For a decade, Rowan Bird has called the Kelowna Paddle Club his second home.
He’s fallen in love with paddling in an outrigger canoe, his passion for the sport launching him to the international stage. Bird has just returned from competing at the IVF world sprint championships in Hilo, Hawai’i.
“I just go for a paddle it’s just me and the water,” said Bird. “I was on the elite team for Canada for the J-19s, we made all our finals in all our races, we didn’t do so well after that but it’s fine.”
He wasn’t the only club member participating in the competition. Some of the top outrigger canoe paddlers in the world are from the Okanagan.
“Of the 220 some Canadians who qualified to compete in Hilo, 40 were from Kelowna,” said Lynne Baillie, a Kelowna Paddle Club member.
That’s where Melanie Durban defended her gold medal in the Master 60 Women’s individual 500-metre paddle event and credits much of her success to the kinship she finds at the lakefront club.
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“One thing that it’s so special is the community, it’s physically you are out there in the fresh air and exercising but it’s also great mentally for people,” said Durban.
There are currently 300 members of the Kelowna Paddle Club and that number does not include the 200 people who take attend seniors programming, the more than 500 summer campers or the 1000 students they welcome to the club every year.
“We have had the summer camps since 2014, starting at the age of four or five and these kids come up through the ranks year and if they are interested they come back year after year,” said Baillie
Members of the club hope to expand its space on Abbott Street to renovate its current building as well as add another structure. The plans have been submitted to the City of Kelowna for review by city planners as well as council.