Stroke by stroke, Winnipeg paddling enthusiast became a master of his crafts
Myron Sawatzky has two reasons to be thankful for canoeing.
For starters, Sawatzky is the owner of Paddle and Hum, a home-based venture that turns out lightweight solo canoes in a variety of bold colours. Secondly, the married father of four can't say for certain whether he and his Winnipeg-born wife Cyndi would ever have tied the knot, had it not been for a soul-searching canoe ride he took almost 30 years ago.
Sawatzky grew up in Abbotsford, B.C. In the summer of 1997, the then-21-year-old was camping with friends at Kenyon Lake, in the lower mainland. Unable to sleep the first night there, he went for a paddle by himself under the stars.
BROOK JONES/FREE PRESS Paddle and Hum owner Myron Sawatzky builds lightweight solo canoes in a backyard shed he converted into his workshop. The 49-year-old is pictured doing a J-Stroke with a paddle as he sits in a 27-pound Soupspoon shaped fiberglass canoe with a free hanging seat he built in his North Kildonan backyard workshop in Winnipeg, Man., Monday, May 5, 2025. Sawatzky also builds Freeboard shaped canoes.
BROOK JONES/FREE PRESS Paddle and Hum owner Myron Sawatzky builds lightweight solo canoes in a backyard shed he converted into his workshop. The 49-year-old is pictured doing a J-Stroke with a paddle as he sits in a 27-pound Soupspoon shaped fiberglass canoe with a free hanging seat he built in his North Kildonan backyard workshop in Winnipeg, Man., Monday, May 5, 2025. Sawatzky also builds Freeboard shaped canoes.
'I had reached a point in my life where I was feeling like I really needed a change of scenery and even though I wasn't yet an avid canoeist, I guess I figured hopping in a canoe would be a good way to collect my thoughts,' Sawatzky says, seated in the kitchen of his North Kildonan bungalow.
Much of what he was dealing with was weather-related. He'd always enjoyed the outdoors, hiking most of all, but life in the Fraser Valley during the winter usually means rainy conditions for days on end, he contends, and he wasn't sure he wanted to endure that again.
Sawatzky had previously travelled to Winnipeg with his parents to visit family. As he was paddling past a moonlit island that evening, he recalled how it had always been sunny here whenever he visited, even in December and January.
Also, he had gotten to know a few Winnipeggers, Cyndi among them, at a Bible school retreat he attended in Saskatchewan the previous year.
'The next morning I woke up and was like, 'Guess what everybody? I'm moving to Winnipeg.' Cyndi and I started dating a short time later and the rest is history.'
Paddle and Hum — a play on the 1988 U2 album Rattle and Hum — was founded in 2019, but its roots trace back to the early 2000s, when Sawatzky worked as a program director for an Alberta Bible camp.
There was a small lagoon close to the property. Almost every morning during the spring, summer and fall, he'd hop into a camp-owned canoe and shove off for an hour or so.
'As I moved along I would look down through the clear water and feel like I was in a different world… I just loved it,' he remembers.
Sawatzky eventually became so adept at the activity that by the end of his term, he was teaching students some of the finer points of canoeing. Not that he didn't continue to learn a few new tricks of his own.
On one occasion he was sharing a canoe with Cyndi — by then they were married — when he told her if she wanted to help steer, she should turn her paddle in such-and-such a manner. Oh, he meant a J-stroke, she retorted, referring to a manoeuvre that keeps one's boat moving in a straight line while maintaining momentum.
BROOK JONES / FREE PRESS
Paddle and Hum owner Myron Sawatzky offers two types of light but sturdy canoes — a 14-inch-deep freeboard model and a soup-spoon design, which is two inches shorter for a more open feel.
'A J-what?' Sawatzky asked quizzically.
The couple returned to Winnipeg in 2006, the year their first child was born. Telling himself he wanted to get into canoeing 'big time,' he began by renting a canoe from a local supplier.
That served his purposes for a few years but by 2010 he was desiring a specimen of his own. Being that he's a handy sort — he maintains a number of investment properties in his 'real life' — he decided to go shopping for a used canoe, one perhaps in need of a little TLC.
'I was primarily interested in cedar-canvas canoes, whose look I particularly admired, and I finally found one I called the Planter, because it was sitting upright in a field near Grand Beach,' he says.
'It was a cedar-canvas canoe, but at some point somebody had taken the canvas off and replaced it with fibreglass. Except because it was left out in the elements, the wood had rotted. I ended up gutting it and putting in my own wood, seats and gunwales until it looked practically brand-new.'
More restoration projects followed. This included a model originally built by the late Bill Brigden, the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame inductee who was responsible for the three-seater Winnipegger Don Starkell employed on his famous 20,000-kilometre canoe trip to Brazil, which resulted in the 1987 bestseller Paddle to the Amazon.
Sawatzky relished the process of bringing old canoes back to life, though as he got further involved in the hobby, he started to contemplate building one from scratch — a fibreglass sort that would better suit his individual needs.
Mainly he wanted something lighter and shorter than the 15- and 16-footers he'd been refurbishing, he explains. By 2018 he had settled on a personal design. And because the backyard shed he would be building it in was only 10-feet wide to begin with, he was locked into how long it could be, which turned out to be 9½ feet.
Sawatzky's original plan was to use a mould to construct a few for himself, Cyndi and the kids, ones they could use to explore preferred spots such as the Seine River, south of Provencher Boulevard, and Silver Springs Park, near East St. Paul.
BROOK JONES / FREE PRESS
Paddle and Hum owner Myron Sawatzky crafts his lightweight solo canoes in a converted shed in his North Kildonan backyard.
However, outsiders began expressing an interest in his light but sturdy vessels — each one weighs less than 13 kilograms, about as much as a can of paint — and soon he was on the receiving end of orders from parties as far west as Alberta.
Don Reimer owns one of Sawatzky's early models. He and Sawatzky struck up a friendship in the late '90s, when they used to hike the Whiteshell's Mantario Trail together.
Reimer owned a number of canoes through the years, and he was intrigued by what his pal was up to, in the beginning stages of Paddle and Hum.
'I'd tried my share of solo canoes from namebrand outfitters, only they were still almost as long as the tandem canoes I'd been in — in the range of 14 or 15 feet — so if you were trying to nose into a little rocky crag or dismount on the side of a rocky shore, it could be somewhat challenging,' Reimer says.
'When Myron started making his, I thought hmm, that might suit me a lot better.'
Reimer, whose favourite destination is Ontario's Experimental Lakes Area, says one of the advantages of a solo canoe is that it's much easier to carry on a conversation with a fellow paddler when you're side-by-side versus having your back to them for hours on end.
Plus, if he or his partner ever wish to explore an area the other isn't interested in, away they go.
'I do get the odd comment when I'm on the water, but most of the questions about Myron's canoe come when I'm portaging,' Reimer goes on.
'I'll be throwing it over my head or carrying it on the side with one arm and people will be (asking) 'What is that? Where the heck did you get it?' When it comes to canoes, you want something that's durable, affordable and light, and what Myron's doing checks all three of those boxes.'
Sawatzky's canoes, which have a suggested weight capacity of 400 pounds, are available in a pair of styles. Most popular is a freeboard model that is 14 inches deep, but he also offers a soup-spoon design that, at two inches shorter, delivers a more open feel. (Besides the colour, interested parties can also choose the finish they want — dark or natural — for the oak decking.)
BROOK JONES/FREE PRESS
Paddle and Hum — a play on the 1988 U2 album Rattle and Hum — was founded in 2019.
'For the first five years I was only making two canoes a year, mostly because with four kids life can get pretty busy, right?' Sawatzky says.
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'That said, this spring I started doing public markets for the first time, as a way to determine how much mileage the business has in it if I was to invest a little more time and effort.'
Then again, there are ramifications to be wary of, if Paddle and Hum truly sets sail, he acknowledges.
'The Canadian Shield is one of my favourite places on Earth — I take people there all the time — so yeah, I'd never want to get so busy building that I'd lose the opportunity to get out there myself.'
For more information go to paddleandhum.ca.
david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca
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