A Centretown-based kayak club that runs the Ottawa River rapids near LeBreton Flats is raising money to build a clubhouse and storage facility along the shore.
The Ottawa River Runners Whitewater Club Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to whitewater paddling. In 2010, it won the approval from the National Capital Commission for the new development. The new building would replace the metal containers the club currently uses as storage.
The little-known, downtown whitewater kayak course, known as The Pumphouse, was the training ground for Ottawa’s Michael Tayler, a London 2012 Olympian.
Brothers Cameron and Liam Smedley, two nationally ranked kayakers, currently train there.
Roger Colbeck, a long-time member of the Runners, says he is looking forward to getting rid of the containers and improving the infrastructure around the LeBreton Flats tailrace.
“The containers are very hard to work out of, even though it’s really nice of the NCC to allow (us) to operate there,” says Colbeck. “They get graffiti and the (LeBreton Flats) condo owners complain about them when that happens.”
The main concern for the club is the disorganization the lack of infrastructure causes. For example, in the summertime it hosts around 60 to 100 children for summer camp and participants have to change clothes out in the open.
“We have people changing outside, with a towel wrapped around them, so it’s all pretty messy,” says Colbeck.
The club currently has $100,000 of the estimated budget. According to Colbeck, it will need around $500,000 more to build the new storage facility and clubhouse.”
Currently, there are no flashy fundraisers planned.
Isaac Verhoeven, head instructor of the summer camps hosted by the club and vice-president of finance of the Carleton University Kayak Club, says the money that comes from the summer kayaking camps is the biggest source of fundraising.
Rheal Labelle, an architect with the firm Barry J. Hobin & Associates Architects, provided the design for the new development at no cost.
The club expects the building to be finished within the next five years.