Sometime in late July, anyone who’d like to put a kayak or canoe in Bayou Francois in Ascension Parish and enjoy some waterway sightseeing up close will be able to do it at a new launch point in the heart of Gonzales.
The new boat launch on the bayou, which will be built behind city hall, near Jambalaya Park, is a joint effort of volunteers, donors, the city of Gonzales — and an avid fisherman who had the original concept.
Darrell Crawford has fished as far back as he can remember and has given fly-tying classes at local libraries for more than 20 years. In the summer of 2020 he went to the Gonzales City Council and suggested a kayak launch on the bayou that flows through the city.
When volunteers with Leadership Ascension — a program of the Ascension Chamber of Commerce that works to benefit the community through teams of volunteers — asked the city late last year if there was a particular project they could tackle for residents, city officials pointed them to Crawford.
The group got to work. Now they call themselves the “Yak Pak.”
Crawford’s original sketch of his idea for the boat launch was a starting point for the group. Boats will launch on an existing, man-made canal that ties into the bayou, which lies just a short distance away.
The present design “looks great,” Crawford said last week.
The Leadership Ascension team behind the kayak launch has raised $65,000 in donations, both financial and in-kind, for the project, said team member Louis Saab.
Saab said he’s enjoyed sight-seeing tours via kayak in cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C.
“I think it’s a fantastic opportunity for Ascension Parish,” Saab said. “You’ll see more and more people just out and about.”
John DeArmond, another member of the Yak Pak, said “we’ve had a lot of interest in the project, a great response.”
One example of the in-kind work, DeArmond said, is the time donated by the Quality Engineering firm, based in Livingston Parish, in designing the launch, which will feature a kayak rental kiosk.
Other members of the Yak Pak team are Taylor Stringfield, Maci Gauthier, Irene Carney, Thomika Segar, Vanessa Murphy, Tyler Olinde and Aarika Dorsey.
Scot Byrd, chief administrative officer for the city of Gonzales, said tree removal at the site should be finished this week, followed by dredging and grading and the installation of a textile liner by late June.
Next, loose stones — rip rap — and sand will be put in, then laid over by a sidewalk and concrete pad, work that should be finished by mid-July. Landscaping will follow.
In the future, the city of Gonzales hopes to bring a floating dock to the launch that would be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and would rise and fall with the level of the bayou, officials have said.
Crawford, who’s 70, started using a kayak for fishing about 10 years ago, after he decided he wanted to retire “from lugging around an outboard motor.”
“I definitely enjoyed it more,” Crawford said. “You can take your time to fish and you’re not in a hurry.”
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