Family\u002Downed companies introduced generations to the roaring majesty of the rivers and to the heart\u002Dpounding thrill of paddling them.
“He was an ideas man,” said Kerckhoff’s daughter, Claudia, a 10-time Canadian slalom champion.
In 1955, Kerckhoff left Germany in search of adventure and opportunity: He didn’t want to be conscripted into the army and he didn’t want to go into the family’s book business. In Toronto, he took any job he could find, his daughter said, and embraced all things Canadian, except the food. So, in 1960, he returned to Germany to look for a partner.
Hermann Kerckhoff and his daughter, Claudia, then age 3, paddle the whitewater of the Lower Madawaska River in the 1960s.In 1964, the Kerckhoffs joined the Ontario Voyageur Kayak Club and explored the province from the seats of their kayaks. They soon started competing in the sport and by 1968 were both Canadian national paddling champions.
The Madawaska Kanu Centre was below a hydro dam, and the Kerckhoffs forged an agreement resulting in more water being released during the day and less at night to create optimum, consistent whitewater conditions on their stretch of the river. Members of the Canadian Olympic kayak team train on the Madawaska’s Chalet Rapids in 1972. Kerckhoff family photoIn June 1974, Kerckhoff and his daughter, Claudia, then 14, went to explore the Ottawa River in their kayaks after hearing a story about whitewater rapids too big to be paddled by canoe. Oddly, the Ottawa River had been largely overlooked by the whitewater paddling industry since precious few were aware of the monster rapids that lurked amid some of its largest islands.
In 1981, the Kerckhoffs expanded their small business empire by launching OWL Rafting to take advantage of the rapids. They also purchased property along the Ottawa River to ensure public access to the water as more and more of its riverfront became private property.
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