All bets are off at Poker Paddle

One of the greatest Inland Northwest paddling traditions since the demise of the fur trade is scheduled for next Saturday and Sunday on the Pend Oreille River

More than 300 paddlers are expected once again in the annual 32-mile Pend Oreille Poker Paddle, which was founded in 1982.

Canoeists and kayakers will launch from Usk on Saturday morning and camp halfway at places such as Blue Slide and Outpost Resorts. They’ll launch again on Sunday and finish the event at Ione City Park.

Each day the paddlers will stop at four stations and collect a playing card. The best poker hands at the end of the event get the best prizes.

“There used to be a lot of serious racers, including some who found they could do the entire course twice in the two days,” said Aurelie Keogh, former event chairwoman. “But it’s mostly a fun family event now.”

Eileen Dugger, this year’s Poker Paddle chairwoman, wonders whether the paddleboat will be back this year.

“Two years ago a man built this paddle wheeler, but unfortunately he didn’t test it before the Poker Paddle and it promptly sank,” she said.

“Then last year he brought his new improved model, which was a platform on two pontoons with four captains chairs each with bicycle pedal mechanisms that ran the paddle wheel. It still had a few bugs in it, like the mechanism underwater would come apart if they paddle too hard. But they made it — around dark.”

Keogh recalled numerous stories over the years, including the year a pilot flew low to buzz the paddlers, clipped a power line and crashed in the water in front of one of the checkpoints.

“A lady broke her ankle getting into the canoe at the start one year,” she said. “But somebody took her to the clinic and she was back at the next check station to get in the canoe with a cast on her foot.”

Paddlers have shown up wearing buckskins to paddle frontier canoes. Some have fashioned sails out of umbrellas.

“You never really know what will turn up,” Keogh said.