Excerpt:
SANBORN CANOE COMPANY is a paddling brand concerned with fine craftsmanship, aesthetics and above all else preserving & cultivating the great paddling heritage that has been born by many over the centuries. We handcraft canoe, kayak and stand up paddles from wood - offering many customizable options. And proudly utilize non-powered tools as much as possible. Block planes, spoke shaves, chisels (our Grandpa handed down to us), wood clamps and other hand tools litter our workshop. If you’d like to see what we do come on by the shop sometime—we’d love to show you around!
FOUNDED: MMIX
MISSION: Our mission as paddlers and craftsmen is to cultivate passion for the proud paddling heritage. To add what we can to that heritage: honoring past traditions - fostering new connections for the paddling community - and forging new horizons for paddlers.
HERITAGE: As long as there have been waterborne craft and tools to ply them there has been the need to adorn them with artistic symbols of our heritage and folklore — be it a mermaid lunging forward the bow of a great ship to the etching of one’s name to the oar continually strapped to his hands. This is held true in the pride of our craft that has always been instilled in paddlers, from the great whale hunting Inuit paddlers of centuries past right up to the modern couple that treks into the wilderness lakes of Canada with a map, a few changes of clothing and their paddling equipment. We, as paddlers, are all bonded together by that great paddling heritage.
OUR STORY: Sanborn, at its origins, was a summer hobby by a few guys to build a cedar-strip canoe with little more knowledge than what we had gleaned from a how-to book purchased at the local bookstore. By the end of that first summer we had a sturdy canoe and a keen interest in crafting a few paddles to ply it. Learning everything the hardest way possible, it seemed, by trial and error we succeeded in carving out a few paddles. Those first paddles led to the desire to learn more and then more about paddle making until we had made more paddles than we could ever use. And curiously to us some folks liked them. Maybe not the first ones we made, although everyone was always gracious with us!
From that all-too-clichéd “business in our buddies garage” we earnestly set out to carve out our niche in the paddling community. This was familiar territory for us having paddled and extensively backcountry canoe camped throughout canoe country—for some of us since our early childhood. And that heritage had been bred in the early years of the 1900s(and most certainly earlier than that) through past generations of our families’ paddling in northern Minnesota and beyond. So through our history and eagerness to learn we quickly grew as a paddling brand. Honing our craft and eventually expanding to allow for us to offer our paddles to retail locations and other online ventures.
We are always searching for new ways to contribute to the paddling community through new designs, techniques and aesthetics. As well as supporting paddlers in their adventures whenever we can—be it sponsoring a couple guys paddling nearly across our country to raise support for orphans and pastors to lending our knowledge to a newbie paddle maker looking for a few pointers. Always Sanborn will be a paddling brand concerned with fine craftsmanship, aesthetics and ways to throw our hat into the fray that is our great paddling heritage.
