Paddler Magazine - June 1996
The Monocacy Canoe Club (MCC) is the fastest growing paddling organization in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area, and is also the club most steeped in tradition.
Is this a paradox? We think not.

The Cruise Schedule...
The rock solid core of the club is its annual cruise schedule, currently featuring more than 100 river trips, canoe campers, out-of-state paddling weeks, dam-release weekends, family float trips and canoe sailing.

MCC also offers classes in basic canoeing and kayaking, whitewater instruction,
and river safety clinics.

The tradition of maintaining this annual cruise schedule was established in 1962, and today the schedule is supplemented by a telephone hotline to list changes and additions, including pick- up trips.

Many members have been active in the club 20 years or longer, and there is a tradition of oral history that gives the MCC its vibrancy.
On a low water run of historic Antietam Creek, one can listen to guidebook author Roger Corbett explain how the painted "Randy Carter" gauges on bridge abutments often show a "canoeing zero" level considered too shallow by some, because the late Randy Carter, a member of the club in its formative years, was the finest low water paddler known.

Bob Burrell, the original author of Wildwater West Virginia, was also a MCC member, and penned a little ditty for the 1973 newsletter under the pen name "The Bard of the North Fork."

The club's evolving history is documented in a quarterly publication called the Smoke Signal. A typical issue will contain trip reports from a dozen authors highlighting the names of each participant with special good-natured delight given to the comedy of the day--generally SWIMS and other forms of embarrassment. Our fearless editor will also include as many photos as possible, and does a good job of intermixing river shots with personalities.

New traditions...are developing all the time in the Monocacy Canoe Club.
Playboating and creeking are popular activities among some of the club members.

We even have a few racerheads who will be vying for spots on the U.S. Canoe
and Kayak Team.

 

But every year the new and old gather at the November Pot Luck Supper and the Winter Program Meetings to share adventures and sense of community together. "Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it."

Written by Kathy Streletzky

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