CANAL FEST IN WATERFORD

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WATERFORD — The village was packed with people Saturday to celebrate the official opening of the Erie Canal.

The 23rd annual Canal Fest brought residents, Capital District visitors and even tourists from out of the area together for a day filled with vendors, live music, dancing, and education.

Canal Fest was first started by the RiverSpark Heritage Area, which is made up of Waterford, Troy, Cohoes, Watervliet, Green Island and Colonie, to celebrate the area’s rich canal heritage and commemorate the annual opening of the waterway each spring. This year’s celebration was also themed around the Quadricentennial celebration of Henry Hudson’s 1609 voyage up the river that now bears his name.

“It’s a great event and is kind of a right of spring,” said Town Councilman Dave Ball. “It gives everyone a chance to get out and get reacquainted with each other and to enjoy Mother’s Day weekend or pick up gifts from some of the vendors.”

Bob Hanson, a volunteer who works with the Half Moon, an educational replica of Hudson’s original ship, and Nancy Papish, a volunteer with the Onrust, a ship currently being built in Rotterdam for the Quadricentennial, were enjoying the event marking the opening of the canal while supporting another organization they belong to — the North River Friends of Clearwater.

Clearwater is an organization founded in 1969 by folk singer Pete Seeger which promotes the cleaning of the entire Hudson River watershed. A ship with the same name was also built with the founding of the organization and was among the first vessels in the country to conduct scientific-based environmental education aboard a sailing ship.

“It’s quite a banner year because Pete Seeger just had his 90th birthday, the Clearwater was built 40 years ago, the Half Moon was built 20 years ago, and of course it’s the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage,” said Hanson.

A rather unique group of individuals who attended the event was the Besemer family.

Originally from Boulder, Colo., David and Kathryn Besemer sold their house last year, bought a boat, and decided to take their 12-year-old daughter, Ayla, on a 5-year journey circumnavigating the globe on a vessel now known as the “Three @ Sea.”

“I guess when Ayla was about 3 years old, we knew we wanted to educate her differently and we wanted to travel to do that, but we weren’t sure how we would do so. And then we saw one of these boats — essentially a trawler you can travel around the world on,” said David Besemer. “We just started investigating over the next couple of years and decided to do this while she was in middle school, so last year we put our house on the market and bought the boat.”

The family started their voyage in November and, after spending the winter in the Bahamas, recently traveled to the New York Harbor and began their way up the river.

“We’re just giddy to finally be here at the Erie Canal,” said Kathryn Besemer. “The first year we’re spending around the United States seeing our own country’s history, and then in November we’ll cross over from Florida to Central America and then that’s when we’ll focus on circumnavigation and go through the Panama Canal. It’s going to be a canal kind of year.”

As if traveling the world at 12 wasn’t enough, the youngest Besemer is home schooled on the boat and keeps a blog of her adventures, along with her parents, that is available to the world at www.ThreeAtSea.com.

“I love to travel and I love to live on a boat,” said Ayla Besemer, who most recently had the opportunity to enjoy the variety of museums and other sights in New York City. “We do home school in the morning and then in the afternoon we do experiences such as walking around towns like this and going to see monuments. It’s amazing.”

In honor of the quadricentennial, the 2009 Canal Fest banner, which was painted by art students at Waterford-Halfmoon High School, depicted a Native American looking out on the river as the original Half Moon passed by in the distance.

Canal Fest is made possible each year through a partnership with the village of Waterford and RiverSpark, the town of Waterford, the state Canal Corporation, and other local sponsors.

Tom Caprood can be reached at 270-1278 or by e-mail at tcaprood@troyrecord.com.