Lake Tahoe Paddle Festival 2012

Welcome to Fabulous Lake Tahoe, your local's guide to the very best of America's year-round
playground. I'm Jack Durst, and this is the Lake Tahoe
Paddle Festival for 2012.
This is the 4th year in a row that South tahoe stand up paddle and our other sponsors have
put on the Lake Tahoe paddle festival. They're billing it as a solstice celebration of human
powered watercraft. They're going to be having just about every
kind of boat you can paddle out today. They're having a weekend of workshops and
events to teach canoeing, paddling, kayaking, and all kinds of other human paddle-powered
transportation.
"Hut, Hut, Ho!"
Hey, I'm Alex Bebou from South Lake Tahoe. I'm a member of the Kawaiulu 'o Tahoe canoe
club. We paddle out of Timber Cove here in South
Lake Tahoe. We do recreational and competition paddling
all over northern California and southern California.
We have a really enthusiastic club. We have men and women who compete.
So come on out and join us anytime. We're giving free canoe rides today.
So this is an ocean canoe: a Hawaiian outrigger ocean canoe.
It's a 44-foot, 400-pound spec boat for 6-man paddling.
Very capable, seaworthy for any ocean, any distance.
So if you want to learn the proper technique and stroke,
especially for you stand-up paddleboarders out there,
the outrigger canoe technique and training is your best prerequisite.
So come out and paddle all paddle sports: it's always a great exercise - an exercise
in humanity.
This is the 4th annual time that they've come out to do a paddle festival out here on the
shores of marvelous Lake Tahoe, and I'm gonna show you some of the great stand-up daddling
they're doing.
Hi, I'm John Thomaselli. I'm a 40-year resident of Lake Tahoe.
I moved up from San Diego this month 40 years ago and when I moved up to this lake, I said
to myself "If there was waves and we could surf this
lake, it would be heaven." And what's evolved is the stand-up paddle.
It's brought us on the lake. We are now surfing the lake, riding waves. It's been a lot of
fun. It's the newest, latest, greatest sport, and
it's evolving at record speeds! It's evolving so fast that it's just unbelievable
how it's taken off.
But it's really a sport that brings a lot to you. I can't tell you how good it is for
your body and your mind. You can go out and paddle on a beautiful glassy
day and it's just unbelieveable that you don't have to get out there on a
boat. You're out there by yourself, paddling around: no gas, no noise.
I've had a boat all my life and I havn't had it in the water for 3 years now because
I'm out on the lake more, and enjoying it more than I ever had before.
I'm almost 60 years old and I can honestly say I'm in the best shape of my life because
of stand-up paddleboarding. My back's messed up from skiing, my knees
are messed up from bicycle riding, and anyways this sport has allowed me to get
in incredible shape, and has done unbelieveable physical and mental
benefits to myself. And I'm just trying to share this with everyone
else, just to let 'em know how good it is for you.
I'm down here at South Lake Tahoe Stand-Up Paddle. We have rentals, we have boards, you
gotta come out and try it. You gotta come down here and get the feel
of it. We're just bringing this sport here to turn people on,
To give them a new altenative form of recreation that's low-impact,
but has a high intensity volume of life fulfillments. As you can see we have one of the best lakes
in the world. Tahoe is one of the cleanest, most pristine
lakes you can be on with some of the best fresh water.
And, you know, the stand-up evolved from surfing and the Hawaiians.
It came from the ocean and now we're on the lakes, so it's really turned into a new sport.
It's turned into racing, we have races now on the lake. You gotta come out and see it.
Oh, we're having a big race at the end of the month of June. June 30th through July
1st, come out and check out "Race the Lake of the
Sky" You'll see some of the top atheletes here.
It's a sport for 4 year olds to grandmas. It's where you want to take it.
The sport is, like I said, it's as far as you want to take it, it can be real simplicity
to full tilt racing. It's really a good thing, you gotta come out
and try it!
[music playing] "Oh, don't you baby? I bet you keep your feet on the ground!" CROWD:
"Woah!" [splash]
They have a trimaran that has been built by traditional canoe builders all around the
world, that will be going all the way around the world, and it was built right here in
Lake Tahoe.
How you doing? My name is John Preston and I'm the proud owner of this outrigger canoe
shaped by Tom Stone of Hawaii. OK, so this is a dugout traditional Hawaiian
outrigger canoe. It's made for fishing in the ocean.
It was shaped by Tom Pohaku Stone who is a world famous shaper of surfboards and canoes
and paddles. He shaped it last year with 3 hawaiians and
the Washoe children, the children of the Washoe tribe helped shape
it and carve on it. And I got to be lucky and spend 300 hours
to finish it. This is a 600 year old native cedar tree from
Lake Tahoe that the almas (which are these arms)
and the paddles are made out of this 600 year old cedar tree.
The actual canoe itself is made from a 125 year old native cedar tree from Lake Tahoe.
And it's all hand-carved out by axes and draw knives like they used in the old days.
This is a hundered year old tool for cutting the wood off:
It's called a draw knife because you draw it towards yourself.
And then we have all these planes from, like, 1860 that are curvature planes for the inside
radius. And there was, like, 26 trash can loads of
sawdust that came out of this canoe over the last 300 hours of preparation. And it's tied
on with sinew, which is the back tendon of an animal.
Being a fishing canoe, the front of the canoe has all of the things they need for fishing:
like this coa wood gath so they could catch big tuna with this, and mahi mahi and wahu
which are native fish, using these whale bone lures. These are made
out of whale bones. These are like over 100 years old.
You can't get these anymore, but these are just... they can be found once in a while.
And the hand tools and the hand drills, and there's no metal in it. It's all wood.
It's all doweled, scraped, sanded for hours and hours. It's just a really fun project.
And it's the only hawaiian outrigger canoe, supposedly, on the mainland.
It's probably going to go back to Hawaii, to Ouahu, where Tom Stone is the chief of
Ouahu. He's the carver, it'll probably go to his
place after we've finished with it. And we just want to display it and show the
people of Tahoe. I've been here 40 years, I've carved on trees
forever on other projects like surfboards and furnature,
and it's just that the wood up here is incredible and it's just fun to do a project like this.
We've got a lot of great vendors out today... [wind noise]
Hey, this is Luis Rubio with Tall Treez designs, and we're here in Lake Tahoe at the paddle
festival 2012. This is our booth right here. As you can see
we have tank tops and hoodies. We carry both women's and men's stuff.
We have hats and beanies also. Everything we make we try to make locally.
We have a couple of things out of house, but we have our own screen printing shop here
in Tahoe. We basically try to promote a more local way
of being, a less consuming lifestyle; and it's kinda easy living here in this great
area and being around all these great personal businesses.
Hi, I'm Kelsie Kronig and my brand is Threaded Gems. We have ThreadedGems.com and you can
find lovely reversable vests and crazy hooded hoods. Wait, let me try one on actually...
[truck rumbling] ThreadedGems.com where you can find all kinds
of fluffy things with the mohawk hoods or reversable vests,
and all kinds of crafty Burning Man needs like if you want goggles or anything else.
So, visit www.ThreadedGems.com
Hi, my name is Richie Levitt, and I'm the owner of Crystal Canoe and Kayak company and
SUPs. These are my two latest endeavours: 16ft,
4 foot wide, 1 foot tall canoe; holds two people,
and any time you sit in it, anything this big magnifies to the size of your head!
So, you can imagine what the view is like. Same thing with the paddleboard, it'll hold
a 200 pound man easily. I don't know what else to tell you besides
that it's a whole lot of fun!
The Tahoe resource conservation district is out today doing their thing.
They've got a booth for the Lake Tahoe watercraft inspections.
Hi, my name is Becky, and I work with the Tahoe Resource Conservation District.
We're out here at paddlefest to educate paddlers about aquatic invasive species.
Right now we currently have a couple of invasive species in the lake including:
the asian clams and the eurasian millefoille, and our high priority of keeping out
includes New Zeeland mud snails, the zebra mussels and the quagga mussels.
We have inspection stations set up all throughout the entry points to the lake.
It's important for paddlers to get involved because it's an impostant part of keeping
Lake Tahoe blue. This is a resource that we all enjoy and that's
why we're out here trying to educate. It's a little bit windy but the paddle fest
is a good time.
We have started a stewardship program called Tahoe Keepers, and it allows paddlers to go
online and take a short quiz and get certified to clean, drain, and dry your own boat and
become a certified Tahoe Keeper. We also have a Tahoe Keepers facebook page
which keeps you up to date on events such as the paddle fest.
That's why we're all out here, just to stay connected and keep tahoe blue.
[music playing]
JACK DURST: They actually started a couple of days ago with the rededication of Lakeview
Commons. If you guys follow my channel you know that
I've been taking a large interest in Lakeview Commons
This place where I'm sitting right now, Lakeview Commons, was subject to a huge lawsuit and
a holdup in construction and on solstice day they finally unveiled
their plaque and dedicated Lakeview Commons again,
and now it is open for all of the big events this summer.
This is going to be the absolute finest fireworks display Tahoe has ever seen this 4th of July
and this is going to be the very best place to watch it. There's also going to be a band
every Thursday. There's a band playing tonight, by the way,
but there's going to be a band every Thursday for FREE
at Lakeview Commons. Some big names are playing: the Dead Winter Carpenters will be playing
6/28, Keyser Sose from Reno is gonna be playing
later in July on 7/12, so definitely check out the Live at Lakeview concert series this
summer.
[dance music by DJ Synthesis, used by permission]
That was D.J. Synthesis opening it up for us, and next we have Weapon...
[Reggae rock music by WEAPON, used by permission]
What's up everybody, we're Weapon! [Drumroll / strum]
JACK DURST: So, stay tuned to Fabulous Lake Tahoe. There's going to be a 4th of July weekend
planner video coming up real soon on my channel. There is going to be a concert report for
the month of July coming up. So, stay tuned to Fabulous Lake Tahoe. Subscribe
if you havn't already, thumbs up if you enjoyed this video.
Thank you, and Keep Tahoe Blue, bye!