If you have spotted a large group of paddlers in the local waterways over the past 15 years, chances are it was the Wallaceburg Canoe & Kayak Club.
“This is the biggest year we have ever had for memberships,” Dawne Mudford, one of the club organizers, told the Sydenham Current.
“We have 61 kids registered with this club. We were surprised at the number that came out to the registration night. We can usually accommodate as many as what comes out because with that number of kids usually there is somebody going to camp or has something going on, so you know we can usually handle it.”
The club is celebrating its 15th year in 2017.
“I started out kayaking probably back around 2009 and I was enjoying it,” Mudford said.
“The Chamber of Commerce in Wallaceburg had gotten a bunch of kayaks and they had started a program. Muriel Mercer, who just recently passed away, was sort of the inspiration for that and they asked me to go on out and paddle around and I just fell in love with it. I thought it was great.”
Mudford said before long she got her own kayaks and she would be paddling along downtown and there would always be kids along the river saying ‘hey, we want to try that, that looks fun. Can we try your kayak?’.
“I thought well you know this might be a really interesting thing for kids to learn,” she said.
“It was a group in Wallaceburg that wanted to start an adult club and they just couldn’t get it off the ground. I said to them ‘I think you are doing this all wrong’ and they said ‘well, what do you mean?’. ‘I think you need to start with kids. If you start with the kids, then the adults will come.'”
Mudford added: “Of course they thought I was crazy, but I talked to the Chamber and they loaned me their seven kayaks that they had. Eventually, they donated them to us. We started out the first year in 2003, we had 22 members and it has just grown from there.”
Mudford said the Wallaceburg Canoe & Kayak Club have a great team of leaders, including Mark Jacques and Dennis Carnegie.
“Mark has been with me since day one on this,” he said.
“Technically, Mark and I are the Wallaceburg Canoe & Kayak Club and from that we have the 4H Canoe & Kayak Club. So Mark and I are the Wallaceburg Canoe & Kayak Club and as such we use all of our equipment to run a 4H Canoe & Kayak Club. So the equipment actually belongs to the Wallaceburg Canoe & Kayak Club. All the canoes and kayaks, the funds for them have been donated in part through our local community. We supply all the boats and paddles for the kids every week.”
Mudford said each week the group meet in a different location.
“At the beginning of the season everyone is given a list of all of the paddle points. Put ins and take outs. We have some beautiful, beautiful spots. I have had lot of people say to me ‘my gosh, I have grown up here, all my life I have lived here, and I have never, ever seen these spots that you are taking me to.’,” Mudford said, including in Mitchell’s Bay, the Sydenham River and the St. Clair River.
“We paddle on seven or eight creeks and streams and rivers in this area every year. We are having a camping trip, we are going up to the Saugeen River to paddle that and then we will have a trip out to Erieau to paddle out in Lake Erie and Rondeau Bay.”
Mudford said each paddle is more than just learning to paddle and safety.
“It is about comradery and developing skills and friendships,” she said.
“It is great exercise for the kids. Along the way there are a lot of lessons in nature. I have to be really, really, really up on my trees, my fish, my turtles and my wildlife plants because the kids always want to know ‘what is that, Dawne?’. So the kids learn about turtles, but mostly in my heart is that they are learning about conservation and they are learning about protecting our environment, protection of our water ways because unless you take them out to see this stuff, they have no idea what they are being asked to protect. I take them out there and it is right out in their face. It’s like nature is the best classroom.”
Mudford added: “We have actually seen bald eagles along the way. I have sat the kids under a bald eagles nest and had them look up. We see herons, kingfisher, purple martins and all sorts of really neat things. It is very cool to look up and say, ‘hey kids, there is a bald eagle flying over us’. They have never seen one in their lives. Many people haven’t, but they are pretty common around here now.”
The group has annual sign-ups in January and May each year before the start of the season.
“I was just about knocked off my feet when I saw how many people showed up to the registration night,” Mudford said.
“It’s become very, very popular. Unfortunately I have had to turn people away and I feel really badly when I have to say no but I have to. We can only take so many. We only have so many spots in boats. The kids are awesome. The kids are really enjoying this. The first night was a rainy night and we had 48 paddlers out. So you know they are enthusiastic when it rains and they still come out.”
For more information about the club, click here.
Here are some photos of the club during a paddle on the Sydenham River near Tupperville back in June:
– Photo credit: Aaron Hall
