DANIELLE PAUL
MADAWASKA VALLEY
It’s no surprise that the van Wijk family of the Madawaska Kanu Centre (MKC) and OWL Rafting are “reading the river” ahead. The Current recently met with Claudia and Stefani van Wijk to learn their plans for the family business as it moves into the care of a third generation.
MKC-OWL has been an Ottawa Valley business for 46 years since Claudia’s parents, Christa and Hermann Kerckhoff—both Canadian champions —opened the world’s first whitewater paddling school at MKC in 1972 and OWL Rafting on the Ottawa River in 1981. Claudia and her husband Dirk took over the reins of both OWL and MKC in 1988 and have worked to make the family business one of Destination Canada’s Canadian Signature Experiences (CSE) – the crème de la crème of Canada’s international tourist attractions. The CSE designation puts MKC into an exclusive collection of once-ina-lifetime travel experiences that Canada markets internationally.
To achieve this they and their daughters, Stefani and Katrina, spent every summer on the Madawaska and Ottawa Rivers running MKC and OWL respectively. Claudia explained how careful management and planning grew the business through four decades. Her parents taught her to always have a Plan B and the van Wijks have never expanded beyond what they could afford to do themselves.
That approach has paid off. From just 25 students in the summer of 1972, MKC will host over a thousand students this season.
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This article was originally published in The Madawaska Valley Current. To read the full article, click here!
