Covid-19 Operations Update

Defined as an essential service by the province of Ontario, The Holy Cow Canoe manufacturing and repair facility remains operational.

To: Holy Cow Canoe Family & Friends;

This current unprecedented situation has proven to be challenging for everyone. Outside of creating major changes within our normal daily lives covid-19 has also changed what we have always known to be part of our basic freedoms. While the current situation is challenging, it is not impossible to overcome. With patience, compassion, and consideration for others we will get through this together. In keeping with this mindset, our primary obligation is to protect the health of our friends, customers, staff, and any/all others that we consider part of our extended family. Paramount is our collective understanding that we have a responsibility to protect the health and safety of all persons within our community.

With that in mind we have limited production operations to a minimum with reduced hours and the bare minimum number of staff. Additionally we have also made some policy changes designed to limit contact and the potential of community spread. Effective immediately we will be initiating the following changes to ensure all who enter our facility remain safe, healthy, and remain comfortable when working or visiting. (Applies to all visitors, staff, delivery personnel & couriers, sales agents, contractors, incl any/all govt agency representatives.)

·         If you are feeling sick, or you have traveled to another country within the last 14 days you are not permitted to enter regardless of  signs of illness, or lack of any/all physical symptoms. (Stay Home)

·         Any and all visitors to the facility are requested to call or e-mail in advance. This allows us to safely answer any questions you may have , avoids having multiple groups within the same area, as well as ensuring adequate space to allow 2 meter spacing.

·         You are encouraged to delay any visit until it has been deemed safe, and the isolation order has been lifted.

·         You may request for staff to meet you outside upon arrival to avoid entering the building if desired. 

·         You may request “no contact” pick-up and/or drop off for boat repairs, scheduled orders, and parts orders if desired

·         For your safety you are encouraged to wear disposable latex gloves which will be provided upon request.

Please note that hours of operation for this manufacturing facility are limited during this time and may change from posted hours without notice.

We continue to remain flexible and able to accommodate special requests that help minimize the potential of exposure, and/or ensure your safety. We encourage you to remain vigilant and follow the rules & advice of the federal and provincial health agencies. Stay Safe!

September 16th and Sept 17th, will be our last weekend at Fairy Lake during the 2017 Acton Fall Fair. We are excited to see the ground break for the new wheelchair accessible dock that will hopefully be ready (fingers crossed) for the 2018 season.

Please join us at the Paddle House! See you on the water.

Photograph by Ann Vanderlaan Adema

Thank you @HolyCowCanoe for supplying us with a canoe for our research trip to Algonquin Park @TheTomThomson @BetwixtBetween1 @GerminioP pic.twitter.com/ElNlJFURm6

— Joel Richardson (@joelarichardson) October 14, 2016

Concept Drawing

Halton Hills is conducting a public consultation survey and are interested in knowing more information regarding the current uses of the Fairy lake dock, and what you would like to see in the future. In response to your feedback from this survey, the Town of Halton Hills will be refining a concept and seek further input from interested residents before finalizing a plan.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact:

Mark Taylor – Senior Landscape Architect
Town of Halton Hills
Recreation & Parks Department
1 Halton Hills Drive
Halton Hills (Georgetown), ON L7G 5G2
Tel: 905-873-2601 ext. 2267
Fax. 905-873-1587
email: marktaylor@haltonhills.ca

Independent Free Press

Susan Jerome and her granddaughter Madison Jerome are pictured at Fairy Lake in Prospect Park in Acton recently, renting a canoe from Naomi McQuade.

Planning is underway to renovate the dock at Fairy Lake in Prospect Park in Acton so that people with wheelchairs or other physical disabilities can access the water safely.

The updated dock comes as a result of an awareness campaign led by Naomi McQuade, the Holy Cow Canoe Company’s general manager of Canoe Rentals.

The Holy Cow Canoe Company offers watercraft rental services at Fairy Lake, and McQuade was made aware of the issue in summer 2015 when a wheelchair-bound patron was unable to participate in canoeing with his family because of the dock’s rundown state.

“That was a turning point for me,” McQuade said. “Everyone needs to enjoy the water. He shouldn’t be left behind.’”

McQuade’s awareness of barriers facing people with physical disabilities is heightened because she is a Lyme disease sufferer, which can leave her needing a cane or wheelchair for mobility.

“Knowing the barriers in front of myself, I can really see and reflect on what other people see,” McQuade said. “If I do end up in a wheelchair, I want to still enjoy working here as a disabled person.”

In summer/fall 2015, McQuade started a social media campaign and wrote a letter to the Town of Halton Hills concerning the declining state of the dock, which attracted the Town’s attention.

“What they’re looking for as well is the ability for people in wheelchairs to be able to get into their canoes or kayaks, and do that either on their own or with minimal aid,” said Mark Taylor, Senior Landscape Architect with the Town of Halton Hills. Taylor is leading the Town’s Fairy Lake’s dock renovation project.

In the past, Fairy Lake’s dock would have been more accessible seeing as, instead of having steps, it features an asphalt ramp leading down to a flat dock at the waterline. Today, however, both the dock and ramp have deteriorated so much that they are becoming unnavigable for people with physical disabilities.

The Town is already planning more than a renovation, however.

In addition to modifying the shoreline and improving access to the dock via the parking lot, Taylor also talked specifically about building a ‘launching ramp,’ a device that would improve safe access to the lake for people with physical disabilities.

“It’s trying to look at alternative styles to just the traditional dock that you’d see up in cottage country,” said Taylor. “We’re trying to find something that works much better than what’s there right now, and certainly serves to make the area accessible, wheelchair accessible, and then also serves to give the waterfront area there a facelift,” Taylor said.

Some of this research has included looking at examples of other accessible docks, especially the new dock accessible dock/kayak launch in Beaverton, Ont.

Taylor is planning for the new dock with McQuade and Holy Cow Canoe because the company has interests in the project, but the Town is also open to working with other people or organizations and financial partnerships with interested parties.

Taylor says the town could begin construction in spring/summer 2017, but planning is still on-going.

For more info email marktaylor@haltonhills.ca

http://www.insidehalton.com/community-story/6795340-accessibility-planning-renovation-underway-on-acton-s-fairy-lake-dock/

Watson Lake, Arizona Photos from the Sherman Family

Earlier this week, we shipped out a beautiful kevlar canoe to Arizona. We are pleased it arrived and has already had it’s maiden voyage. These are the photos we received as well as the letter describing the area.

Dear Holy Cow,

We thought you’d like to see Watson Lake in Prescott, AZ.  We bet you didn’t think you would see anything like this scenery in AZ! Watson Lake is surrounded by very picturesque granite boulders that were formed long ago when molten granite was extruded up to the surface from far below, cooling, cracking, and weathering into all these shapes.  We really like the canoe. It did seem a bit more tippy than our old Grumman, but we learned to deal with that. It did paddle nicely. Many of the southwestern states along with California are in the throes of a major drought. Lots of lakes are bone dry. Prescott is the exception; all our lakes were over their spillways this year! Not true about Lake Powell and Lake Mead which are at or below 50% full pool. Getting real serious if we don’t get weather changes for several years.

[flagallery gid=8]

All the best,

Tom and Kathy

Thank you to Tom and Kathy, for sharing your maiden voyage with us with these beautiful pictures. We are saddened by the drought you are experiencing. We do hope that the rains come, and you’ll enjoy your canoe whenever you can!

warm regards,

from all of us here at the cow.

What’s SUP you ask??

Holy Cow Canoe is pleased to offer this new and fun outdoor activity to Fairy Lake. Thinking of something different for date night, girls night out? or something for the kids. Try stand up paddle boarding. We have safe stable SUP boards specially designed for the first time users equipped with a longboard paddle. Fairy lake is a calm and quiet lake perfect to try out your new skills. We have available to you an instructor who can help you with your paddle sport needs.

From Wikipedia; Stand up paddle surfing and stand up paddle boarding (SUP), (Hoe he’e nalu in the Hawaiian language) are sports originating in Hawaii as an off-shoot of surfing. They enable surfers to paddle farther into the ocean than is typical or to paddle standing up as a sport unto itself. A 2013 report called it the outdoor sporting activity with the most first-time participants of any in the United States that year.^[1] Paddlers race on lakes, large rivers and canals, ride breaking waves, and glide over long distances along sea coasts, often using tail winds to aid the trip.

Stand up paddlers wear a variety of wet suits and other clothing, depending on both water and air temperature since most of their time is spent standing on the board.

A related, traditional sport, paddleboarding, is done kneeling on a board and paddling with the hands, similar to a butterfly swimming stroke. The term “paddleboarding” is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to stand up paddle surfing.

Historian and writer Steve West, notes that the contemporary notion of stand up paddle boarding, if attributed to the Waikiki Beach Boys of Oahu during the 1960s, considers that outrigger canoeing should in fact be recognised as the direct link between the idea of standing on a board and propelling it with a canoe paddle, seeing as these two primary skills (board riding and paddling) were merely being combined, by people who had traditionally grown up around both skills as part of their cultural right of passage.

Canoe Kayaks and SUP boards are available to rent at the Fairy Lake Outpost in Acton – Please visit our rental page for more information. 

Instructional help is available, drop in classes, as well as a class on Fridays at 1pm. Join us at the boathouse.

New Stand Up Paddle Boards are available

Capturing the moments

In turn, I reminisced about the times my dad and I would go paddling on the Rouge River. If it wasn’t for my dad sharing time with me on the water, I am not sure if I would have the passions I have today. I doubt I would be where I am today. Building memories is what it’s all about. Capturing and seizing the moments. Those moments you remember are the essence of building your life.

Now and then I revisit a story “Evelyn’s Red Canoe” that was sent to us as a thank you in 2005. I tend to re-read this story now and then to remind me of how precious life is. Battling Lyme disease constantly reminds you everyday to walk like you’re kissing the ground, or in our case “paddle your own canoe!” The strength I tell myself I have, I share it, in hopes to help others deal with what I have been going through for countless years. My personal journey is not personal anymore. It affects our children, our company, our life. I am sharing my journey in hopes of raising awareness by auctioning off one of our canoes that has been specially made for this. Recently, the Independent Free Press wrote an article on the auction that will be happening on May22 on eBay.ca

“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn”  ~Harriet Beecher Stowe

Life is precious. Seize the moments.

May 22 Auction

Naomi McQuade

Creative Director, The Holy Cow Canoe Company

“Waiting for the Sun” Original Digital Oil painting by Creative Director of the Holy Cow Canoe Co.

The Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation (CanLyme) was formed to provide the public, including medical professionals, with balanced and validated information on Lyme disease and related coinfections.
CanLyme aims to provide research funding for zoonotic disease, to increase awareness of Lyme and its associated diseases, and to communicate concerns to government public health agencies.

“A walk in the park shouldn’t be a debilitating activity.” The Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation (CanLyme).

CanLyme is a registered non-profit charitable organization run by volunteers from coast to coast.

Holy Cow Canoe will be hosting a canoe auction on ebay.ca for a limited edition lyme green colour canoe and donating all proceeds to Canlyme.

“Our family run company knows the devastating effects of lyme disease. Lyme is an awful infliction that not only affects the person dealing with it but also all those close to them. There doesn’t seem to be adequate information in both the general population as well as the medical community. We are holding this charity auction to help raise awareness and hopefully we can help raise much needed Lyme awareness.”

“We feel an obligation and a responsibility to keep paddlers and others that enjoy the outdoors safe, by sharing important and relevant information. Lyme is something that needs to be talked about. ” Gulam Baloch, Owner and General Manager of The Holy Cow Canoe Company.

“We want to do our part in giving back to those who have helped our family and believe we can carve new paths to solving the mysteries of Lyme.” Naomi McQuade, Creative Director and Lyme survivor.

The Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation is dedicated to promoting research, education, diagnosis and treatment of Lyme and associated diseases. Please visit the Canlyme website for more information.

Auction for Lyme – May is Lyme disease awareness month – The canoe will be on auction on May 22. Please support this worthy cause, lets take action on Lyme.

For more information on Lyme in Ontario please visit Ontario Lyme Alliance

Canlyme Brochure

Brand New Limited Edition Lyme Green 16′.6 Holy Cow Algonquin Prospector Ultra-Glass Canoe

This canoe offers a safe and secure paddling experience, remaining calm, reassuring, and easy to paddle.

Perfectly adaptable, it performs brilliantly in a variety of environments & situations.  The Algonquin Prospector’s ability to provide outstanding stability, capacity, & versatility are it’s trademark. What sets it apart is the ability to also remain graceful & efficient on the water even during the rough times. This ability to slip effortlessly through the water sets this canoe apart from many others, and assures you an enjoyable paddling experience on every excursion. The Holy Cow Algonquin Prospector canoe continues to be one of the best choices for recreational paddling. This model canoe is suitable for families with children, disabilities, new paddlers, along with experienced trippers seeking a versatile canoe with a reassuring & solid feel on the water. Engineered to be the best, Holy Cow Canoes are built in multiple layers, with a complete dynamic core structure, and materials specifically engineered to work with one another to provide one of the strongest and lightest unified hull structures available in a recreational canoe.  Numerous enhancements & details in this canoe have been designed to offer comfort, while remaining tough, strong, & durable for many, many years. Rest assured that strength and durability are never sacrificed in a Holy Cow Canoe. All Holy Cow Canoes are very well engineered, purposefully built, and very well crafted. If you are after a light weight canoe for family recreational use, tripping, and/or camping this is the one you want!