SARANAC LAKE | As St. Regis Canoe Outfitters goes into its 40th season, it is changing ownership. Dave Cilley created the business in 1984 and has been running it ever since. Now he is passing the paddle to senior managers Maeghan Farnham and Steve Cerri.
Cilley has always been passionate about the outdoors. He grew up in New Hampshire doing Boy Scouts and mountain climbing and graduated with a degree in botany from the University of New Hampshire. After college, he worked for Eastern Mountain Sports Company (EMS), a regional chain of outdoor and sports equipment stores. In 1974, he moved to Lake Placid to run their new store.
“That period of my life was primarily rock and ice climbing and teaching,” Cilley said. “That kind of led me to the Adirondacks.”
He moved to Massachusetts for a year and then came back. He and his wife at the time took the summer off and spent it in Northern Saskatchewan, canoeing.
“There was a canoe outfitter for sale up there and that got me thinking,” he said. “So we said, ‘Well, let’s go back to the Adirondacks and start a business there.’”
Read the full story in the Sun Community News.