The St. George River Race was off, then on, and is now postponed again — all in the span of a week.
Winter’s reluctance to loosen its grip on eastern Maine this week forced organizers to postpone the 38th running of the St. George River Race, which is annually one of the state’s first canoe and kayak races and is the first in a series sponsored the Maine Canoe and Kayak Racing Organization.
Race director Dale Cross of the Waldo County YMCA could hardly have imagined that on Friday he would have to make the call to postpone the event.
“The events of the last couple nights have frozen the river over again,” Cross said in a phone message left with BDN Outdoors Editor John Holyoke, who a day earlier had published a story about how the race would be run.
Wednesday’s temperatures in Montville never exceeded 34 degrees and dipped below 13 for a low. On Thursday, the low temperature was 9 degrees and the high was only 30. On Friday, temperatures dropped to 11 degrees early and barely got above freezing during the day.
“I can’t believe what I said in the paper, because my quote made me a liar,” Cross said with a chuckle. “[The river] did ice back over and it’s really dangerous, so we’re postponing our race.”
Only a week earlier, on March 17, Cross had expressed serious concerns about the possibility of running the race eight days later. However, all the ice broke up and left the river over the weekend.
“It was wide open. It was unbelievable,” Cross told Holyoke. “This was a real eye-opener as to how fast [the ice] can go out.”
As was the rapid refreeze this week.
The St. George River Race has been moved to Sunday, April 2. Registration will run from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the Searsmont Methodist Church on Route 131. The race starts at 11 a.m.
That means there will be two races on the first weekend of April. The 44th Passagassawakeag is scheduled for Saturday, April 1, in Morrill.