Tyson Bell
Tyson Bell
I grew up in the country with a small creek in front of my house, I spent most of my time playing in the water and coming home wet and muddy. One exceptionally rainy week the creek that was usually about a foot deep and 3 feet across was suddenly about 10 feet deep and 15 feet across, my dad took my brother and I out in our old Grumman aluminum canoe. We packed a lunch and asked mom to meet us at a bridge in the van to pick us up later that day. As we pushed off and as we took our first strokes I realized that this was not going to be a regular day of canoeing. We headed off down stream at (what seemed like) lightening speed, everything whizzed by, it was awesome! We were on the water for about 2 hours crashing through small waves and bouncing off of the shore….I was hooked!
Once I finished high school I took an Outdoor Recreation program at Seneca in Ontario. What better way to enjoy school? Learning to play and work outside, gain life skills and learning to sail, climb, canoe, xc ski, downhill ski and kayak. (Oh, and there were classes like accounting, leadership, geography too!)
My first summer practicum was as a raft guide on the Ottawa River, Ontario. I was going to be guiding rafts with any where from 6 to 20 customers. When I got to the rafting camp I was met with a bunch of run down buildings, a couple of open fields for camping and rafting gear everywhere, I was ecstatic. We spent the first week repairing equipment and training. Week 2 customers arrived and it was time to start guiding. By the end of the week I had the hang of it for the most part and started to see a bit more of what was happening outside the raft, there were kayakers cruising around called “safety boaters” doing all sorts of cool things, surfing, enders and more. I went to my boss and we talked about being a safety boater, so we went kayaking every evening after the rafting trips were done. By mid summer I was helping teach people to kayak. That was over 18 years ago.
Since then I have taught kayaking across Canada, the USA and Costa Rica and ran a kayaking school in Edmonton, Alberta. I am Paddle Canada and Canoe Kayak Canada certified up to instructor trainer level. My passion is teaching people, whether it is in a white water kayak or sea kayak, there is no end to the adventures you can have on the water!
