Paddle Canada - Level 1 Instructor
Paddle Canada Level 1 Instructor
You will train on the Bruce Peninsula, one of the premier sea kayak destinations in Ontario. Five days of teaching practice, skill refinement, and leadership under an Instructor Trainer who works these waters every week of the season.
One Site, No Driving
The course runs at Gillies Lake on the Bruce Peninsula. Everything happens on site: classroom, launch, teaching sessions, and camp are all within a short walk of each other.
That is not a small thing. There is no morning convoy, no shuttle, no hour of the day lost to loading boats and finding parking. Over five days it adds up to a meaningful amount of extra water time, and it means the course keeps its rhythm instead of restarting every morning in a parking lot.
Sheltered water is also the right classroom for this course. Level 1 Skills is taught in calm to light chop with easy landings, so that is where you learn to teach it, and where you will be running your own courses.
What Is Included
You camp on site with the group for the duration of the course. Staying together is part of how the course works, and a good deal of the learning happens after the day on the water ends.
- Your place on the course group site, included in the fee
- Instruction and assessment by a Paddle Canada Instructor Trainer
- Small group, six candidates per Instructor Trainer
- Lifetime access to the course Learning Management System
- Pre-course readiness review and one-to-one call if needed
- Certification on meeting the criteria in the Paddle Canada manual
Not included
- Paddle Canada instructor membership and course fee, paid directly to Paddle Canada before the course
- Meals, kayak, and personal immersion gear. Rentals available, ask when you book
- Travel to and from the Bruce Peninsula
The Course Starts Before the Water
Five days is not enough time to lecture theory and still teach you to teach. So we move the theory off the water and into a Learning Management System that opens the day you register.
Why Five Days
Paddle Canada sets the minimum at thirty two hours over four days. We run five because we have run this course many times and the flow is simply better with the extra time.
Four days is enough to get through the syllabus. Five means we can slow down where it matters, work through the things that will actually make you successful once you are running your own courses, and give you room to try something, have it not work, and try it again. You are here to learn to teach, not to be drilled through a checklist.
What to Expect
- Technical stroke refinement to demonstration quality
- Expanded rescue skills and incident management
- Lesson planning, teaching progressions, and correcting common errors
- Group management, site selection, and risk decisions in changing conditions
- Formal teaching sessions on land and on water, with structured feedback
- A written test and a full course plan for a Level 1 Skills course
Skills, Coaching, and Inclusion
This is not a fitness test. You will need a baseline of physical health, but we prioritise form, technique, and efficiency over raw power. We work hard on your technical skills, and the course is still fundamentally about coaching.
Adaptive paddling and inclusive instruction are part of the syllabus, not an afterthought. Great instructors come in all shapes and sizes. Different bodies find different solutions to the same paddling problem, and understanding those variations is what makes you useful to a class of strangers.
Who It Is For
You have a solid foundation in kayaking and you want to teach it. Candidates typically hold Paddle Canada Level 2 Skills, have thirty or more days of paddling experience, and have some exposure to coaching, even informally.
Prior experience as a Basic Kayak Instructor or as an assistant makes a real difference to how much you get out of the week. We recommend it strongly.
Prerequisites
Minimum age 18. Current Paddle Canada membership, and provincial or territorial membership where required. Paddle Canada Level 2 Skills, with conditional enrolment possible on Instructor Trainer approval. Approximately 30 days of paddling in Level 1 conditions including overnights. Standard first aid (14 hours) with CPR, or wilderness first aid (16 hours), current at certification.
Our Standards
Paddle Canada's minimum requirements are intentionally accessible. We add structure on top of them: pre-course trip logs, a short teaching reflection, and a readiness call where it will help.
This is not gatekeeping. It is how we make sure nobody arrives on day one already behind, and that you leave able to run a course rather than merely holding a card.
Certification. Successful candidates earn Paddle Canada Level 1 Instructor, certified to conduct and certify Waterfront Kayak, Basic Kayak, and Level 1 Sea Kayak Skills courses, and to assist a Level 2 Instructor on a Level 2 Skills course.