About Us

Canoe paddle after wedding at Devil's LakeWhat started out as a new business with 10 canoes run by a couple of college kids trying to avoid the real world (or stay in it?) has evolved to include a husband and wife team (yeah, two of those college kids) now operating over 150 canoes and kayaks from Sauk City to Spring Green putting over 7,000 friendly people on the water every season.

We’ve been instructing and guiding all kinds of outdoor trips through various organizations for nearly 15 years, most notably backpacking, canoeing, rock climbing, and mountain biking.  Then we started offering canoe rentals in the Spring of 2010 after buying ten canoes and a trailer.  Since the purchase of those first ten canoes, weekend canoe trips on the Wisconsin River have booked up weeks in advance and have spurred us into building the business and growing the fleet year after year.

Our many new and repeat customers have directly attributed our success to the quality and all around awesomeness of our guides/drivers/customer service and many a late night email answered.  In addition, the development of our online reservation system and realtime website features like current river conditions have made a tremendous impact in the ease of access to information for people interested in paddling the river.  There was also that time we gave out free t-shirts….people loved those.

  • 2010

    10 Boats

    We’re just getting off the ground here.  Let’s see how it goes.

  • 2011

    36 Boats

    Found a couple more package deals for used equipment. Our little fleet looks sort of impressive.

  • 2012

    60 Boats

    We must be doing something right.  We’ve setup accounts with major manufacturers and doubled the size of the fleet with all new equipment.  Still selling out weekends.

  • 2014

    100 Boats

    Wisconsin Canoe is now 100% sustainable as a business. There’s continued room for growth and we’re hearing nothing but great things.

  • 2016

    150 Boats

    We’ve finally reached capacity for our Spring Green location.  Demand is still high but we’ve now got enough to keep track of on Saturday morning.