Esquif Canoes has a story worth telling. It's a good one. Jacques and his family started Esquif a few decades ago to create, in his words, "a better mousetrap." The boats a great; the problem is that the vast majority of Jacque's boats were made from Royalex, which came from exactly one source, a company called Spartec.

When Spartec was bought, the bean counters decided to close down their Royalex line. This put Jacques in a tricky spot. To save his business, he started investing in developing a replacement material for Royalex. Bear in mind here, that Jacques is one of the smallest companies in the canoe manufacturing business. He didn't have the resources of a corporate giant, but he pushed his chips in and took a gamble. It paid off.

Now Esquif is the largest maker of T-Formex canoes (the new Royalex), and sells T-Formex to the companies who used to buy it from Spartec. So his passion for his business and his sport brought him through tough times.

We love buying from Jacques and his family. Sure, we make less because they are shipped from Quebec, but that's okay, they're worth supporting. And they make some awesome boats!