Every spring, the town of Port Hope (about an hour and a half from Toronto) hosts a large community event along the Ganaraska River called Float Your Fanny Down the Ganny. It was started to commemorate the 1980 flood through the town.
There's a few parts to the event. Along the river, on the edge of the downtown, is Fannyville. It's a great small town community event with a couple service clubs selling food, food trucks, community booths, an inflatable kids' section and bleachers to watch the finish line.
Up river, there's a couple different starting points for the different events. You can walk, depending on the conditions, to the closer starting point which I think is where the Crazy Crafts start, and where the other competitors portage around a dam. It's a nice walk along the river when the conditions are good but can be quite muddy.
The Crazy Crafts are the highlight of the event, but it was also great fun watching the canoe and kayaks. We had a perfect spot, where there was a large submerged rock that so many teams hit. That would get them turned around or off kilter, and then the next drop would often swamp them. All in fun! Although, keep in mind....this was April 12 this year and it was about 5-10C and the water was probably not much above freezing.
The downtown is buzzing on the event day. It's one of the most charming downtowns in southern Ontario. So charming and nostalgic, it is used for filming many movies and TV shows!
Last year we ended our walk around the downtown by me walking into a pole in the middle of the sidewalk. I got it square on the forehead and even my mouth.
Last year OPG brought their robot dog. They were there again this year but the dog was now green.
Last year, we parked up by the dam, but were so early, we walked downtown, then back up to the dam...wait, we parked downtown...we stopped at the dam first then went downtown and walked back up to the dam and back downtown? Whatever, this poor guy in the kayak was the first to portage at the dam (or, they might have moved the starting point to there because the water level was very high and they made a few changes). He tipped, and through the charades we watched across the river, we think he lost his cell phone! Oops.
Edit to add: I contacted the organizers, asking if they had any more history of the actual event. I got a wonderful response back:
I can tell you the flood was in 1980, and then following year a group of friends decided to float down the river in on the anniversary of the flood to 'mark' the day. They floated on various manmade things, and Float Your Fanny was born. Later that year they registered Float Your Fanny Down the Ganny River Race as a non profit organization. The event was popular in the late 80's finishing on the main street of town, stories tell of chili cook offs on the main street, champagne drinking and elephants. The event then took a down turn in the late 90's and early 2000's. No longer could they close the main street, or have elephants, cook offs or open alcohol.
When we took over the event in 2011 there were less then 90 participants on the river, one hot dog vendor and a couple hundred spectators. We have spent 15 years rebuilding the event and revitalising the community spirit surrounding the unique event. The peak for us was in 2019 when there were almost 600 participants on the river, over 10,000 spectators on the riverbank, 40+ vendors in Fannyville, bouncy castles, face painting, live music, and so much more. This year Fannyville had 40 vendors selling food, promoting community organizations, supporting schools and local causes. We had this year 323 participants on the river, and almost 10,000 spectators enjoying a Kids Zone and Adventure Zone and all the action on the river.
This year, we parked at the community centre, thinking we'd take the shuttle to Fannyville. We just walked instead. After, we decided to head out of town for the best pizza, at Bewdley Pizza.
I was surprised at how small, and not yuppy-fied Bewdley is. Many towns are being gentrified, but Bewdley looks kind of forgotten...in a good way though.
As a teen, my brother worked for Corner Pizza in downtown Whitby. It was fantastic pizza and a branch of the family that owned it also ran this spot. The one in Whitby closed decades ago, but this one remains. I had been asking to go for years and finally, it was time!
Is there anything better than front seat pizza so hot your lap is burning? After the pizza, since we were even closer, we decided to go visit Megan at Fleming College. She was almost done in the shop, so we got a tour.
Nearly finished the second year summative project.
She got a very low mark on this project, due to the design file, even though the end result was awesome.
We walked over to the dorm and she quickly packed up a bunch of stuff for us to take home as she had only a week left. Her two year program went so quickly!
