Callaghan Creek race, festival making call for a cause

July 26, 2010

A pair of passionate paddlers who prize the magical whitewater destination that is Callaghan Creek have organized a new festival, set for this Saturday (July 24), with a goal of calling attention to the threats to Sea to Sky waterways from run-of-river hydro projects.
Leland and Andria Davis are the River Gypsies of North Carolina, a husband-and-wife team of traveling paddlers and business partners who have a stated mission of connecting people to the radiant glories of rivers by writing guidebooks and leading instruction clinics and paddling trips.
Powered by a desire to save Callaghan Creek from threats they perceive in run-of-river projects, they have created the Callaghan Creek Festival and Extreme Race that will debut on Saturday.
“Callaghan is one of our favourite creeks in the world. We spent the last four years traveling the continent making a new guidebook to the best whitewater in North America (The River Gypsies’ Guide to North America), and Callaghan is simply one of the best advanced intermediate whitewater runs anywhere,” Leland Davis wrote in an email to The Question.
“The quality of the whitewater combined with the amazing scenery, easy access, and proximity to Whistler make it one of the best whitewater destinations we’ve found,” he wrote, also noting the Callaghan and other Sea to Sky creeks have a unique quality in their late-July and early-August prime season.
“Rivers are being destroyed at an alarming rate in B.C. by run-of-river hydro projects. We’ve known that Callaghan was threatened, like almost every stream in the Sea to Sky corridor. Last year, we drove through the lower Lillooet Valley and saw some of the projects that are being built there, and it really inspired us to try to save Callaghan,” Davis wrote.
Seeking to draw people together to enjoy the beautiful creek and create a visible show of support for it, the organizers have put together a festival based at the Cal-Cheak Recreation Site five kilometres south of Function Junction. Events include a race for two-person teams beginning at 2 p.m., on a course ending with a pleasant plunge down a seven-metre waterfall, and festival fun starting at 5 p.m.
The event organizers aren’t quite certain what to expect for the numbers of participants in Year 1, having commenced planning just two months before the date and faced with unexpected water levels because of the late-melting snowpack. But they hope to turn the festival into a destination event in future years. This year, Davis wrote, they would be happy to have 200 people.
“We’re expecting a good turnout of Vancouver paddlers, as well as people from Washington who could make plans on short notice to make the trip. We’ve also got a pretty good contingent of paddlers from as far away as the southeastern U.S. who have made the trip. Hopefully future years will bring a gathering of paddlers from around the world,” he wrote.
Davis said he and Andria first ran Callaghan in 2002, and this will be the sixth summer in which they’ve made the 6,000-mile round trip between Whistler and their home in North Carolina, lured by the fun of paddling Callaghan Creek and of vacationing around Whistler.
“Without Callaghan as the highlight run, we probably wouldn’t make the trip anymore,” Davis wrote. Having spent weeks running the rushing waters of the Callaghan and Upper Cheakamus, he said, “for a skilled paddler who is looking for a vacation and not an expedition, it’s hard to find a more magical place to spend time.”
Davis wrote of fears inspired by run-of-river projects such as the Rutherford Creek facility, which affected a river that he said “used to be a staple destination for paddlers traveling to the Sea to Sky,” and the Ashlu Creek project recently swamping “half of one of B.C.’s most popular whitewater runs.”
He said he and Andria saw signs of infringing projects on Fire, Tipella and Douglas creeks last year in a trip to the lower Lillooet Valley, and watched a project approved this year on another of their favourite fringe runs, Tretheway Creek.
“Losing world-class runs like Callaghan and Rogers Creek (and the Rutherford and Ashlu, which have already been lost) would completely erase Whistler from the map as a whitewater destination,” Davis wrote.
Proceeds from the event’s admission fees and donations will be directed to organizations dedicated to protecting B.C. rivers from run-of-river projects, the festival website states. For more information, check out