Canoeing across three provinces? That’s a paddlin’.

The 2017 Voyageurs Rendezvous is a 23-day-long, 1,600-km canoe marathon from the Rocky Mountain House National Historic Site to The Pas, Man.

This Canada 150 signature project is organized by the Confluence Heritage Society, a registered charity based in Rocky that preserves and promotes Western Canadian history, heritage and culture.

Six teams are participating in the race. They come from Indigenous communities in northern Saskatchewan including: Pelican Narrows, Sturgeon Landing, Cumberland House, Wollaston Lake; and Pukatawagan in northern Manitoba.

Before launching on Canada Day, they competed in a 10-km sprint from the Historic Site to the Highway 11A bridge and back on June 30.

The Joe Michel Memorial Team, whose members come from Pelican Narrows and Sturgeon Landing, finished first, in about an hour-and-a-half.

There could be more than $40,000 split between the top three teams after the marathon. However, Isaac Custer, a paddler for Joe Michel Memorial, said it’s not about the money.

“It’s about meeting new people and trying to be positive role models for our younger generations. ‘Hey, my dad paddled in this race. I want to paddle too.’ I want my son to say that,” Custer said.

“There’s a lot of good paddlers on this tour.”

Team Hatchet Lake from Wollaston Lake, Sask. launching their boat to start a 10-km canoe sprint on June 30 at the Rocky Mountain House National Historic Site.

The 2017 Voyageurs Rendezvous is a Canada 150 signature project, partly funded by the federal government, celebrating the country's waterways as a means of exploration, transportation and development.

It's also a throwback to a longer version of the race held during Centennial celebrations in 1967 – the Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant.

That race also started in Rocky but the finish line was in Montreal for Expo ’67, a 5,283 km trip along a fur trade route.

Ninety-two-year-old Archie Griffith from Rocky paddled for Team Alberta back then, which finished in third place.

Griffith, out helping out with the day’s sprint, recalled tough portages and the interesting measures the team took to make them more bearable.

“Along the border into Lake Superior, there was a 10-mile carry. It was hot, usually. A couple of us thought we were going to have something to drink along the way. We got bottle of rum and some coke and a large … bottle,” Griffith said.

“We mixed the rum and coke and water and we hung it on the boat. So as we’re going and you’d get thirsty, we’d go have a drink. Pretty soon, all the paddlers were drinking whether they contributed or not, but it was fun.”