What started as a Grade 8 project for Rowan Craig turned into community a canoe building project for a neighbourhood group called the Junction Village.
For a nine-month-long, choose-your-own-assignment school project, Craig settled on building a canoe and she needed a mentor.
Alex Savatti, co-founder of Trip Shed, which provides outdoor adventures and gear. Savatti is friends with Craig’s family, and since they are all interested in canoeing, it made perfect sense he would be her mentor.
Savatti and the Craig family are part of the Junction Village, a multi-generational community group in the Junction neighbourhood of Guelph. It was co-founded by Craig’s parents and its purpose is to connect their neighbourhood and the people living there.
Since the age of two, Craig has been on canoe trips with her family.
“I have always wanted a solo boat, so I looked into how much it was. Yeah, no, that’s a lot of money,” said Craig.
Making her own canoe was the next best option and she chose a stitch and glue version. Although Savatti is a canoe maker, he had never made one in that style before. So it was the first time for them both.
At the start of the build she didn’t plan on going on a solo trip with the canoe, but she said it was a good way to end the entire project.
Building the canoe was not without trial and error.
“I ran into a bump when the entire boat was assembled and I was (putting) on a thing called fibreglass to pretty much make the entire boat harder and able to withstand bumps. As we were putting it on I ran out of epoxy and fibre glass,” said Craig.
The closest place to get the specific epoxy they needed was a 35 minute drive away and by the time she came back with the epoxy the canoe had hardened so it took a lot more sanding.
Craig was out on the water for three days in the backcountry of Algonquin. Her grandmother passed away when she was 18 months old, and her ashes were scattered in the same place Craig paddled to.
“I felt like when Alex took her up and sent her off. She’s looked after, my mom’s there,” said Craig’s mother.
She had a satellite communicator called Zoleo, so she could talk with her parents and Savatti. There was an SOS button she could press and a helicopter would be deployed if she was in trouble.
“She came back all in one piece, the canoe floated, which is always a good sign, with me holding my breath,” said Savatti.
“For me what was so special about that whole experience, outside of seeing her develop and grow through the building process. Was just that feeling of standing on the dock sending her off,” he said.
Savatti remembers standing there squinting his eyes watching her cross the lake when he got a new idea: Why not do this with more children, and build another canoe?
Savatti pitched the idea of a community canoe to Mary-Kate and Michael, Craig’s parents, and they were all for it. He started a GoFundMe page and raised $2,500 for the project.
He and 14 children started building the canoe in September 2022. The project has taken time, since it can be difficult trying to wrangle a bunch of five to 11-year-olds, said Savatti. This style of build is called cedar strip.
“It’s really a beautiful way for the community to come together," he said.
Savatti said he wants the children to get to try a new experience, and to not rush the building process.
“For them to be able to all of a sudden have access to a point in that whole process, at the very beginning from the creation of the canoe. The hope would be that they would get a deeper relationship with canoes, with paddling, and from there a deeper relationship with nature, with everything Ontario has to offer,” he said.
The children will be able to use the canoe, and it will be shared in the community of the Junction Village. There will be an inaugural paddle, probably somewhere in Downtown Guelph.
