Chilliwack kayaker paddling Columbia River for mental health

Before Darcy Kindred ever dipped a paddle into the calm waters of Cultus Lake near his Chilliwack home, he found himself fighting against a raging current.

“I survived, not committing suicide, and I wanted to celebrate the fact that I was still around,” Kindred, the founder of Paddle Forward, told The Leader Spirit Vancouver.

Under immense pressure from his long-term finance job, Kindred struggled with mental health challenges for over three years.

“Every day you’d wake up and you felt heavy, you felt like you had a thousand-pound weight, you felt worthless, you felt like you were a burden to everyone around you, you felt like people in your profession hated you,” he explained.

Shortly after realizing the state of his mental health last summer, Kindred’s wife got him the help he needed and suggested buying a used kayak.

“She went and just said, ‘I bought them, go pick them up.’ I went out on the water that night and immediately felt the connection,” he shared.

Since his first night on the water, Kindred felt driven to support others facing similar struggles.

“Mental health affects one in five people in Canada, and not everyone has great support. I was feeling sad that not everyone had the support that I had, my wife in particular,” he explained.

In December, he launched Paddle Forward, a fundraiser aiming to collect $10,000 for mental health services by paddling over 700 kilometres down the rapids of the Columbia River.

“It became 725 km after I went through and mapped it all out in detail with the GPS, and I thought, ‘OK, I’ll just paddle harder.”

Kindred will be documenting his journey, which he is aiming to complete in just over three weeks.

“It’s just a one-person tent, the size of a sleeping bag, with a couple inches on either side, and a Therm-a-Rest mattress pad and a little pillow, and that’s it.”

Kindred has already positioned supplies for himself at each checkpoint along the way, with his start in Canal Flats and the finish line near Castlegar.

According to him, it’s a trip he won’t be going on alone.

“These are people that are known to me or others, that committed suicide, and I wanted to take them along the journey in remembrance.”