This weekend, my friends Tony & Sheri came down to Thunder Bay from Sioux Lookout to do some serious shopping for their new business, Goldwater Expeditions. Goldwater Expeditions is the one and only place in Sioux Lookout for renting kayaks and in the near future, will be offering a variety of paddling trips with ORCA certified guides.

On Thursday, they went to all the local paddling shops to check out the different brands and to get some quotes. I met them later that night for some catching up and to go through their notes and some of the pricing that they were given. They were planning to purchase six kayaks this weekend and add more to their fleet over the summer as the business grows.

Choosing the kayaks to start out with was actually a pretty tough decision because Tony and Sheri wanted to cover the broadest possible market, and since people come in all shapes and sizes, it was pretty mind numbing to pick only six different kayaks that would appeal to teens, women and men. It probably didn’t help that they had Current Designs, Necky, Boreal Design and Wilderness Systems brochures with them because I was mostly flipping through and pointing out all the kayaks I want and wasn’t really giving them the input they were looking for. Anyway, we all came to the conclusion that if they were going to purchase six kayaks, (2) touring, (2) day touring and (2) rec boats would be a good start for their business. There was talk about a tandem or two but Tony and Sheri decided that they’ll wait until their next big purchase for the tandems.

On Saturday, the three of us got together again to do a some more research on the kayaks that they narrowed their list down to. All of the Necky kayaks they were looking at had really good reviews and Bruce at Wild Waters (local Necky dealer) had previously given them the best quote so it was a no-brainer; buy all Necky’s. We headed down to Wild Waters so Tony could start “wheelin’ and dealin’. There was some indecision about one of the kayaks so when all was said and done, Tony and Sheri decided on five kayaks rather than the original six.

Necky Eliza discussion on Paddling.net

Chatham 17 reviews on Paddling.net

Zoar Sport reviews on Paddling.net

Manitou 14 reviews on Paddling.net

Manitou Sport reviews reviews on Paddling.net

Tony loading up the Eliza and Chatham

All loaded up and ready to roll

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working with Tony and Sheri on some new promotional materials for the company and will post Goldwater Expeditions contact info very soon so if you’re in the Sioux Lookout area, you can give them a call if you’re looking for a rental or paddling partners. In the meantime, I’ll also be working on their new website and will post a link as soon as it’s ready.

**Update

There’s a temporary website for Goldwater Expeditions where you can see all upcoming events and rental rates for 2007

View the site here: http://www.goldwaterexpeditions.com or, send an email to: info@goldwaterexpeditions.com