Kayaking pioneer returns

May 14, 2008

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Brian Malfesi, 14, steers at the front while Adam Poole, 17 picks up the rear as they try out the Pioneer, the RCKC’s first kayak used by club founder Bill Slayter more two decades ago. Made of wood, the Pioneer is nearly 50 years old.

Graeme Wood/THE NEWS

The past will meet the future as the patriarch of the Ridge Canoe and Kayak Club plans to return this Saturday to speak at the club’s 25th anniversary dinner and fundraiser at the Maple Ridge seniors’ centre.

Bill Slayter, the club’s founder, will also showcase his nearly 50-year-old mahogany K2 sprint kayak, named the Pioneer.

The rare kayak is said to have christened Whonnock Lake back in 1982, when Slayter formed the club using a shipping container as its first boat house.

“I heard about Whonnock Lake and thought it was a neat setting for a canoe club,” Slayter said.

Although the club formed in an ad-hoc manner, it soon became a thriving club and around 1989 the club found its current home with the Whonnock Lake Community Centre.

But now the club has outgrown its aging boat house and is trying to raise $2.5 million to build a new one – The Whonnock Lake Paddling and Recreation Centre.

“The club’s got to the size it needs to be, to be on its own. Most clubs across Canada aren’t tied into a community hall,” Slayter said.

“We want to expand our programs but we’re kind of tight for space,” said Ken Kelleway, the club’s coaches liaison.

Kelleway said Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Parks and Leisure Services has granted the club permission to build the new building, but the club is looking for public money from all levels of government to fund it.

With the old centre, athletes are forced to use a small exercise room, with barely enough room for two exercise bikes and a few weights. The staff office is a mere cubical that actually looks more like a closet.

“Our current facility was designed for eight or so athletes. We need the space for people as much as for boats,” said Mike Van Meel, the club’s vice-commodore.

Each summer the club hosts up to 900 children in the community as part of recreational paddling programs, said Kelleway.

If anyone understands the disadvantage the club is at it’s Slayter.

Slayter, 52, was born in Nova Scotia but raised in Ontario, where paddling clubs were plentiful and well supported. His father Jim was an elite paddler who coached and led Slayter to a 1973 Canada Games K4 gold medal for Ontario.

Jim Slayter founded many paddling clubs and thus inspired his son.

“I was basically replicating what he did out east,” Slayter said.

But in B.C., at the time Bill Slayter came west for a job in pharmaceutical sales, there were not enough clubs in the region to compete without having to travel extensively and share team entries with the Prairie teams for national competitions.

“It took longer for the sport to develop in Western Canada than it did in Eastern Canada,” he said.

According to Slayter, creating RCKC gave B.C. a third paddling club, which allowed the west to have its own regional association to compete nationally.

Slayter was instrumental in organizing legitimate paddling competitions in Maple Ridge until he left for Alberta around 1988 for a job.

Since then the technology of the sport also evolved.

“Back then kayak races were done in basically peanuts,” Slayter said referring to wooden boats like the Pioneer.

Now boats are made of composite carbon fibre with kevlar.

“They’re ultra light, very stiff... but they lack personality,” he chuckled.

Nonetheless, it’s these high-tech hauls that drive the sport to achieve better performances and thus make it more competitive.

By raising money for a new paddling and recreational centre it is hoped athletes will continue to excel in the future.

RCKC members have represented Canada at the most recent Pan American Championships and Junior World Championships.

This Saturday budding kayak star and club member Wes Hammer is competing in an Olympic trial in Montreal.

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Kayaking pioneer returns

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