WHO IS SQUAMISH WATERSPORTS: THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE BUSINESSApril 23, 2021News
Squamish Watersports
Owner & Founder: Dan Grains
Written by: Stacy Thomas
Photography by: Angela Bliss
Dan Grains was just a young student in university when he first laid his hands on a kiteboard, and he didn’t know what had hit him.
Up until then, his world had been music; he was a classically-trained oboe player with a full musical scholarship to the University of Toronto, and was fully dedicated – he’d been practicing for hours a day for years, since he first started playing in high school. He performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, and he travelled all over Canada and Europe competing in regional and national competitions, usually with top placing.
Music was kind of his thing.
On top of all that, he played in a military band as an infantry member of the Canadian Armed Forces. His life was music; playing at school, marching and playing for charity with the military band, performing in competitions – morning, day and night, his instrument of choice was the oboe.
That is, until he laid his hands on a kiteboard.
In that moment, his whole world changed: “I just couldn’t get my hands off that kite,” he says.
From then on, Grains’ life did a fast 180. After he graduated university, the 22-year-old worked a season in Squamish at the Vancouver Kiteboarding School, and got hooked on the wind and the beauty of the Sea to Sky. But when he couldn’t land another kiteboarding job the following two seasons, it looked like the cards might be stacked against him.
What does a military man do when he’s dealt a bad hand? That’s right, he grabs a new deck, and that’s exactly what Grains did when in 2011 he took a chance on the strength of his own dedication and picked up and moved to Squamish to start his own dang kiteboarding school.
“I was committed. After experiencing Squamish in all its beauty, as well as the kiteboarding, I was so hooked on being here. I just said, if there’s no opportunity for me there, let’s make my own.”
So he and his wife Melanie started Aerial Kiteboarding at its original location on the Spit, and every year since then it’s grown a little bit more. From two employees to fifteen guides, it is now the only kiteboarding school still operating in Squamish.
His military training has definitely been an asset in running his business, Grains says. The constant repetition and training, the striving for perfection and the competition have all instilled a drive and motivation to always be looking for new ways to provide better and more services. Five years ago, the couple decided to stay in Squamish year-round, rather than closing up shop and heading to warmer climes to kiteboard in the winter as they’d normally done. Now they operate a storefront shop and appointment-only school over the fall and winter months from their downtown location.
“I wanted to make sure that my opportunity and vision for a watersports centre and services could grow, and I decided to stay here all year round and focus on just that,” Grains says. “I work a lot.”
And the product of all this work has been a bumping, full-service rebrand as Squamish Watersports, providing guided boat tours, kayaking and SUP rentals, and pretty much anything else you can think of to do on the water.
They’ve even revolutionized the way kiteboarding is taught, by developing a low-stakes, low-barrier method of teaching that allows people to experience the kites without actually hooking them up to the harness until they feel confident and ready. This sort of innovation is what keeps Grain going and keeps his business growing – opening more people up to the joy and adventure of being on the water, sharing his passion with people who might otherwise have been excluded.
“We do it because we love it. We do it because it’s a huge crime of passion. That’s what keeps me working all the time, is giving the experience to different folks, and at the same time some folks with disabilities who have enough challenges in life. We just really enjoy what we do here.”
Learn more about Squamish Watersports here: https://www.squamishwatersports.com/
Squamish Watersports
Owner & Founder: Dan Grains
Written by: Stacy Thomas
Photography by: Angela Bliss
Dan Grains was just a young student in university when he first laid his hands on a kiteboard, and he didn’t know what had hit him.
Up until then, his world had been music; he was a classically-trained oboe player with a full musical scholarship to the University of Toronto, and was fully dedicated – he’d been practicing for hours a day for years, since he first started playing in high school. He performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra, and he travelled all over Canada and Europe competing in regional and national competitions, usually with top placing.
Music was kind of his thing.
On top of all that, he played in a military band as an infantry member of the Canadian Armed Forces. His life was music; playing at school, marching and playing for charity with the military band, performing in competitions – morning, day and night, his instrument of choice was the oboe.
That is, until he laid his hands on a kiteboard.
In that moment, his whole world changed: “I just couldn’t get my hands off that kite,” he says.
From then on, Grains’ life did a fast 180. After he graduated university, the 22-year-old worked a season in Squamish at the Vancouver Kiteboarding School, and got hooked on the wind and the beauty of the Sea to Sky. But when he couldn’t land another kiteboarding job the following two seasons, it looked like the cards might be stacked against him.
What does a military man do when he’s dealt a bad hand? That’s right, he grabs a new deck, and that’s exactly what Grains did when in 2011 he took a chance on the strength of his own dedication and picked up and moved to Squamish to start his own dang kiteboarding school.
“I was committed. After experiencing Squamish in all its beauty, as well as the kiteboarding, I was so hooked on being here. I just said, if there’s no opportunity for me there, let’s make my own.”
So he and his wife Melanie started Aerial Kiteboarding at its original location on the Spit, and every year since then it’s grown a little bit more. From two employees to fifteen guides, it is now the only kiteboarding school still operating in Squamish.
His military training has definitely been an asset in running his business, Grains says. The constant repetition and training, the striving for perfection and the competition have all instilled a drive and motivation to always be looking for new ways to provide better and more services. Five years ago, the couple decided to stay in Squamish year-round, rather than closing up shop and heading to warmer climes to kiteboard in the winter as they’d normally done. Now they operate a storefront shop and appointment-only school over the fall and winter months from their downtown location.
“I wanted to make sure that my opportunity and vision for a watersports centre and services could grow, and I decided to stay here all year round and focus on just that,” Grains says. “I work a lot.”
And the product of all this work has been a bumping, full-service rebrand as Squamish Watersports, providing guided boat tours, kayaking and SUP rentals, and pretty much anything else you can think of to do on the water.
They’ve even revolutionized the way kiteboarding is taught, by developing a low-stakes, low-barrier method of teaching that allows people to experience the kites without actually hooking them up to the harness until they feel confident and ready. This sort of innovation is what keeps Grain going and keeps his business growing – opening more people up to the joy and adventure of being on the water, sharing his passion with people who might otherwise have been excluded.
“We do it because we love it. We do it because it’s a huge crime of passion. That’s what keeps me working all the time, is giving the experience to different folks, and at the same time some folks with disabilities who have enough challenges in life. We just really enjoy what we do here.”
Learn more about Squamish Watersports here: https://www.squamishwatersports.com/
