New Zealand-born John Beedell lived in many parts of the British Commonwealth prior to settling in Ontario, Canada and attending Queen’s University to study engineering. He moved to Sudbury, Ontario to work in the mining industry and took up canoeing while living there. He was talented enough to make the Canadian national team, which took him to the 1958 World Championships and the 1960 Summer Olympics. At the latter he was eliminated early in the C2-1000 event, alongside Joseph Derochie, after finishing fourth in both his round one heat and the repêchage. He retired from active competition following the Games and earned a teaching degree from Carleton University in Ottawa. He eventually took up a science teaching position at Ashbury College, but remained athletically active in pursuits as disparate as marathon racing and skiing. Outside of athletics, he served for many years as the director of the Ontario Camp Leadership Centre. In 1988 he became unable to continue his teaching career after falling off of a roof and fracturing his skull, which also left him with limited mobility, but he still remained as athletically active as possible, taking on a new passion as a local music patron. He died in December 2014, several weeks after being struck by and pinned under a school bus.
Canada