Sawyer Oars, Artists & Save Our Wild Salmon Join to Produce Oars with a Cause

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Save Our Wild Salmon and Sawyer announced a partnership today that will benefit fisheries through a series of limited edition “Artisan Series Oars” with a percentage of sales supporting Save Our Wild Salmon conservation efforts to protect and restore wild salmon, steelhead and the healthy river systems they depend on.

The “Sawyer Artisan Series” feature prints of fish species from artists around the country passionate about fisheries and fishing art. The first two are ”The Steelhead” by Link Jackson and ”The Brown Trout” by Ty Hallock. These oars showcase Sawyer’s and each artist’s ability to create rugged yet highly functional art.

The timing is perfect for this alliances as part of Sawyers 50^th anniversary. At our 45^th, we realized that we don’t just make paddles and oars, we make memories. For anglers, some of their fondest memories are with the critical salmon and steelhead fisheries around the world                  -Pete Newport, President of Sawyer Oars

“This is a great partnership for us,” said Zac Kauffman, V.P. of Sales & Marketing for Sawyer. “It allows us to interact with the vibrant Save Our Wild Salmon community and pair up our most popular oars with an ancient cause, helping us give back to the fisheries that are so cherished by all”.

Sawyer was founded by legendary canoe racer Ralph Sawyer in 1967 and in the first few years began collaborating with Willie Boats on drift-boat oars. Ever since, the company has been at the forefront of the rowing culture. Today, Sawyer is employee owned and shares the passion for boating and putting the best oars into the hands of dedicated river users. http://www.paddlesandoars.com/Oars/ARTISAN-SQUARETOP-OARS/

“Save Our Wild Salmon is honored to partner with Sawyer on this project to raise awareness and funds to support our advocacy efforts,” says Joseph Bogaard, executive director of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition. “Healthy fisheries, healthy rivers and responsible companies like Sawyer Paddles and Oars remind us all about how environment and economy can, and must, go hand-in-hand”.

Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition (SOS) is a 25-year-old coalition of conservationists, fishermen and clean energy advocates working together to protect and restore abundant, self-sustaining and fishable populations of salmon and steelhead by improving the rivers and watersheds that they depend upon for the benefit of people, wildlife and their ecosystems.

Whitewater Halloween

Halloween 3.0 River Warrior Family "Style." You cannot make this stuff up but have to go out and GET IT! The weather in Roseburg, Oregon was cloudy, wet and chilly. My iPhone app told me that Gold Hill was 72 degrees and sunny. Gold Valley Fellowship had a Trunk or Treat Harvest Party from 5pm-7ish pm. We went to the 0930 Redeemer's Fellowship Service and I asked one of the elders for prayer for our whitewater run on the Rogue later this day. Little did I know what was in store or our family.

The weather was absolutely perfect and autumn in full effect. Ashten (Battle Gorilla) at the stout age of 8 paddled through both Nugget and Powerhouse Rapids like a champ...being the youngest I know of to R4 this section of world-class river. We styled Powerhouse and drove around with the raft inflated on the truck, as we left for the Harvest Party.

I really wanted to Halloween Photo BOMB Sawyer Paddles and Oars. As we were deflating our raft at the Sawyer Station, Pete Newport walks up to us in the dark of night and asks me what length paddle am I using.

This leads to a walk to Sawyer's Corporate HQ and the River Warrior Family being gifted two (2) River Serpent Raft Race Paddles that were used in the World Championships in Japan earlier this month (3-9 OCT 2017). We are still on the high that Rogue River provides and the incredible gift to our River Warrior Family.

The flow is real and we cannot thank the following enough: Nichole Rufi for being humble and crushing these rapids with our family,
Sawyer Paddles and Oars, Forward Paddle Raft Company, Oregon Paddle Sports, Dirtbag Paddlers and Source One Serenity