How Watermatters came to be:

Watermatters started as a home based business in late 2004. Earlier that year, at a late age and after decades of unsuccessfully seeking a fulfilling livelihood, Mary decided to focus on water treatment. She had recently returned to Vancouver. Late one night, while searching online for an Asian source for water ionizers, her attention was overtaken by an insistent internal directive which, if put into words, would be:
‘You are planning to sell water treatment devices in Vancouver and you don’t know anything about Vancouver’s water!’.

That was the defining moment for what was to become Watermatters™ in late 2004. Mary’s attention immediately shifted to learning about the source, characteristics and treatment of the tap water supplied to Metro Vancouver, and the filtration equipment needed to address health concerns related to Metro Van’s unique water conditions.

The business started with a humble array of water filtration products specific to Vancouver’s water conditions, sold evenings and weekends from Mary’s Vancouver apartment, at health shows, and summer festivals. In those early days everyone was toting a Nalgene water bottle. Recognizing the need for a stainless steel alternative, Mary became the first Canadian distributor of Klean Kanteens, before the general public was aware of the endocrine disrupting effects of commonly used plastics.

When the dangers of BPA and plastic water bottles became overnight headline news in 2006, CTV contacted Mary for an interview about her stainless steel water bottles. It was the public’s rush for a stainless steel alternative, and being positioned to deliver that solution that funded the growth of Watermatters™ into a full time retail location on Laurel Street in 2008.

Meanwhile, noticing a mountain of empty plastic water bottles and the long lines of people waiting to drink warm tap water out of a garden hose at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Mary conceived of a simple water stand with the help of her brother (consisting of a plank with spigots held up on 2 saw horses with a water filter underneath) and proposed that festivals supply their water line to these self-serve branded water stands. The public thronged to the water stands, an unprecedented novelty at that time, and a very welcome one on hot summer days. This summer tradition continued for many years. The huge success of the Watermatters™ water stands established a relationship, bonded by water, with thousands of people within our community that persists to this day.

Relationship with our community and ‘word of mouth’ have built our retail business over the years. In 2020, after 12 great years on Laurel Street, the Broadway Transit project claimed the location of our first store. This prompted our move to West 4th Avenue, where you will currently find us.

Supplying residential water filtration solutions that are appropriate to our customers’ specific needs remains our guiding principle regarding water treatment. This is the backdrop against which we interact and evolve with our community and each other. We thank you for being a participant in our ventures.