Bill Mason (CAN)
2009 Class | Advocate
Bill Mason developed a great passion for canoeing and the wilderness very early in life. As a renowned, award winning Canadian naturalist, author, artist, filmmaker and conservationist Bill Mason is widely considered a Canadian Canoeing Legend.
Bill Mason’s books, paintings, films and environmental advocacy and stewardship have each had a tremendous impact on generations of wilderness travelers and whitewater paddlers, not only within Canada, but worldwide.
From 1950 to 1958, he was the Director of Development at Manitoba Pioneer Camp Canoeing Program. There he developed many of the leading-edge skills, techniques and equipment that were featured in the “Path of the Paddle” series of films and books, many which were adopted by and incorporated into the course curriculums of many Canadian Canoe and Youth Camps, canoe clubs, wilderness expedition companies and provincial and territorial whitewater canoeing organizations.
As the most successful filmmaker in the history of the National Film Board of Canada, Bill Mason is perhaps best known for the “Path of the Paddle” Whitewater series of films. Consisting of four (4) individual titles: Quietwater Solo Basic, Quietwater Doubles Basic, Solo Whitewater and Doubles Whitewater, “Path of the Paddle” introduced new skills to canoeists worldwide during the 1970s and 1980s and were influential in increasing the sheer joy and exuberance of a whitewater run.
Bill Mason’s influence on whitewater paddling extends far beyond his films, books and publications and into the hearts of paddlers and Candians in general. So strong has his influence been on the love of paddling and the environmental stewardship of Canadians that his influence continues to be felt far and wide, twenty years after his death.
“He is a man enthralled with the sheer joy of guiding a canoe through challenging rapids in the early spring, awestruck by the beauty of nature as seen over the bow of a canoe silently traversing a mirror-smooth lake in the early morning…” –Pierre Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister
