Brennan's Wave Missoula, Montana

Kayaker's legacy lives on in waves
By MEA ANDREWS of the Missoulian

Photo:
Brennan Guth, right, teaches kayaking during a class on the Clark Fork River in August 2000.
Photo by KURT WILSON/Missoulian

Five years after he died in Chile, more than a decade after he started a Montana-made kayaking school, and nearly two decades after captaining his high school basketball and football teams, Brennan Guth has a legacy in the middle of Missoula, the town he called home.

On Sunday, Brennan's Wave near Caras Park will be formally dedicated. It's a man-made, engineered whitewater play pool in the Clark Fork River and is named for the world-class kayaker who died in 2001 at age 32.

The man behind this whirl of water remains very much in the thoughts of his friends and relatives.

"Fishing, bowhunting, athletics - he was someone who focused on something and became engrossed," said his only sibling, Valerie Guth Boyd, who now lives in Minneapolis. "I miss the uncle he would have been to my kids. I'll miss growing old with him."

"He had such a big heart," said his business partner and friend, Land Heflin, one of the friends who built the kayaking school, Tarkio Kayak Adventures, with Guth. "He wanted everyone to be able to experience the rivers. He felt bad about charging people to do it."

"Look at all of the things that make a difference in Missoula," said Mike Munsey of Missoula, a friend of Brennan's father, Dr. David Guth. "This has just made Missoula even more attractive. Besides honoring Brennan, everything like this makes Missoula better."

Brennan would have marveled at the effort it took to get the project in place. Never great at the ledger end of his business ("I told him so many times he needed a bean counter," said his dad), constructing Brennan's Wave took five years, more than $300,000 in donated equipment, labor and cash from companies like Envirocon, support and cash from the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, rafters and kayakers, the medical community, hours of pro-bono work by Missoula lawyer Trent Baker, and the efforts of many friends and relatives.

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