Dragon boats coming to North Park for benefit race

A Chinese tradition dating more than 2,000 years old will be on display at the Pittsburgh Dragon Boat Festival on Sept. 28 at the lake in North Park, off Pearce Mill Road.

Dragon boats are colorful 40-foot canoes featuring the head and tail of a dragon. Nearly two dozen teams will be racing, each consisting of 20 to 24 rowers, sitting in pairs in 10 rows. The race is 200 meters.

Created and organized by Pittsburgh Hearts of Steel, a breast cancer survivor support group, the event is a competitive and recreational race for experienced and novice rowers. Registration is set to end on Sept. 18.

“It’s mind over body when you’re doing a long race, just using your bigger muscles, arms, legs. You do what you need to do,” said Darlene Goldfinch, a race co-chair and member of the Pittsburgh Hearts of Steel Breast Cancer Survivor Dragon Boat Team.

She was diagnosed at 42 with breast cancer and is now celebrating 27 years as a survivor.

“Dragon boating saved my life. It’s because of the camaraderie activity. Everything about dragon boat racing: It’s so inspiring, so infectious it just clears your mind. You don’t think about anything else,” said Goldfinch, who lives in Penn Hills.

Divisions for the race include community, sports, youth, para-paddlers and breast cancer survivors. Each team received practice sessions prior to the event, and all equipment is provided by 22Dragons, a dragon boat organizer.

The North Allegheny all-boys hockey team, Pittsburgh Steel City Selects all-girls hockey team and another local school are racing in the youth division, Goldfinch said.

The event runs from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m,, beginning with the national anthem.

A long tradition

The origin of dragon boating comes from China as far back as 2,500 years ago, according a history description on the festival website. Legend says when Qu Yuan, a great poet, was exiled by his king, he committed suicide on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. The community was deeply saddened by his death and paddled out in search of his body, hitting the water with their paddles and beating drums. Thus, tradition was formed by creating dragon boat races in his memory.

Traditionally, each boat has an ornately carved dragon’s head at the bow and a tail for the stern. The hull is painted with dragon scales. The race begins with a ceremonial eye dotting, or painting, of the dragon’s eye onto the boat.

Each boat also has a steersperson in the rear and a drummer in front to keep cadence.

The festival will feature Tejas Mitra playing a dhol drum during the eye-dotting ceremony, when the ‘dragons are awakened’ in the morning before the races begin, according to Sandy Hirsch, a member of Hearts of Steel and co-chair for the festival.

A traditional lion dance, a traditional dragon dance, and a martial arts demonstration will be performed by Zang Tae Kwon Do, located in Pine. The Pittsburgh Taoist Tai Chi Society will lead guests in the low-impact form of exercise, Hirsch said.

Food trucks and a DJ from Steve Maffei Entertainment will be present.

Other activities include a scavenger hunt for kids and henna painting. The Lawrence County Comfort Canines will bring therapy dogs, and the therapeutic organization Calm Pittsburgh will have an “affirmation station.”

All teams race three times, and the winner will be determined by the average heat.

‘Such an inspiration’

Amy Fuller of Baden, a rower for the Pittsburgh Hearts of Steel, will be cheering on her family members participating in the community division. Her husband, Jeff, will join their son Jordan, and his fiancée, Olivia Doverspike, in returning to the Blazing Paddles team, along with her daughter Mackenzie, who is flying in from Boston.

in January 2021, Amy went for a routine screening, which led to a lumpectomy revealing a more aggressive cancer. Treatment turned into 16 rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. The process started in May and finished in November.

She’s happy to say she has no evidence of disease since then. She became involved with Pittsburgh’s dragon boating team after finding a postcard left at her doctor’s office.

“I love being able to connect with other women who have gone through something just as hard as me. Some of them are still going through something. That to me is such an inspiration to keep going. I want to be just as strong in my life as those who have overcome something even harder than I went through. They inspire me,” said Fuller, 55.

Dragon boating requires intense teamwork, she said.

“If we are not in sync and not working together as one, then we are working against each other. It’s important for us to be as one,” Fuller said.

The Pittsburgh Hearts of Steel has been traveling across the country to race, including winning gold in July in New Jersey. Fuller said they are scheduled to race in France in an international breast cancer surivivor dragon boating festival in 2026.

Proceeds from the Pittsburgh Dragon Boat Festival will benefit Pittsburgh Hearts of Steel, an all-breast cancer survivor dragon boat team founded in 2017, based at Three Rivers Rowing Association in Pittsburgh.

For more information, visit www.pghdragonboatfestival.org.