Over the past couple of weeks, Media Director Hunter D’Antuono and I have traveled south to Big Arm a few times for a Flathead Living magazine story to learn about a group of ladies who in the last few years have started an outrigger canoe club on Flathead Lake.

An outrigger canoe – as I recently learned – is part of Hawaiian and Tahitian culture and is designed to hold several paddlers while it’s equipped with a lateral support to stabilize the boat traditionally paddled in the ocean. While the landlocked state of Montana is many miles from any salty body of water, the canoes are ideal for the choppy waters of Flathead Lake, which can sometimes see waves up to five feet high.

This year, the Silver Lining Foundation is hosting the sixth annual Paddle Palooza from July 11-13, which will bring 200 paddlers hailing from around the country – including Hawaii – to Flathead Lake for sprint races and a 25-mile voyage starting in Polson.

But the Paddle Palooza is about far more than just paddling across Flathead Lake. Nan Condit, a founding member of Silver Lining, helped launch the nonprofit organization to bring breast cancer survivors together on the water with both dragon boating and – more recently – outrigger canoeing. Paddling not only helps reduce the rate of cancer reoccurrence, but the sport helps form a bond of sisterhood.

“You have to be in sync, and when you’ve all been through the same journey of cancer, it can be traumatic,” Condit said. “When you’re all in a boat together doing the same thing – it’s pretty powerful. It’s healing – it’s really about the healing power of water.”

The healing power of water and the bond it forms is a common theme I’ve heard from sources over the years as I’ve covered boating sports on the Flathead’s waterways.

In 2023, two whitewater kayakers who participate in the Bigfork Whitewater Festival on the Swan River (a competitor pictured below) every year told me how river-running and the boating community’s inclusivity helped them move through grief following the deaths of close family members. The boaters described a transformative perspective on life that left them gravitating toward the water.

“I was just blown away by the community that whitewater has and the camaraderie on the river,” said Liz Poole, a Flathead-based kayaker who lost her mom to cancer as a teenager. “It felt so powerful to be in my body and focus on the river at that moment and not focus on all the problems that I made up in my head.”

Psychologists call this the “flow state,” which is described as a “state of full task absorption, accompanied with a strong drive and low levels of self-referential thinking.” The National Library of Medicine lists nine dimensions of flow, which include a reduction in self-consciousness, a feeling of being in control, and a balancing act of challenge and skill level that help achieve this dopamine-filled state.

“Boredom as well as stress tend to disrupt any experience of flow.”

I’m Maggie Dresser, here with today’s Daily Roundup that likely won’t bring you into a dimension of flow.

In her latest column, Bigfork-based cookbook author and food blogger Julie Laing shares her recipe for herb and spinach frittata. Check it out here.