At the end of my race on Saturday I saw a part of the town of Batesville I'd never seen before: the old White River Stadium. A river stadium... how cool is that?
The now-forested piece of land that separates this narrow channel from the main river is manmade; before it was built a person could sit here and view the whole expanse of the White. The venue hosted boating and water-skiing events that were probably similar to the ones that took place on McKellar Lake here at Memphis. The townspeople even crowned a White River Queen on the stage surface in this photo.
What a shame that such events have fallen by the wayside in this part of the country. I'd be in favor of bringing them back--provided, of course, that they include lots of canoe and kayak racing.
Here at Memphis today we might not have a river stadium, but we do have an event that's worthy of a legion or two of fans. The 35th Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race is coming up this Saturday. Here's some footage from the race in 2012:
My favorite part of this video happens around the 30-second mark, when a bunch of surf skis leads the parade down the Wolf River toward its confluence with the mighty Mississippi.
Right now it looks like the Mississippi will be between 7 and 8 feet on the Memphis gauge Saturday. That's some nine vertical feet more water than what you see in this video.
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