History buffs and boating enthusiasts who turn out for this year’s James River Batteau Festival will have a new landing site to see off the man-powered, flat-bottomed boats that first put Virginia commerce on the map. Thirteen batteaux and their crews will be stopping at the New Canton-Bremo Bluff boat launch this coming Thursday, Ralph Smith, president of the Virginia Canals and Navigations Society and chairman of the 39th festival, told The Daily Progress. The new stop replaces the former Slate River property used in festivals past, which has been sold and is no longer available, Smith said.
150 years later, batteaumen are once again bringing life to Scottsville Stopping at Bremo Bluff will give batteau crews and the kayak and canoe teams that accompany them a rigorous late-day challenge, Smith said. “Bremo Bluff is basically the last rapid in that part of the river,” Smith said. So for folks navigating the James in small crafts, “Bremo Bluff is not a place you want to be after dark.
” A map shows the landing sites along the river for the 2024 James River Batteau Festival. After a kick-off at the Water Dog bar and grill in Lynchburg this past Friday, the first batch of batteaux took to the James River Saturday with “thousands of people in the river,” Smith said. The batteaux, and hundreds of kayaks and canoes, set out at 11 a.
m., entering the James from River Edge Park on the Amherst County side of the river. There are eight stops down the James as the batteaux.
