Here’s sport with silliness in mind

THE TRAINING BEGAN in Buffalo, N.Y., at the neighborhood YMCA pool and the competitors were dead serious. No way was anyone going to beat them in canuggling this year. They would paddle their canoe back and forth across the pool and juggle all day if they had to. They planned to astonish the canuggling world when they reached Coeur d’Alene this summer.

“I realized those people in Buffalo were not being silly about canuggling,” says David Groth. He created the sport with silliness in mind two years ago on Lake Coeur d’Alene. “They were thinking of it as an athletic event.”

Canuggling is the spectator sport offered at the annual Coeur d’Alene Juggling and Unicycle Festival. Teams of three take off from Independence Point in a canoe. Two people paddle at each end while the person in the middle stands and juggles four-inch plastic balls. After 75 yards, the competitors switch places while the canoe floats until each has stood and juggled. The team that crosses the finish line first with the most juggling balls remaining wins.

“By the 10th year, we think we’ll be able to apply for Olympic sport status,” says Mary-Jane Albrecht, grinning. She and David started the festival in 2001 and, from the way it’s grown and the distances people travel to attend, her forecast may not be as funny as it sounds.

David is a die-hard juggler who promotes its mental and physical benefits in the fifth-grade class he teaches at Coeur d’Alene’s Sorensen Elementary and in magazine articles he writes regularly. Juggling is such a love in his life that he wanted his town to love it too.

“I love the community and thought the two would enjoy each other,” he says.

He began planning a neighborhood festival filled with juggling workshops, unicycling and a heavy dose of silliness with the exuberance of a 10-year-old with the best idea ever. He approached the juggling giants he’d befriended around the country and invited them to Coeur d’Alene in August 2001.

“Because this is an incredibly beautiful place to come in August,” David says.

Mary-Jane’s son was starting to juggle with David’s youth performance group, Levity, that year. She’d worked in theater and saw audience potential in David’s idea for a juggling festival. She jumped in to help.

“I always knew it would take years to establish, but I was comfortable with that,” she says.

The first festival was a homespun affair. A few top jugglers offered workshops. Local kids sang, danced and juggled at a special performance for the community. David optimistically had expected 150 people to sign up for classes. He was disheartened to attract only 88, but since has realized what a good turnout it was for a first-time festival. He ended up paying about $1,000 of the festival’s costs from his own pocket but agreed when a friend told him it was a small price to pay for a hobby.

His investment was worth it. The festival’s quality attracted donors and more participation in the next two years. Paula Witkowski in Bayview volunteered all her energy for the festival board. More volunteers followed. This year, the festival’s budget has doubled to $10,000 and the Saturday night performance for the community will feature two Russian teens, Vova and Olga Galchenko, who hold the world record for juggling and passing clubs. They can keep 11 in the air.

The brother and sister wanted to participate in Coeur d’Alene’s first festival, but David and Mary-Jane couldn’t raise the money to bring them from Russia. Now the Galchenkos live in New Hampshire. They’ve won medals around the world from their performances.

They’ll join Jay Gilligan, a consummate juggler from Minneapolis known for his artistic approach, and a corral of award-winning jugglers who’ll teach and perform everything from juggling torches and knives to unicycling. They come from all corners of the country, like the team from Buffalo, because they can’t resist Coeur d’Alene in August or the way the town has embraced them.

David added canuggling two years ago so workshop participants of all ages would play together. Each team required a man, woman and child. Last year, he added a category for all adults because some of the jugglers were so competitive.

The growing festival hasn’t lost its hometown touch. Spectators attend free. Performances Friday at Independence Point and Saturday at the Rotary Bandshell in City Park depend on audience donations. David envisions families picnicking on blankets and laughing themselves silly while they watch the antics of the world’s finest jugglers.

“It’s a gathering around an activity that’s physically and mentally challenging and healthy and focused on the family,” he says. “It’s a lot of good forces and silliness coming together.”