Royal Canoe overwhelmed by donations after gear stolen

Members of the Winnipeg band Royal Canoe are grateful for their fans, who quickly donated more than $9,600 to replace laptops and other gear that were stolen from their van earlier this week.

Royal Canoewas wrapping up a three-month tour when its van was broken intoduring an overnight stop in Chicagoon Monday night.

The band'smusical instruments were safe, but four laptops, three passports and the members' personal belongings were taken.

"Almost everything that I own I don't have anymore. I just have what you see here, pretty much," band member Matt Schellenberg told CBC News.

Member Matt Peters said they didn't have the means to replace the laptops, which were essential to their livelihoods as musicians.

"It's how we do all of the recording, all of our business, accounting everything occurs on these laptops. So It was a total shock to see that they were gone," he said.

So the band reluctantly launched an Indiegogoonlinefundraising campaign at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, in the hopes of raising $7,800 to cover the costs of the stolen gear.

In exchange for donations, the band offered "high fives"on social media, handwritten postcards, signed CDs, and even concert tickets and music lessons.

"Before we reached the border it was already at $5,000, and we had asked for $7,800," he said.

"It was just so overwhelming to see how supportive people are."

Peters said the goal was reached in less than 24 hours.As of Wednesday night, donations totalled $9,646 US.

Now back in Winnipeg, the members of Royal Canoe are ending the online donation campaign, which they had originally set to be 60 days long.

"We'd like to say, like, 'Thank you so much to everybody, but like kindly please stop donating. We got what we got,'" said Schellenberg.