Gige Darey was one of the original Josh paddlers back in September 1977. I met with him to talk about that first day. He remembers it as being a sunny day, but two days before that were not so nice and windy. He remembers because he had to put the buoys out on the lake two days before the race.
‘We got some water jugs, painted them and then we got some lead pipe to keep them in the water. We didn’t have any rope so we went to the Arcadian Shop (an original sponsor) which was located where the Purple Plume is in Lenox, and John Fernsell gave him a bunch of shoelaces to tie down the buoys. That night was windy so when he went to check the next day, the buoys were nowhere to be found. They all had to be replaced.
Since Gige was a paddler, he doesn’t know too much about the race start which was up at Mount Greylock High School. The first Josh began with a run from the school to Brodie Mountain and the bikers took off down Route 7, hung a right onto Bull Hill Rd in Lanesboro, went down 41 in Richmond to Lenox Mountain Rd and crossed back into Lenox and down to Stockbridge Bowl.
The first couple of years paddle leg started and finished at Kripalu beach (it was not Kripalu back then) with two full laps. The paddlers met the bikers on 183 and ran down the road to the beach. Of course, you can’t have a race without some way to celebrate afterwards so somehow burgers appeared and “lots of beer” and they had one heck of a beach party. He remembers one drunk guy drove his pickup truck right into the lake.
Gige and lots of other paddlers had never raced flat water before, it was all whitewater and kayak races so no one had a flat water ‘racing’ canoe. Gige and his partner, Steve Moore, found a place in Ct to rent one, it was fiberglass and came with a long straight wooden shaft paddle with a round blade that looked like a pizza stone!
The first race, and for several more years, was won by Steve Blazejewski of Berkshire Outfitters with his paddle partner Paul Dyka, a kayak champion. Steve was a big whitewater racer but no experience with flatwater. His teammates were Bill Farrel (bike) and Mark Sisson (run). The 2nd year a couple of National Canoe champions showed up, Tingley and Osborne. On the second lap Steve and Paul passed them and won their second race.
Gige’s first team was John Fernsell from the Arcadian Shop on the bike, Gige and Paul Dyka in the canoe and Ginny Akabane in the run.
The Josh was the beginning of flatwater racing in the Berkshires and since that time we’ve had a number of National Champions and thousands of people picking up the sport. There was a time back in the 70’s and 80’s when you could find a canoe triathlon or race every weekend and the Berkshires was a hotbed of some of the best paddlers.
How did The Josh come into being and get its name?
The Berkshire Hills Committee wanted some event to bring people to the Berkshires after the Tanglewood season and before the leaf peepers came so someone’s son had heard about a multi-sport race out in Oregon which sounded like a lot of fun-it had biking, running, paddling and skiing. John Hitchcock from Williamstown came up with the name since the race would go right by the house where Josh Billings lived in Lanesboro.
There were about 82 teams that first year and the race quickly grew to several hundred with very competitive teams. Steve and Paul’s team won for the first 3 years. The second course started at Greylock again with bikers waiting at Brodie. This time the bikers went to Bull Hill but came back into Pittsfield at Wahconah Street and then down Route 7 into Lenox turning at the monument at West St and heading to Kripalu beach. By the second year, the party moved to Alice’s Restaurant up on the hill across from Tanglewood.
The race grew quickly but was also getting very expensive to run with lots of police needed to get through Pittsfield. In 1982 the race moved to South County.
Einar Aas was one of the original Josh committee members and Gige remembers fondly that no one could understand Einar with his Norwegian accent but he would stand with a megaphone calling off biker numbers and no one understood a word! One early year the wind was blowing so hard that between Stockbridge beach and ‘Coopers Point’ there were at least 20 boats turned over in the water-unfortunately we still have days like that!
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Told to Patty Spector by Gige Darey, 8/11/16