WECCC

Canoe and Kayak Racing was the original focus of the early Windsor Canoe Club. Two canoe racers and one kayak racer began to meet at the many sanctioned race events hosted across Ontario by the Ontario Marathon Canoe and Kayak Racing Association. These three local paddlers began to notice many of the top competitors were from the Windsor region. By 1976 the idea of forming a local club became a reality when the original three invited all the area racers to the first meeting of the Windsor Canoe Club. 

Local racers had always competed independently, sometimes against long established clubs from other cities and had done very well. At one of the larger race events of the 1976 Ontario race circuit Windsor area paddlers won almost every class category and many other clubs started to notice. In fact, many other clubs ask why Windsor did not have a club.

The enthusiasm for canoe and kayak racing was still very strong in much of Canada at the time thanks to the success and publicity of the 1967 Voyageur Canoe Race across Canada from Rocky Mountain House, Alberta to Montreal as a celebration of Canada’s 100^th birthday and our historic link to the canoe and paddling. The canoe used was a reproduction of a six person North Canoe that had been used to open the vast Northwest Territories of Canada beyond Lake Superior……….