Career
He competed for Canada at the 1958 International Coach Federation Canoe Sprint World Championships in Prague and at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. He was eliminated in the repechage round of the Men"s C-2 1000 metres event at 1960 Olympics. Beedell spent his early childhood in New Zealand, England, and British Guyana.
In British Guyana he contracted malaria, and was sent to live in Canada while recovering.
His family joined him in Canada in 1941, and Beedell lived there for the rest of his life. He attended Queen"s University, but dropped out after his first year in the engineering program
Beedell trained in Sudbury, Ontario as a runner and competitive canoer during this period, while holding a full-time job and helping to raise a family, and made the 1958 World Championship and 1960 Olympic teams. After the Olympics, Beedell completed his teaching degree and became a science teacher at Ashbury College in Ottawa.
He also contributed to outdoor education by serving as director of the Ontario Camp Leadership Centre.
He was an avid skier and runner, competing in more than 20 marathons around the world. In 1988 he suffered a serious brain injury as the result of a fall, which curtailed his physical and outdoor activities. He died in 2014, at the age of 81, after being struck by a school bus in the New Edinburgh neighbourhood of Ottawa.