Houston Canoe Club records

The Houston Canoe Club traces its origin to friendships formed by four men through the rigors of the four-day Texas Water Safari in 1963. Fred Hurd, who paddled in the second place canoe in this race and went on to become one of the founding members of the club, credits the Texas Water Safari with generating the publicity that created interest in canoeing on the part of members of the public. The club was officially founded at a meeting on October 7, 1964, at the Park Place police sub-station in Houston. According to Philip Montgomery writing in the 30th Anniversary Commemorative Newsletter (October 1994), about twelve families were present at this organizational meeting. By the thirtieth anniversary the club had more than 300 members. It continues with an active membership, coordinating, according to its website in May 2012, “some 50 floats accumulating some 7,000 member miles a year.” The club is a Paddle America Club, affiliated with the American Canoe Association. It has had a newsletter since the early years; the current form, Water Line, has been published since 2001 and can be read either online or as a PDF download from the digital archive.

A major project of the club known as the Southwestern Canoe Rendezvous began in 1989 and continued until 2001. It was a week end-long event in September or October at a location near Houston that offered both good paddling water and camping facilities. Nationally known canoeing experts offered workshops and demonstrations, and vendors exhibited the latest equipment available. By 1998 the event was announced as “the largest on-the-water show in the U.S.” That year there were 60 clinics and 15 workshops. It began to be difficult to recruit the volunteer effort needed to plan, organize, and run an event of the size it had become. In the February 2001 newsletter the Commodore wrote, “There are options: Have a Rendezvous in alternate years; have a smaller event which isn’t such a killer of volunteers; let some other group take over the event; or, finally, let the event die.” The last option is the one chosen.

Though Rendezvous has not continued, the club has remained active, offering a variety of paddling opportunities ranging from training classes to trips of several days’ duration. Since its beginning the club has also taken on service projects in the form of clean-up days, mainly at sties identified in the course of enjoying the water. The club makes itself known through a website which publishes a monthly newsletter and calendar of activities.