A LITTLE BEAVER, A VAGABOND, THE RACE AND WHITEWATER – ALBERTA 1994

In one of the earlier articles, about our time in Calgary, I briefly described a different type of business venture, that I became involved in. We set up a company that designed, manufactured and marketed an inflatable, personal watercraft. The idea for this venture came from my nephew “G”. A good description of G, was young, tanned, the ultimate outdoorsman, very fit and a vagabond One day, in 1994 G approached me with his plan, to manufacture a “one man” pontoon fishing craft. G was river guide and the expert stream fisherman. His proposal was to build a watercraft, he had designed, to suit his needs in the bush. This was how Little Beaver Watercrafts LLC came to existence.

Little Beaver was born, and presented to an investor group, which included my brother, 2 B-I-L’s, and two friends. The base of the investors group was a mix of entrepreneurial talents. It included a lawyer, an adventurer, R the fisherman, two engineers and two businessmen. On paper it was a solid group. The product was really unique in the outdoor market at the time. The Little Beaver was a back-packable, one man pontoon boat, that could be carried into the bush and assembled in minutes. Once assembled, the result was a lightweight craft, that was very stable in the water. Filled with visions of huge successes, we plowed into this new business. What could go wrong.

The first issue we encountered was that all of us already had full time jobs. Most of us worked 50-60 hours a week and had little time to devote to a new company. As a result, all work to be done, on the Little Beaver, had to be done at night or on the weekend, due to our already busy days. Marketing, which is by far the biggest job of any company, was virtually non-existent. G tried to visit the sports stores and introduce our product, but could not cover enough of them to have any impact on sales. We manufactured about 50 boats, in the basement of our office building. Private individuals, accounted for most of the sales. Word of mouth was our best sales tool. Each of the investors kept two or three for demonstration purposes.

An opportunity for getting recognized, by the sporting industry, came with the running of the Annual Whitewater River Races. Early each summer, races were held, on the Red Deer River, west of Olds, Alberta in the Rocky Mountains. It was basically a race through whitewater rapids and included teams from all over Alberta. Many of the entries were from teams, that consisted, of professional whitewater raft guides. The category that included us, was one for inflatable rafts and pontoon boats. Most of the inflatables entered in our category consisted of 6-8 man crews, all of them experienced. We stood out, and I think we were subject to a fair amount of derision from the others. We entered two craft. One piloted by G, and the other by his friend Chris, also a Bow River fishing guide.

I might say, G and our inflatable looked a little out of place, nestled amongst the bigger crafts. The bell sounded and off they went. The course consisted of a series of nasty rapids, with two waterfalls adding to the excitement. At the start of the race, the eight man teams got out first, just because of sheer muscle. They all paddled in unison and looked much like an “Oxford” rowing club. G entered the first set of frothing white water in dead last place. He disappeared into a gorge and we could no longer see him from the shore. We did, however, cheer ourselves hoarse, even though he could not hear us. We rushed to the other end of the first rapids, and Waited. Suddenly the first 8-man “search and rescue” craft appeared. Then another………………

Then like and apparition from the depths, G came flying out of the gorge in third place. Oh how we went crazy. He was riding high and dry, and bobbed up and down like a cork. All of the sudden it was not quite so important how many rowers you had on the team. What really mattered was how easily you cut through the rapids. G rode on top of the water, the rest “plowed’ thru it. We were jumping up and down, cracking beers, toasting each other and hollering at G. He turned to look at us, and gave us a wry smile, that said a lot. Down into the next chute he went, gaining inch by inch on the leaders. A few of them started to look back to see how far ahead they were. How surprised they, to see G on their asses and bearing down.

Once they emerged from the final chute and over the last waterfall, they did no longer have to worry about G on their asses. By this time he was in the lead and they were now all looking at his ass! The final leg of the race consisted of a long flat stretch, to the finish. It was a mile of flat water. G was out in front and rowing furiously. However, he was just no match for the big boats. We were still yelling and hollering, exhorting our champion to bigger efforts. It was just not to be, slowly the eight man craft overtook him. We screamed, yelled and flung our arms around, begging for G to hold them off. Finally at the finish line one of the big boats slipped slightly past him for the win! We were second! Our chant “we’re number two” rang thru the mountains.

The other crews straggled in, one by one. Rowers were strewn about the bank, gasping for air. Our team was also exhausted, from running alongside the river bank, hollering and slurping beer. We also flopped down from the effort. Not ol’ G though, he just humped the Little beaver up on his shoulders and came wading out of the river. We were all too “beat” to help him. He just looked at us and laughed. My nephew, was indeed, “a piece of work”! As the race concluded, I did notice that no one was crapping on our boat any longer. Rather, each and every one of them wanted to get up close and have a photo with our pilot. We made significant mileage that day, in getting our product recognized. I was a proud uncle and proud President of Little Beaver Watercrafts LLc.