Bruce being ‘Bruce’

Gearing up for 4th of July

My Sawyer story is as much about the previous owner of Sawyer as the product itself. I met Bruce Bergstrom in the maternity ward of Rogue Valley Hospital in Medford, Oregon as our brides were giving birth to our children, Bruce’s first born (Eric) and our second (Amy). That was 40 years ago. Bruce was working temporarily for a boat manufacturer in nearby White City. Shortly thereafter, Bruce got a job with my employer, Harry & David Co., the world famous purveyor of Comice pears and specialty mail order foods. We ended up working in the same department and became close friends.

Since we both lived in Ashland about 10 miles from the office, we began car pooling together. I use the term ‘car’ loosely however. Bruce had built a dune buggy with an old VW engine and roll bars covered with sheet metal. No heat, no windows and colder than the shady side on those Oregon winter mornings. I remember one morning the buggy lost power and we discovered the throttle cable had broken. Not a problem, I leaned back and ran the throttle with a short piece of cable while Bruce drove as we mastered shifting the 4speed tranny with hand throttle control and made it to work on time. Back in those days the VP would stand at the window looking into the parking lot and take notes on the tardy youngsters. We had made the list too many times previously and were somewhat proud of ourselves, albeit accomplished by a somewhat foolish endeavor, that we were not tardy on this particular day.

Bruce and I decided we wanted to start kayaking the Rouge and the local rivers. Bruce had some experience and a kayak. I had neither. We found an old kayak somewhere for sale, pretty cheap as I recall. The only problems were that it was an ugly, faded, burned chili orange and in two pieces as the deck had never been bonded to the hull. We hauled it to Bruce’s garage and made a scavenger call to Bruce’s old boat builder employer in White City. They let us salvage resin from the bottom of some 50 gallon drums and gave us some catalyst and scraps of fiberglass cloth. Shortly thereafter, I had my ‘new’ kayak. Next problem however, was no paddle. While I had heard of Sawyer paddles, my budget wouldn’t allow buying one. Bruce, being Bruce, said, ”let’s make our own”. He built a mould for the fiberglass blade and we bought a wooden clothes hanger rod and made a paddle. Not pretty mind you, but a functional paddle.

We had several enjoyable outings on the upper Rogue with the burnt chili kayak. I used to chuckle when I picked Bruce up for the early Sunday morning runs and he would tell Mary, “we will be back by noon”, when we were lucky to take out of the water by 1:00 with an hours drive home. Those were great day trips where we learned to read the water and hone our skills. We eventually decided it was time for a lower Rogue trip. Bruce’s skill sets were up to the task, in hindsight, mine were not. It was a great trip until Blossom Bar (Class IV-V) when my kayak, with me in it, got pinned vertically on a large boulder next to an aluminum riverboat also vertically pinned on the same boulder. I left burnt chili against that boulder in the river that day and now had no kayak. The USFS had to come in and remove both boats.

Bruce and I then purchased an ugly, used World Famous raft with large 24” tubes and an aluminum frame. It was a great raft, but again, no oars. So Bruce, being Bruce, said, “let’s make our own”. So he set about making the mould for the blades. For the shafts we drove a large wooden dowel through a PVC pipe and fiber glassed it to the blade. For the oar handles, Bruce had built a lathe using an old electric motor and a throw-out bearing from a VW and turned out the wooden handles. Again, not pretty, but functional. We used that raft and those oars for several years.

I was transferred to N. Carolina in the early 80’s and was excited, but by no means surprised; to hear in 1987 that Bruce had become the owner of Sawyer Paddles and Oars. Bruce was on a corporate management track and opted out to follow his calling. I now own a fleet of small wooden boats sprinkled with a few glass boats, powered mostly by sailcloth or Sawyer paddles and oars. If you paddle and get that little ‘flutter’ in your heart when you look at your boats and paddles, then you understand the passion of a man who went from building paddles in his garage to growing Sawyer Paddles into the nation’s premier manufacturer of paddles and oars.

That is Bruce, being Bruce.

John Buck