Hermann Kerckhoff: The German immigrant who introduced generations of Canadians to whitewater paddling

Hermann Kerckhoff came to Canada from post-war Germany determined to make hs way as a lumberjack. He was 17. His boyhood imagination had been fuelled by movie house vignettes depicting Canada as a land of raging rivers and teeming forests.
His arrival in drab, 1950s Toronto was something of a disappointment, but he apprenticed in the trades while setting out in search of the country’s famed wilderness.
In 1972, alongside his wife, Christa, Kerckhoff launched Canada’s first white water paddling school, the Madawaska Kanu Centre, on the Madawaska River near Barry’s Bay. Nine years later, they opened OWL Rafting on the Ottawa River, near Foresters Falls.Together, the companies — still owned by the family — introduced generations of Canadians to the roaring majesty of the rivers and to the heart-pounding thrill of paddling them.

“He was an ideas man,” said Kerckhoff’s daughter, Claudia, a 10-time Canadian slalom champion.

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