In a small town at the edge of the fabled Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a police department is incentivizing recruits with a pretty sweet sign-on bonus—free Kevlar Wenonah Canoes.
Ely, Minnesota, has a population of just over 3,000 residents in a remote corner of the state. Like many police departments in recent years, the small outfit serving Ely is struggling to hire new officers. Utilizing what the town has access to and what Minnesotans value, Police Chief Chad Houde came up with a creative and fitting benefit to joining his force. Houde is giving new (and current) police officers free Kevlar Wenonah Canoes valued at $3800 for committing to three years of duty.
“You can get done with a shift, maybe it was a stressful shift. … The best way to decompress is go out canoeing, hunting or fishing,” Houde shared with the Associated Press.
Talk about a quality of living bonus. The bordering Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness comprises one million acres of forests and connecting waterways, with over 1200 miles of canoe routes.
To give the offer more state pride, Wenonah Canoes were founded in Minnesota 50 years ago and are still made there today.
For paddlers pursuing a career in law enforcement, one could do worse than scoring free canoe and joining a police department serving a community at the edge of one of the most treasured natural areas in North America. The Ely police department has one slot currently open and another soon to come. But we imagine those won’t last long once word spreads through the canoeing ranks.
