn to Row Workshop and were keen to coach! One junior, Alex, was hoping to help with some of the adaptive rowing that is happening at HRC…go Alex go!

The second club I saw in Nova Scotia was Mic Mac rowing club, which is located in Dartmouth across from Halifax. Rowers at Mic Mac train on Lake Banook and have a world championship standard Canoe/Kayak course (including a finish tower!). Although the course is a just 1000 m, this is a great asset to the club. Mic Mac rowing is actually a division of Mic Mac Amateur Aquatic club, which includes, Canoe/Kayak, Rowing, Dragon Boating and Swimming. The volunteer executive does a great job of working with the larger umbrella of the Aquatic Club although they do have the challenge of trying to expand with limited space available to them (like a lot of clubs in Canada!). The ability to hold events in the bar and hall above the club is great…who doesn’t need a stiff one after an early morning row!!

North Star docks and finish tower North Star Rowing Club is directly across the lake from Mic Mac Rowing Club. Bob Sawler runs this club that has been passed down in his family from generation to generation. A few years back Bob was able to secure an old house that sat on the same property as the rowing club, now named Oakwood house. Through many volunteer hours this beautiful home has been restored and Bob and his wife do numerous fund-raisers here including wine and cheese tasting, corporate retreats and business meetings to name a few. The home also becomes “regatta central” come regatta time. Training on the same water as Mic Mac, North Star enjoys the use of the Canoe/Kayak course as well. Learn to rows were running in the evenings when I was there by some keen coaches and athletes of North Star (they took the Learn to Row workshop too!).

Nova Scotia Rowing has some incredible volunteers that really keep things going in this province. Although I did not get a chance to meet all of them, I have to mention their president, Yetta Withrow, whom I saw spend many hours on organizing, planning, and doing a plethora of things to keep pushing Nova Scotia Rowing forward.

This year Nova Scotia Rowing has been able to take advantage of a program that Sport Nova Scotia implemented which provides Nova Scotia Rowing an administrative coordinator to help with the many things typically left to a volunteer board. Nova Scotia Rowing lucked out with Janessa Green whose training is in sport administration and has taken to rowing like a fish to water! I was delighted to be able to work with and meet many more amazing rowers, coaches, and volunteers in Nova Scotia. The spirit in this province is wonderful to be around and the hard work put in is really obvious from my visit. Nova Scotia was the recipient of the Recreation Centre this year, which is in Antigonish,…stay tuned to see an update on what’s happening there!