Lauren joined the Yukan Canoe team in 2020. Our students love Laurens passion for paddling and individual attention to ensure they succeed in learning new paddling skills.
When I was a kid growing up in the prairies, I used to drag an old beat up kayak every weekend to the lazy stretch of river that passed quietly by my house. I just had a craving to be on the water. It wasn’t until I started teaching at an outdoor education-based school in the Ottawa Valley that I really fell in love with paddling. Some solo canoes were available for the staff to borrow on off time and, during my days on the Madawaska River, I fell hard for white water canoeing. That was 9 years ago and I’ve been chasing rivers every season since then. I’ve also spent that time teaching and guiding youth and adults in the outdoors. After a number of years with the National Outdoor Leadership School, teaching outdoor leadership and white water canoeing on rivers in Utah and the Yukon, I am now based full time in Whitehorse. While I enjoy kayaking and rafting, I feel real passion when solo canoeing and love spending summer evenings in my Zephyr on the Wheaton after work. There aren’t many things better than the feeling of being in tune with my boat and the water.
Guiding and instructing has taken me to some spectacular bodies of water, one of my favourites being the Hess River which solidified my love for the Yukon. One of my favourite parts of instructing paddling is the moment when a new paddler suddenly “gets it” as they whip into an eddy for the first time and I can share in their contagious joy! It’s so hard to explain to someone why catching eddies is awesome- you have to feel it yourself. I am keen to get out of the water and bring stoke to anyone interested in learning from scratch or improving on their previous paddling knowledge. The river is, of course, the best teacher but I look forward to being a part of the adventure! I am certified in Swiftwater Rescue, Wilderness First Aid, and Paddle Canada whitewater and flatwater canoeing instructor.