Ebb & Flow - Fall 2026
Canada Games - way back when!
Newfoundland may not have paddled at Canada Games this year, but we have definitely been a force in the past! Our province competed in paddle sports for the first time at the 1977 games, which were held in Newfoundland. While we only placed 7th, those games brought in many more young paddlers interested in competing in the 1981 games in Thunder Bay. The St. John’s Canoe Club created a competitive division to support their training, and put together a very good plan for coaching and paddler development, including obtaining significant funding. That allowed them to send coaches to Dartmouth NS for development, bring national level coaches to NL for seminars, and send team paddlers to compete in regattas, primarily on Dartmouth’s Lake Banook. Even back then, Nova Scotia was a centre of excellence for sprint canoe and kayak, and the national team trains there now.
I (Paul Pearson) was part of that 1981 cohort. I began canoeing at a young age, brought in by my father. He was a Canada Recreational Canoe Association national Canoeing Instructor and the founding president of the St. John’s Canoe Club.
His involvement in competitive canoeing began when he was asked to be the chair of the canoeing officials in the 1977 games. Following those games he was team manager for the 1981 games.
I was on the canoe team in the 1981 Canada Games. Newfoundland sent a full complement of male and female kayakers and a strong men’s canoe team to the 1981 Games. We were very successful, winning silver in C-4, and bronze in C-2 (four and two-person canoes, respectively). Bruce Stacey and I were in both boats, joined by teammates Ted Baker and Dale Hutchens in the C4. We raced quite a bit in Nova Scotia that year, as well, with some good results. We qualified for the National Championships, held in Ottawa a week after the Canada Games. Our men’s C4 team won bronze in the 1000m event, the only national championship medal ever won by a NL team.
So let’s hope Newfoundland will come back to be a player in canoe and kayak sprints again in the future!