Sanborn Canoe Co. | Handmade Lightweight Wood Canoe Paddles and Cedar Strip Canoes

ABOUT US

Sanborn Canoe Co. is a light-weight wooden canoe paddle and cedar strip canoe company nestled in the beautiful bluff country along the banks of the mighty Mississippi River in Winona, Minnesota. We like to make things light, durable and easy to use. You can buy them right here from our site, we ship almost all over the world, or find one of our amazing dealers.

OUR MISSION

We strive to make the best looking paddles to ever touch the water. I mean you’re out in God’s great masterpiece why shouldn’t you have good-looking equipment too! That’s why we use beautifully grained western red and white cedar in all of our paddles. We are especially drawn to the richly dark red tones, contrasting them with lighter or more subtle reds to create striking lines of laminated wood.

Who cares if they look like a Van Gogh if they paddle like one too! That’s right, we use these things too. Actually we might be a little offended and insinuate cruel and unusual punishment if one of our paddles were hung on the wall for its entire existence. We handcraft our paddles to minimize stress on your arms and joints on long adventures. We strive to create well-balanced, light-weight and thin bladed paddles. Light-weight yet durable.

We hope every paddle and canoe we create help to make your adventures a more pleasing one.

HISTORY

Sanborn Canoe Co. was started early in 2009 by Todd Randall, John, Zak & Greg Fellman, Mark & Michael Boysen and Kevin Kreisel to have a degree of say in the equipment we would use on our backcountry canoe trips. Canoeing and camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Northern Minnesota is at the heart of our group, and for some of us it goes back in our families to the early days of the last century. And most of us have been on canoe trips since we were babies.

Beginning as a fun hobby, that more than occasionally turned into watching the ballgame rather than working, quickly grew to encompass more things we are interested in. Mostly things that will make our own backcountry trips easier. We've developed light-weight canoe paddles and we're working on crafting our canoes to be durable yet light enough to comfortably carry over portages. If we wouldn't use it we wouldn't make it.

After taking a couple of our paddles and canoes on trips to the BWCA we were encouraged by how they handled and decided that other people would like to use them as well. And since we liked working together we decided to turn it into a business. We're growing and expanding, adding great dealers and new products.

We're just a bunch of guys who like to hang out together and make stuff out of wood.