Sandy Richardson
As you can see from the volume number on the masthead, 2013 is GLSKA’s silver jubilee, our 25th year.
In the fall of 1988, a number of folks interested in starting a sea kayaking club in southern Ontario held two exploratory meetings in Toronto, one at Trailhead and one at Mountain Equipment Co-op. At the first of these, people discussed many ideas of what the club might do; there seemed to be enough interest to move ahead. At the second meeting we elected four directors, chose a name and began setting up the club. The four founding directors were: Stewart McIlwraith (president), Michael Kundu, Stephen Threlkeld and the author – the only founding member still active in the club.
The original name chosen at that second meeting was the Ontario Sea Kayaking Association, but after discussions with Canoe Ontario, it was decided that this name sounded too “official” and the board changed the name to the current Great Lakes Sea Kayaking Association and chose the logo of a kayaker paddling over an outline of the Great Lakes that appears on the home page at GLSKA’s website. We chose the title Qayaq for the club’s newsletter and I offered to serve as interim editor. (It turned out to be a rather long “interim” – 25 years; but I have told the current board that I will be retiring as editor at the end of this year.)
The first issue of Qayaq was published in the spring of 1989. It was 8 pages long, and included an introduction to the club, a couple of news items, articles on “Kayaking Safety” and “Kayaking the Bruce Peninsula’s North Shore,” a traditional Inuit tale, the club’s Trip Guidelines, a listing of trips for the spring and an announcement of plans for the first Rendezvous. This first issue had ads from Suntrail, White Squall, Trailhead and Mountain Equipment Co-op. Over the years many advertisers have come and gone, but both Suntrail and White Squall have been with us every issue for 25 years. By the end of the first year, the Winter 1989 issue of Qayaq had grown to 20 pages.
Since the primary reason for the formation of the club was a common interest in paddling with fellow kayakers, the Board set up a Trip Committee, headed by Vic Thompson, and set about putting together a trip programme that would ultimately be an important factor in shaping the character of the club. The first issue of the newsletter listed 5 one-day trips. The summer issue listed 2 more one-day trips, 2 weekend trips and a 5-day trip. The fall newsletter added 2 weekend trips and 1 one-day trip to complete GLSKA’s first paddling season. The winter issue also announced GLSKA’s first winter rolling clinics (2 clinics, each consisting of 6 two-hour sessions) to be run in 1990 in conjunction with the Wilderness Canoe Association at L’Amoreaux Collegiate in Scarborough.
The first official GLSKA Trip was held on May 7, 1989 on Lake Ontario in the Ajax area. (See the Trip Report reprinted in this issue.) The first Rendezvous was held June 24-25, 1989 on Beausoleil Island in Georgian Bay; it was attended by 26 members and was very successful, so much so that the Rendezvous continues to be a GLSKA tradition
The original club membership fee was set at $15 per person per year; there were no family memberships. The membership year was set up to coincide with the paddling season, running from April 1 to March 31. The mailing list we had from the two initial meetings consisted of 62 interested people; by the end of 1989, GLSKA had a paid-up membership of 110 people.
While GLSKA has certainly grown over the last 25 years and a few new activities have been added, the focus on paddling, the basic club structure, the newsletter and the annual Rendezvous, all established in that first year, remain. And the club seems as vibrant today as it ever was. Let’s hope we can say the same 25 years from now.
The photographs accompanying this article were ones used in Volume 1 of Qayaq. The photo at the top of this article, of a paddler off Red Rock Lighthouse, is one that accompanied an article about Paddling the Mink & McCoy Islands that appeared in the Winter 1989 (Vol. 1, No. 4) issue. The second photograph is the one used on page 1 of the first issue, Spring 1989, with an article announcing the launch of GLSKA.
To mark GLSKA’s 25th year, we will be reprinting some of the more significant articles and images from the club’s first quarter century in this and future issues of Qayaq, throughout the year.