Submitted photo
Paddleboarding events will be coming to Forest Lake this summer with The Northern Lights Paddle, Yoga and Music Fest on Aug. 8. Paddleboarding is already practiced by some in Forest Lake, including during classes taught by event organizer Randy Johnson and “sub yoga” classes, pictured above.
A Forest Lake resident is hoping the public will get involved with a new aquatic event he’s helping organize on Forest Lake and in Lakeside Park this August.
Event organizer Randy Johnson is the co-founder of The House, a Twin Cities-based outdoors shop that includes water board sports as one of its specialties. Johnson, who has taught paddleboarding on Forest Lake for a number of years, also organized a number of windsurfing events around the state, and he was contacted in 2014 by Forest Lake’s former Park and Recreation coordinator Nicole Schossow about helping the city set up an aquatic event of its own. The seeds for The Northern Lights Paddle, Yoga and Music Fest were sown.
“It’s not my event. It’s a city event,” Johnson said. “What gives this thing legs is just community people getting involved in this.”
Not all of the details are finalized, but the event will take place Aug. 8. The festival’s main event will be a series of stand-up paddleboard races on the first lake. The events will be open to novices as well as more experienced paddleboarders who are interested in competing.
“We’re trying to make them more like running events, so the main races are 5K and 10K,” Johnson said, noting that the racers will be paddling around buoys on the lake to mark their distances. A 1-mile race will also be organized.
In addition to paddleboarding, yoga and music will also be a focus. Yoga Forest will be providing yoga activities in the park (and on the lake, in a style called “sub yoga”), and yet-to-be-finalized musical guests will be performing in the gazebo. Johnson said yoga is a good event to tie to paddleboarding, as both are focused on balance and peace.
“It’s a wonderful tool for people to kind of hold their center,” he said.
Depending on community partnerships, Johnson and other event organizers would like to bring in other activities as well, like a relay race between local emergency responder teams.
With a month and a half before the inaugural festival, Johnson is still looking for businesses to partner with the event for marketing, along with volunteers willing to help promote the event in advance and help with the races on the event day.
“If they’ve volunteered for running events before and know how to do that, we’re just trying to get that core group,” he said.
In the future, Johnson envisions The Northern Lights Paddle, Yoga and Music Fest as entirely community-run, a day for unity in the community and of the mind, body and spirit.
“We’re really trying to seed this as an event that can get legs and keep on going year after year,” he said.
Learn more or volunteer by contacting Johnson at 651-590-0970 or randy@just-be-it.com or by contacting Park and Recreation Coordinator Jamie Muscha at 651-209-9723 or jamie.muscha@ci.forest-lake.mn.us.