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Get on Board!

Paddle Your Way to Fun

When high school friends Matt Frakes and Peter Mogck met up years later, they started talking about their love of water sports. But the more they talked, the more they realized a vital segment of water equipment was missing.

“Everything available at the time was more surf focused, with a lot of Hawaiian flowers and neon colors,” says Matt. “It wasn’t really what we thought a customer here in the Midwest would want.”

Since Minnesota has a really strong water culture, they wanted to celebrate that by making a product that was a little simpler and blended in with the environment better. From a performance perspective, it also needed to excel on flat bodies of water, such as lakes and rivers.

So, they set out to make a product that fit these parameters. Matt’s background is mechanical engineering and Peter’s is in marketing and sales. Together, they came up with a board design and started building them in a garage. Shortly after, due to high demand, they moved to outside manufacturing. This was in 2014; in 2016, they quit their day jobs and focused exclusively on their new company, Paddle North.

“Paddle boards are what we started with, but over the last few years we’ve evolved into a water sports company that makes kayaks and utility docks,”
says Peter. People just pop the dock into the water and hang out on it. At the end of last year, they launched their wake surfer, which is a wake surf board.

In the last four to five years, they say they’ve also doubled down on innovative inflatable technology. “A large part of our customer base is downtown city living, and storage and transportation is a major component there,” says Peter.  

“So, we have kayaks and paddle boards that can actually pack up into a backpack. With this drop stitch PVC material, we cut the weight but increase the durability, and this widens the sport to a lot of people who don’t have direct water access or a cabin to store it in. They can just throw it in the trunk of a car or bike down to the lake with it on their backs.”

Stand up paddle boarding, they say, is not as difficult as some people may think. There’s some getting used to it, but if you’re on a properly sized board, it’s going to feel comfortable. You can focus on paddling and it’s not a constant effort to stay afloat.

“We size people for the boards and it’s less about height and more weight driven,” says Matt.  “A lighter person can go on a bigger board, but a heavier person would feel uncomfortable on a board that’s too small. You have to know who is going to be on the board, if there will be fishing gear, or dogs or kids, and come up with a weight capacity that will be on the board.”

People of all ages love their products, adds Matt. Younger people seem to appreciate the inflatables more, while older people who have more storage options either buy them for themselves or to keep at the family cabin for children and grandchildren to enjoy.

Paddle North also offers paddle challenges. “It’s a really exciting program we started and it’s really taken on steam as customers get passionate about paddling,” says Peter. They create fun and interesting things to do on the water using their products or similar products and once these challenges are completed, participants earn really cool free badges. It’s all based on an honor system. There are also plenty of how-to videos on the website, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced water paddler.

Being in the water and out in nature is a great way to spend a day with family and friends. “It’s a grounding experience to break away and unplug and have tranquil time outside,” says Peter. “I think a lot of people have rediscovered that this past year. Being outside was one of the only forms of entertainment, whether it was walking, biking or being on the water. The benefits of that are immeasurable and it’s how memories are made.”

You can find Paddle North stores at the Mall of America, in the Rosedale Mall, and at its headquarters in Columbia Heights. There will be a new store opening this summer in Grand Rapids, as well as a pop-up summer store in the Ridgedale Mall.

For more information and Paddle North locations, go to https://paddlenorth.com/. IG: @paddlenorth. 

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