Ann Dodge began her paddling career on Lake Williams in Fall River, Nova Scotia, as a member of the newly formed Cheema Aquatic Club in the early 1970s. Her coach at the time, Frank Garner, said she was the most dedicated and focused athlete he had ever coached.

In 1971, at age 13, Dodge was a member of the Cheema Ladies War Canoe team that won the Canadian Championship in Otterburn, Quebec. By the time she was 15 she was the top junior ladies paddler in Nova Scotia in K-1, K-2, and K-4. At age 16 she proved her talent by winning five events in the Canada Day Regatta on Lake Banook.

Additionally, Dodge won two gold medals in the Junior K-1 and K-2, and three gold in the Senior K-1, K-2, and K-4. In 1977, she was a member of Nova Scotia’s Summer Canada Games team that headed to Burnaby, British Columbia. She competed in the only kayak events that were open to women — the K-1, K-2 and K-4 — taking gold medals home in all three events.

From the time she began paddling in 1971, through to 1984, Dodge brought home 26 medals from Canadian Championships: 11 gold, six silver and nine bronze.

At the international level, she placed fifth in the world in K-1 in 1975 Junior World Championships. She became the first female paddler from Nova Scotia to make the Canadian Olympic team where she competed in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

While racing in Montreal in the K-2 with Sue Holloway, they became the first Canadian women to ever make the Olympic finals, once again placing their boat among the fastest in the world.

Dodge was inducted into the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame as an individual athlete in 1994, and as a member of the 1977 Cheema Canoe Team in 2017.