The Orenda Girls' Warcanoe Crew

The Orenda Girls' Warcanoe is a competitive racing team that is traveling to the National Canadian Sprint Canoe Championships in Minnendosa, Manitoba in August of 2002. Fourteen girls and a coxswain paddle in a warcanoe at one time. Races are 500 meters long and last a painful two minutes.

The training required for Orenda's crew to be successful in warcanoe at the National level involves at least five, two hour practices a week. These practices not only involve technical paddling training, but also large fitness components such as running, swimming and weight training. Although practices are often gruelling (it's called WARcanoe for a reason!) our team morale is continually being lifted as we continue to improve and move closes to our goals.

Nevertheless, our coach, Corey, always creates a good balance between work and play, which encourages past participants to return to the sport and new girls to become involved.

Warcanoe is a great source of inspiration for everyone involved due to the importance of teamwork- in both practice and competition. It takes fourteen girls to make a warcanoe and each girl has an unspoken responsibility to her crew to show up and put forth 100% effort everyday.

Orenda has experienced increased success in girl's warcanoes over the past four years, with the arrival of our present head coach, Corey Firth. He is a constant source of motivation for the crew and has lead us to much success at the National level. This year we hope to continue this success and move closer to our ultimate goal of winning all four age levels of girls warcanoe (midget, juvenile, junior, and senior).

The Nike/CAAWS Girls@Play MVP Grant will help relieve the financial burden experienced by our crew in our efforts to compete at Nationals. We would like to thank Nike and CAAWS for their generous support and the exposure they have given our sport.

Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity contact us