In A Row
The Shasta Rowing Association Helps Locals Discover a Powerful Sport and Peace of Mind…
Having grown up in Boston, Martha DoByns was familiar with rowing but was far from intrigued by it, even when athletes from all over the country gathered each year for a massive regatta on the Charles River. “It was such a repetitive motion I thought it would be boring,” she says.
After relocating to Redding five years ago, DoByns, now an empty nester and eager to resume a more active lifestyle, discovered the Shasta Rowing Association through the Intro to Rowing class offered by the Redding Recreation Department.
She found a compelling form of exercise that incorporated accountability and teamwork in a beautiful outdoor setting. A bonus: DoByns says rowing is fully engaging. “It’s not just physical. “You’ve got two oars, you’re watching for obstacles, what your oars are doing, your back…you’re absolutely present and not paying attention to anything else.”
The team aspect of rowing also appeals to Redding dentist Rachel Barnhart, who got into the sport in 2006 while studying at Humboldt State University and joined the Shasta Rowing Association after establishing her dental practice in Redding.
Barnhart says her life needed a course correction while in college, both physically and mentally, and the structure and physical demands of rowing provided it. “Learning something new and technical, and being outdoors. Getting to see the sunrise in the morning. It’s very peaceful in a way, and also very challenging.”
Bryan Fraser, who helped launch the Shasta Rowing Association in 2016, also was introduced to rowing at the collegiate level. He started in 2009 as a walk-on member of the University of the Pacific crew and competed for four years while also coaching the masters (adults) team.
“It was a kind of ‘oh, that sounds interesting, let’s try it’ thing,” Fraser says of his first foray into rowing. “It’s nice for me. I can go out and relax and not think, just get lost in the simplicity of the repetitive motion. There was no way I was going to survive college without being part of the team.”
After graduating from UOP, Fraser took a civil engineering job in Folsom and soon found himself coaching the Sacramento State University juniors and men’s varsity teams. “I love rowing, love coaching and love seeing the progress people make when that light bulb goes off,” Fraser says.
Rowing has an almost intoxicating aesthetic appeal as well, with sleek boats cutting across glass-smooth lakes as oars rhythmically dip slice into the water. “That’s what keeps me going is the beauty of it, being on the water in an unpowered boat and listening to wildlife. The fun part of Whiskeytown is watching the osprey and bald eagles,” Fraser says.
The Shasta Family YMCA was stepping away from the rowing program when Fraser’s career brought him to Redding in 2016, so he stepped in and had the Shasta Rowing Association incorporated as a nonprofit organization. The Carr Fire in 2018 destroyed the club’s boathouse and most of its boats, and then the pandemic in 2020 and recurring vandalism curtailed operations out of a temporary boathouse on Keswick Reservoir.
The association currently stores its boats off-site and uses trailers to bring them to Whiskeytown on Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings. Fraser says talks are continuing with Josh Hoines, Whiskeytown’s superintendent, but funding for a permanent boathouse is still “up in the air.”
Fraser encourages people interested in rowing to register for an Intro to Rowing class “and make sure it’s for you.” Classes are six hours over two Saturdays and focus on single sculling (one boat with two oars) “so a person can get a feel for what rowing is about, how challenging or easy it is, before introducing you to a group dynamic.”
“I really love the club,” Barnhart says. “You do not need to have experience.
Just come to the class, get the basics and he’ll (Fraser) teach you to row. There’s
no judgment.”
Keeping one’s balance in a narrow scull can be tricky, especially for beginners, says club member Marcia Ames, but the Shasta Rowing Association provides a wider, more stable kayak-style boat to help novices get the hang of things.
“Mostly it’s an incredible way to be out on the water and it’s a total body workout. Legs, arms, back, shoulders, kind of everything,” Ames says. “We encourage people to look into rowing. It’s another fantastic water sport and Whiskeytown Lake is an amazing place to row. It can be more challenging than you might imagine, but the camaraderie is nice.
“Getting out there on a nice cold morning, and the feeling that we’re all going to do this, and you get out there and start rowing…it’s cool. When there’s snow on the mountain and the lake is smooth, it’s incredible,” Ames says.
The sport of rowing got a boost in popularity with the publication of Daniel James Brown’s “The Boys in the Boat,” which tells the story of the University of Washington team that rowed for the United States in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The book was the basis for the George Clooney-directed film that was released in 2023.
Shasta Rowing Association members may not be quite as famous as those Gold Medal winners from Seattle, but they’re just as friendly. There’s just one caveat, Ames says: “When boats go by, we don’t wave. It’s not because we’re snobs, but because we can’t let go of either oar.”•
www.shastarowing.org
Intro to Rowing class:
https://secure.rec1.com/CA/redding-recreation/catalog
