09/25/2025
Good news for the canoeing industry!
The New Future Of Canoeing | For years the growth of canoeing has been flat. The activity enjoyed mainstream popularity in the 1970s and ‘80s after John Boorman’s Deliverance sent Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds and Ned Beatty into the soon to be dammed Cahulawassee River Valley. Thousands of Baby Boomers across North America flooded the rivers and lakewater routes on their own wilderness canoe adventures.
In 1960, two percent of Americans participated in canoeing and kayaking. Twenty years later by the early ‘80s, thanks to John Boorman, the development of a revolutionary, inexpensive and virtually indestructible canoe material and Baby Boomers venturing into the backcountry with their young families, the national canoeing participation number had risen to eight percent. Canoeing was hot.
It was a pretty good 20-year run for canoe builders. But between 1998 and 2002, kayaking took hold of the paddlesports market. During that period, The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association recorded a 59 percent growth in kayaking participation. Conversely, canoeing dropped in popularity with a 20 percent loss in participation. The ubiquitous, fringe sport of wave surfing with a paddle turned mainstream with the advent of the standup paddleboard. According to Google Trends, “SUP” searches grew 61 percent between 2004 and 2016. Searches for “canoes” decreased 80 percent in the same period.
In 2006, a mere 3.3 percent of the United States population participated in canoeing. By 2014, the participation number was 3.4—up slightly but not by a significant margin.
Continue reading, from the archives: https://bit.ly/3VYt8Kq
✍️: Sydney Jones and Conor Mihell
📷: Mike Beedell
📖: This article originally appeared in Canoeroots Early Summer 2017 issue.
