The whitewater community was greatly saddened to lose Eric Munshaw early in 2018. A life-long paddler, he was skiing with his dog near his home in the Chilliwack Valley, when he died suddenly. He was a person of great influence in the sport since its early days in Canada as a racer, beginning in the 1960s, through the 1970s, then later through coaching in the 1980s and 90s. Coaching led to his neighbourhood becoming a national team training site. His influence as a coach and mentor spanned the country from East to West and has stayed with many of the people he had contact with. This includes paddlers, other coaches and officials in various roles within the Sport.
The Early Days – How Eric Got Started
To get started in white water paddling in the not-so-long-ago-old-days, you basically had to know someone who paddled already and be taken in under their wing. There are numerous instances of this, which led to the formation of informal groups of friends who paddled together, which then led to the formation of local clubs. These were the “pioneer days” of the sport in Canada, unlike in Europe which had an established club system (the way Sprint is organised in Canada).
Eric grew up in the north-west corner of Toronto which was something of a “hotbed” of white water paddling in the early days, producing many Provincial and National Team paddlers. And so it was here that Eric got his start in white water paddling with the Pelmo Park scout group in Weston, Ontario at age 14. Those days were spent paddling during evenings (after school) and weekends on the Humber River in Weston. The only time that the Humber or Credit Rivers produced more than a ripple of current was during spring run-off, when the flood waters would sporadically grow to Class 2 to 3 rapids.
Summer months in the early years were spent with Eric hanging wires across the Humber river and setting up temporary and eventually semi-permanent slalom gates to practice. The winter months were spent renting a swimming pool weekly and even getting permission from his high school, Weston Collegiate, to use their indoor pool before school. Eric would pull into the parking lot at school with boats strapped to his mother’s car at 6:00 AM to get an hour of intense slalom and rolling practice. He also convinced the athletic department to start a weight training club so that he could add some bulk to his slim 16 year old frame. His interest in coaching, mentoring and teaching began at this early age as he brought his friends and teammates to the pool, to the river and to weight training. He encouraged them to become the best they could.
Because Eric’s scout leader was first a recreational open canoeist, the first boats that Eric and his scouting mates paddled and raced were open canoes with fabric covers. These early whitewater canoes evolved to the decked white water C-1 and C-2 designs, created by Roger Parsons, which became popular with the scouting fraternity. The Venturer groups generally paddled hand me down C-1s and C-2s. It was a historic event when they were able to rent a mould for a C-1 or C-2 and started building their own boats. They used 3 layers of fibreglass matt and a gelcoat finish on the outside, which resulted in boats weighing in excess of 50 – 60 lbs.
When Eric started to build himself a K-1, it ran counter to what his peers were doing at the time and was considered a radical departure. Eric “broke the mould” on his own by “venturing” out and obtaining a K-1 mould. He built the first kayak in the Weston paddling community. This was considered such an outlandish idea that there was skepticism amongst the Scouting groups and the Ontario Canoe Cruisers (OCC) club. Eric put his usual strong effort and hard work into training and resulted in many local paddlers switching to join him in kayaks.
It was during this time, in the local neighbourhood and high school that he met his future wife and life-long partner Edna Hobbs. She was the sister of one of his paddling friends from scouting and belonged to the local guiding sorority which partnered with the Venturer scouts for various activities, including canoeing. Eric asked Edna to be his C2 Mixed racing partner, and the rest is history.
As Eric became proficient and capable in the kayak, he began to compete well against some of the top Ontario kayak paddlers. His collection of gold, silver and bronze medals started to add up. Eric became known as the “person to beat” if you wanted to win a race. Eric soon progressed to races in the Eastern U.S. in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Early White Water Experience
Although slalom and downriver racing became a passion for Eric, his paddling life began first in a canoe at the family cottage on Buckhorn Lake in Ontario. One cannot become a white water racer without first learning to read and run the rapids on a river. For Eric it all began on local rivers in southern Ontario. Day trips became training trips and sometimes overnight kayak-camping trips. The Humber, Credit, Grand, Bighead, Beaver, Madawaska, Petawawa and French Rivers were a few of his early whitewater experiences and river runs became part of the training program. A river-running highlight for Eric and Edna was the opportunity to run the famous Salmon River in Idaho with its big-volume rapids and wilderness paddle-in campsites.
River tripping was also a big part of Eric’s early years in British Columbia. He paddled the Tatshenshini/Alsek Rivers in 1978 through northern B.C., the Yukon and Alaska Panhandle before this river became a World Heritage Site. This was the ultimate wilderness river run where grizzlies wandered through the campsite in the night and ice-fields calved into the river. There were many other whitewater rivers…the Nahatlatch, Babine (where he led a college kayak leadership class for a week’s trip), and infamously an aborted first-decent down the Stein River when the helicopter carrying their kayaks into the start of their river run accidentally dropped the boats into a dense forest. This resulted in a 2 day “survival” experience stranded in the wilderness far from civilisation.
1972 Olympic Games – Munich
Eric was one of four members selected to the slalom team for the 1972 Olympics. This event remains a pivotal event in white water history for many reasons. Slalom was included in 1972 as a demonstration sport. It was not included again in the Games until 1992. The in-between years have been referred to as “the Olympic drought years.” The course in Augsburg, on the outskirts of Munich, was the first purpose built, man-made international canoe slalom course. It was particularly challenging as the vertical sides cause the water to fluctuate in boils which are very different from a natural river. This, combined with the over-hanging lip (since filled in with wood), and the rough cement finish of the obstacles and features made the course particularly difficult.
At age 18, one of the youngest athletes on the Canadian Team, one of the standout events for Eric was being held at gunpoint and arrested. The Munich Games, unfortunately, are largely remembered for the act of terrorism in which 11 Israeli athletes lost their lives. Eric had to leave Munich immediately following his event to start his first year at the University of Toronto. Intending to catch an early morning flight. In the dark, he headed across the athletes’ village with his bags unaware of the horrific hostage-taking in progress. He was immediately surrounded by masked, camouflaged men toting automatic weapons and screaming at him in German. After a trip to the police station to find an interpreter, he was rushed to the airport with police lights flashing and onto the tarmac to the waiting airplane.
Although Eric had the best placing among the Canadian slalom kayak athletes, the competitive sport was still in its infancy in Canada. Paddlers were mostly self taught, coaching each other. Training programs had been mostly experimental. Results in the standings were near the bottom.
1974 Canadian National Championships – Tamihi Creek
The 1974 Nationals were to have been held on the Chilliwack River in BC. Due to high water, the race was moved to a tributary, the nearby Tamihi Creek. That race is particularly relevant to Eric’s story as it was at this event that the Chilliwack Valley was etched in the minds of Eric and Edna as a place they wanted to live. That race site is in the area that they grew to call home for the past 40 years and raise their family.
The presence of Eric and Edna in Vancouver led to a slow but steady migration of paddlers to the lower mainland. In January of 1979, a group of paddlers from Ontario went to Vancouver to train for the winter. For many this was their first period of full-time training. The push was on in the lead up to the World Championships later that year in Jonquiere, Quebec. For them, it was like going to live in another country. Eric, together with Edna, made them welcome, found them places to live, and set them up with places to train both on the water and off. Eric became the “linch-pin” of the group training for the World Championships in Canada that summer. Then there is the story of Patrice Gagnon from Quebec City who went to BC to train in 1980. With almost no English, and looking for a place to live and train, he showed up, unannounced, on Eric and Edna’s doorstep. Of note is that Patrice went on to become one of the best slalom racers Canada ever produced, coached by Eric. Patrice narrowly missed a medal in the 1987 World Championships.
Coaching
Eric’s Olympic experience and international competition didn’t define Eric in any way. There are people who knew Eric for many years, who have only found out since his passing that he had been to the Olympics. Such was his humble, self-depreciating demeanour. We’ve all heard how hard people have to work to get to the Olympics, the sacrifices, etc. But you don’t get there without help. There are people across Canada, and in the U.S. who went to numerous Olympic Games, World Championships and local races as competitors, coaches and support staff, who all benefitted from help given by Eric.
Many people knew Eric not for his paddling ability, but rather for spending countless hours on the side of a river bank, usually with his dog, in all weather helping out at races. In the early 1980s Eric was part of establishing “New Year Training Camps” on the Chilliwack River. It was cold enough if you were a paddler in winter on the Chilliwack, but colder still for coaches standing on the bank, often in the rain and sometimes in the snow.
It was through National Team training camps such as this that the area gained a reputation as a good place to train. At least in winter the water was still flowing. Following the training camp of New Year 1983, a group of paddlers stayed in nearby Cultus Lake for the balance of the winter. This continued every year after that. So much so, that our first paid coach, Mike Druce (who went on to coach in Australia), lived in Chilliwack and subsequently the Chilliwack Centre of Excellence came in to being around 1992.
There are numerous paddlers who have countless stories about help they received from Eric and Edna. This includes hanging slalom courses, running races, timing & judging, endless amounts of driving – shuttles up and down rivers, across the Canada and across other countries. Eric and Edna would give you a place to stay, lend you a car, a place to fix your boat (or just get your boat fixed by Eric), perhaps provide a home for a pet for a while, feed you, provide money, a tent, a sleeping bag, a pair of skis or a complete set of skiing stuff or paddling gear. Things would get made – paddles, boat parts and who knows what else. As a skilled craftsman, Eric was famous for making things. Early in his teaching career, after a full day of work, one night a week, Eric would hold the stopwatch during workouts on Cultus Lake. This was repeated on weekends beside the river. As the community of paddlers grew around the area, Eric and Edna invited many people into their lives and made them all feel like family.
Sea Kayaking
1974 brought Eric and Edna’s move to British Columbia and with it, their first ever salt-water paddling experience to Barkley Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Not ever having done an extended trip on water that didn’t “carry” you to your destination, tying the camping gear on top of their slalom C2 with ropes wrapped around and under the middle of the boat, they were met with justified skepticism from the other boaters who had been initially excited to be paddling with an “Olympic athlete.” But salt-water tripping became a much-anticipated recuperative activity following a season of racing/coaching/teaching. Desolation Sound, Copeland Islands, Barkley Sound, Clayoquot Sound, Flores Island, north Nootka Island, Octopus Islands and Malcolm Island were a few of the many summer escape destinations. Nuchatlitz Provincial Park was his go-to favourite saltwater trip for many years until his daughter moved to the First Nations village of Ahousaht off the west coast of Vancouver Island for a teaching position. Then Flores Island became his most favourite place to paddle and fish. He spent 2 glorious years exploring the bays and inlets with his dog sharing the kayak and bringing home big fish and even bigger fish stories.
Teaching was Eric’s “calling”
In his professional life, Eric was well-recognized for his inspirational teaching over the years. He helped in training new tech educators, and helped create the best practices guide for BC Tech Ed. He received the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in Technology in 2008. His door was always open for students to work on their projects on their own time. He took middle school students to tech competitions to compete against university level teams with such creations as an electric car and a submarine. He retired in 2014 over concerns for student safety when class sizes were increased.
People like Eric aren’t simply coaches or teachers. They are mentors in a much broader sense – by example. They do it by how they live their lives day in and day out, how they interact with people, not just by what they say at the side of the river. It was his daily life that defined Eric much more so than having been an Olympian.
When you left the river bank, you didn’t leave Eric behind. He went with you to where ever you were going. He may have appeared quiet, shy or aloof at times. But if you knew him, you knew that if he didn’t have anything useful to say, he wouldn’t say anything. He’d speak softly, but wisely and listen, before saying anything. That is the part where teaching and coaching are an art. He was an artist in more ways than he knew.
Eric was analytical – with an engineering degree, he was a science guy, which influenced his coaching and teaching as well. Being self-reflective, finding out what you don’t know, working in areas where you need to improve was how he operated. When he started coaching he read about exercise physiology and sport psychology because he needed to know more. Not for his own benefit – but so he was better able to help others.
Other Interests
Eric was an avid outdoorsman his entire life. Like most of us who have felt the water tug at our paddle, he had a deep appreciation for nature. Coming from the relative flatlands of Ontario, he loved living in the mountains. He chose to live in the Chilliwack River Valley. (Which reminds me of a quote from Henry Thoreau’s writing: I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately…) He loved to walk amongst the trees. Often taking note of deadfall which he could collect to use in his woodwork projects.
Nordic and mountaineering skiing were other avenues into the wilderness he loved. Winter camping in the snow was a part of that chapter. A course in rock climbing cemented his confidence as a mountain hiker and although he backpacked in places such as the Bruce Trail in Ontario and Manning Park in BC, it was the trails in his own Chilliwack River valley that eventually became his daily routine. Whether on an overnight backpacking trip, a day-long hike, or just an afternoon with his dog, he became familiar with almost all of the many mountain trails in his valley. He was one of the few who navigated the entire section of the Trans Canada Trail running up the Chilliwack River valley.
Fishing became another passion that stocked many a freezer over the years. Catching sockeye from the Fraser River, coho from the Chilliwack, cod and snapper from the salt chuck or rainbow trout from interior lakes, he became as proficient at this as he did with his many other pursuits.
Eric’s love of nature and the incredible trees in the rain forests of B.C’s west coast led him to woodworking which became his first profession as a cabinet-maker before he became a teacher. He built his own energy-efficient home and most of the furniture to go with it. His passion for wood evolved to turning bowls on his lathe. This hobby became a full-time pursuit after retiring from teaching. He and Edna worked at selling through retail stores and artisan markets. Many of his bowls travelled to the far corners of the world.
Eric became proficient in his many interests. That was his style, his legacy, and one of the values most effectively passed on to others…that one’s satisfaction with life can be measured by the knowledge that you have reached your full potential through pursuing your passions.
Many, many lives are richer for having had Eric in them. More than anything, both he and Edna gave the gift of time to others. We have an expression in paddling we would say to someone if things have gone well on race day…which applies equally to a life well-lived: “Good run Eric!”
Education:
- Weston CVI – graduated 1972
- University of Toronto – First year = 1972-74 Geo-technical Engineering
- University of BC – transferred = 1974-76 Geo-technical Engineering, B.Eng.
- Cabinet Maker – 1976-80 worked with Willy Paffenholz and earned his Red Seal Cabinetry Certification while training for slalom racing
- B.C. – 1983 B.Ed
Teaching Career:
- 1982 – 1997 Garibaldi Secondary School in Maple Ridge teaching Drafting, House Construction and Woodworking including cedar strip canoe building
- 1997 – 2014 Mt. Slesse Middle School teaching tech-ed life skills (drafting, wood, metal, electrical, plastics)
- mid 1980s to mid 1990s Taught evening hobby-shop woodworking to inmates at correctional centres in the Chilliwack Valley. Here he cemented his belief that there are valuable things to be learned from every person whose path you cross. He was often in awe of the woodworking talents of the men whom he met in these facilities.
- 2008 Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in recognition of his contributions to the field of technology education
- 2014 retired from teaching at Mount Slesse Middle School, Chilliwack
Paddling Career Highlights:
- 1972 Olympic Games
- 1973 World Championships, Muotathal, Switzerland
- 1975 World Championships, Skopje, Yugoslavia
- 1977 World Championships, Spittal, Austria
- 1979 World Championships, Jonquiere, Quebec
- 1983 onwards National Team Coach – often informally assisting paddlers
- 1989 World Championships, Savage River, Maryland
- 1992 Olympic Team – although Eric stayed at home, every member of the Canadian slalom team trained in Chilliwack, as did several top US paddlers
- 1997 World Championships, Brazil, slalom coach
- His influence continued through to beyond the Sydney Olympics of 2000
The Eric Munshaw Memorial Scholarship, through the Chilliwack Centre of Excellence, was created to provide BC slalom athletes with financial support to offset the cost of attending College or University so they may continue to train while furthering their education.
Acknowledgements:
This article was assembled with contributions from many people including Eric’s family as well as many former National Team members in both slalom and downriver disciplines.
Submitted and writted by: Gary Barton