SAANICH, B.C. - The Olympic flame left solid ground and sailed across British Columbia's Elk Lake yesterday, rowed towards shore by a troupe of Canadians who became Olympic champions on its waters.

Members of the men's eight, victorious at the glamour event of the 2008  Olympic regatta in Beijing, traversed the kilometre-long stretch to the cheers of hundreds of onlookers, uniting the torch with a lake where they trained with less pomp, circumstance and recognition, and where they forged gold medals.

"Beijing is special for having won the gold medal there, but this is where we earned it," captain Kyle Hamilton of Richmond, B.C. said. "Having the symbol of the Olympics on this water with the guys, and rowing down the water where you spent so much time, it was a special moment."

The flame, held in the steady hand of tiny coxswain Brian Price, a cancer survivor from Ameliasburgh, Ont., began its float near 4 p.m., and reached land moments later near the boathouse of the Victoria City Rowing Club, and at a dock Canadian national-team rowers would know intimately as a place where Olympic dreams are launched.

The national team members passed the torch to a junior crew, who took it safely ashore while symbolizing the next generation of Canadian Olympic heroes.

"It's definitely something I am never going to forget," said junior coxswain Aimee Hawker, a 17-year-old student from Oak Bay High School on Vancouver Island. "It's absolutely incredible to meet my heroes, my role models, and being able to row alongside them."

Elk Lake is ground zero for the powerful Canadian rowing program, a place where blood, sweat and tears are actually shed in pursuit of the moment reached by the men's eight 14 months ago. It is an urban waterway beside Patricia Bay Highway, the main drag from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal to Victoria, and one of two Rowing Canada national training centres. (The other is in London, Ont.).

The lake is unable to hold international competitions because its course is just 1,825 metres - short of the two-kilometre regatta distance. It was chosen as a Rowing Canada centre after the 1988 Seoul Games because it is the warmest rowing-worthy waterway in the country. But it is almost never quiet, and in that sense, the relay's arrival was no different.

Normally, cars roar by at all hours, even at the break of dawn when Price's instructional calls echo over the water. Rowers see Elk Lake before sunrise, when the autumn temperature hovers around the freezing point, and when several layers of spandex are required to stay warm.

Yesterday, the flame drifted over the light ripples, sun glistening off the water and shades of green and yellow leaves in the background, as the white-uniformed bearers pulled strokes towards a cheering crowd partying near the dock.

"I've seen them all develop over the years, all the national team guys grow from young men to really mature and strong rowers," said spectator Wayne Van Osterhout, a 66-year-old who has been a rowing competitor, coach and official dating back to the 1960s.

"I've had to officiate at [the Olympic] level and you're trying to be as neutral as possible, but inside you have a pride. It's the same sort of pride I felt today watching those senior athletes pass the torch to the juniors, who would be the future members of our team."

The shop is run by crusty old Mike Spracklen, an English taskmaster who was one of 147 torch bearers on Day 1 of a 106-trek across the country leading up to the Games. The 72-year-old national team coach returned to Canada for a second stint in 2001, and is adored by pupils even while maintaining a professional distance and a stiff upper lip.

"Enthusiasm is contagious, and it was so contagious in the crowds," said Spracklen, who will retire after the 2012 London Olympics, his own home Games.

In these parts, rowing is not a niche sport with a short season, rather a year-round recreational pastime - save January - that dates to 1858, when British naval officers and gold-rush settlers began racing in Victoria's inner harbour, trying to recapture the motherland's Royal Henley Regatta in the new world.

The VCRC boathouse, an incubator of Canadian Olympic success, is home to 437 boat seats, and 1,470 resident rowers, including members of the University of Victoria team, and the Greater Victoria Youth Rowing Society.

Three-time Olympic medalist Silken Laumann and Derek Porter, gold medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Games, trained here.

All-time, Canadian rowers have won nine gold medals dating back to the 1904 Games in St. Louis, and 36 totals medals, including four in China. They, along with swimmers and track athletes, are the backbone of our success in the Summer Games.

But these days, the boathouse requires an expansion, and yesterday after the torch left the premises, Minister of State for Sport Gary Lunn announced that $550,000 federal dollars - half the Victoria Rowing Society's goal of $1.1-million - would be earmarked to help upgrade the facility.