Donner Lake shimmers like black oil in the predawn light as a team of paddlers roll their outrigger canoe down the grassy slope and slide it into the water.

With the balance of a tightrope walker, each member of the team steps forward in the narrow boat to a pre-assigned seat before the last of the six — the “steering person” or “steersman” — pushes off, sending the 40-foot canoe gliding silently over the dark, still surface.

Then the rhythm begins: a synchronized stretch of arms and twist of upper bodies as the team — alternating with three working on one side and three on the other — reach their paddles out, piercing the water, and pull the boat forward.

“I’ve been doing team sports all my life, but this is different somehow,” says 39-year-old Leigh Fitzpatrick of Reno, who began paddling with the Truckee Outrigger Canoe Club in 2001 and plans to introduce his wife, Rorie, to the sport this summer. “When you’re paddling really hard, you really become connected with the other people in the boat — you have moments when everything is clicking. The body gets transcended and you feel the energy of the other people. It’s a cool sensation.” Twice each week through the summer about a dozen outrigger enthusiasts from Reno, Truckee, and as far away as Auburn, Calif., rise before dawn and meet at the alpine lake for a 5:45 a.m. training session led by the club’s coach and founder Daphne Hougard.

With their focus on a list of races held at Lake Tahoe, in the Bay Area, and Hawaii, two teams of six work their muscles, ticking off intervals, squeezing out more speed, and striving to make their 400-pound fiberglass boats hydroplane across the surface.

Speed comes through efficiency — the precise paddling strokes of six individuals moving in unison, says Hougard, a 42-year-old professional photographer based in Truckee, who began her paddling career in 1981.

“It’s quiet in the boat; the only voice is the steers person,” Hougard says. “You’re feeling everyone’s movements. Initially it’s by eyesight, but soon you do it by feel. The more you do it, the more you feel the canoe.” The bodies flow like rows of seaweed swaying in the ocean, says team member Jane Delaney of Truckee, who has been paddling with the group for about four years.

“It’s a fluid, aggressive power,” she says.

Steady ride

These special boats, narrow steep-sided canoes made of wood or fiberglass, achieve their stability through the outrigger — a float, attached to one side of the canoe by two sturdy wooden arms. This framework helps keep the outrigger canoe balanced through choppy ocean waters and while riding swells and waves.

The outrigger, commonly seen in photos of Hawaii, likely originated at least 3,000 years ago when Polynesians began venturing around the Pacific Islands, according to a group called Kanu Culture, which strives to promote ocean paddling sports.

“These canoes have been around as long as people have been tripping around the planet,” Dulaney says.

Team member Kelly Case of Reno, who paddled outriggers while in high school in Hawaii, says it was like coming home when she joined the Truckee club.

“In Hawaii there’s a concept of Ohana, or family, that is so important,” says Case, a 36-year-old mother of twins. “A paddling club in Hawaii is an extension of your family. You can spend the whole day out on the beach, having pot lucks. It’s a real feeling of community. The outrigger club here has brought Hawaii to Nevada,” she says.

For Dulaney, part of the sport’s allure is the cultural experience it offers. On her many visits to the Hawaiian Islands, Dulaney says, she has been embraced by the people involved in paddling — taken in by their “loving arms.” People are eager to teach how the boats are built, how they’re used, where they came from, she says. They share their reverence of the canoe, and show how to be mindful, respectful of the outrigger, as well as press the importance of “not cussing in the boat,” she says.

The paddlers come in all shapes, sizes, and ages, she says, including women reaching into their 70s and 80s.

“You hug the old ladies there and they’re all solid, not squishy,” she says.

Water view

Another draw, especially for those ocean lovers living in the mountains, is the special experience of gliding across a chilly alpine lake and seeing the natural world yawn and stretch to life.

In the still summer mornings, paddlers arrive bundled up in fleece, gloves, and booties as insects dance on the water’s surface. Once out on the water, the team enters another realm.

“We get to watch osprey crash right in front of the boat and grab a fish,” she recalls. And the team has witnessed a fuzzy immature bald eagle, as he squawked from a tree branch to his parents nearby.

Sometimes the lake carries a top layer of heavy fog, Dulaney says, and the paddlers travel like early explorers through spires of white as the shoreline disappears behind them.

“When paddling, there’s a real sense of order to nature that isn’t present in our day-to-day living,” Dulaney says. And the teams who paddle together develop close bonds through their efforts to achieve a pulse that propels the outrigger efficiently along.

“You become one with the people in the boat,” she says. Through paddling, “I’ve made relationships that will last through my life.”

Martha Bellisle, a legal affairs reporter for the Reno Gazette-Journal, is an outdoor enthusiast who used to paddle sea kayaks in Juneau, Alaska, before moving to Truckee, Calif. She has written for magazines on skiing, hang gliding, climbing, hiking, and other mountain sports since the late-1980s.

For more information about the club, call jane Dulaney at (530)587-7504 or e-mail: tocc-info@lists.theoutrigger.com.