Bert Oldershaw holds the distinction of being the only Canadian to have ever reached three successive finals in Olympic paddling competitions.

     He is also the founding father of the Mississauga Canoe Club – maybe on surface not so glamorous an achievement as three Olympic finals, but in some respects even more significant. Canada has become one of the top 10 canoeing nations in the world and not a small part of this improvement can be credited to the significant contribution of the Mississauga Canoe Club.

 

     For his contribution to Mississauga’s considerable paddling successes, Oldershaw was one of the 1975 inductees into the Mississauga Sports Hall of Fame.

     The small cornerstone laid by Oldershaw in 1957 grew into a paddling powerhouse. “Missy” has come to dominate the Canadian paddling scene, having won a total of 12 team championship burgees between 1966 and 1991. The club also developed top-notch paddlers to represent Canada in international competitions.

     The Mississauga Canoe Club was born when Oldershaw moved the Toronto Island Canoe Club to the mouth of the Credit River to first operate out of a shack, a long way from the modern facilities of the present days.

     The Credit River – slow running except for a couple of weeks in the spring – was wide and long enough to accommodate Olympic training programs, said Oldershaw. Speaking from experience, of course: he had trained on the Credit the years before for the 1956 Summer Olympic Games that were actually held in what’s winter here but summer in Melbourne, Australia. Bert recalls how he had to break up thin ice on the river so he could train train.

     Oldershaw was bit by the canoeing bug in 1939 on Toronto Island when it was about the only sport which was relatively inexpensive to take up. Nine years and a handful of Canadian championship titles later, Bert paddled in his first international regatta as a member of the 10,000-meter canoe tandem that not only made the finals, but finished fifth in the first post-war Olympic Games in London in 1948. Four years later in the Helsinki Olympics in Finland, he paddled in the 1,000-metre single kayak and once again shocked the Canadian delegation by placing seventh in the totally European-dominated finals. In his Olympic swan song in 1956, he and teammate Bill Collins (later coach of the Mississauga club) finished fifth in the 1,000-metre canoe tandem (C-2) finals.

     For 12 years, Oldershaw was a Canadian Olympic director. In addition to canoeing, Bert was also actively involved in the community as director for the South Peel Red Cross Safety Program and organizer of the Mississauga Water Safety Canoeing Program.

     His children (including daughters Lee and Lynn) inherited Bert’s love and talent for the sports. All this three sons – Dean, Reed and Scott – have represented Canada in Olympic and other international competitions.

     The Oldershaws are the only family known to have four competitors in eight Olympics.