Sea Wolf: August 2008

I grew up going on canoe trips in the Shield country of Manitoba and northern Ontario. Since living on the West coast, I have been mostly into kayaking. Having built a couple of traditional skin-on-frame kayaks, one also ends up making and using the Greenland style paddles. Actually, I'm interested in all forms of paddling whether it be the Dragon boat races, Hawaiian outriggers, dugouts or the recently popular stand-up paddle boarding. Lately, I have been attracted to canoeing once again. Sort of a return to my paddling roots. I did a canoe trip in the Amazon a couple of years ago and, before leaving, I made myself a Canadian style canoe paddle. It is the Voyageur style, as described in the bible of canoe paddle making books by Graham Warren and David Gidmark.

Made from a 2 x 10" plank of ash, it was definitely harder to use a plane and spoke shave than on yellow cedar, the wood I use for kayak paddles. The grain was beautiful to see emerge as I planed away layer after layer of the blade and shaft. I had planned another canoe trip for this summer, down the Yukon river, but unfortunately it fell through. Before that happened, I had taken advantage of a friend's wood shop and carved out on the band saw two more paddles.

the handle grip here is the "scallop" type.

One is an Ottertail design out of cherry wood, the other a traditional North West Coast native dugout canoe paddle out of yellow cedar. The first one has a beautiful dark reddish grain and the blade has a nice snap to it when doing the J-stroke. The second one smells really good but I have yet to try its performance in the water.

I was checking out NW Coast motifs to paint on the blade when I ended up on this website on Maori canoes and paddles. I was fascinated by their Polynesian swirls and stylized wave patterns so I decided to paint one of those designs instead of the typical ones that paddles in this part of the world would have. Call it a hybrid of two paddling peoples from the Pacific.

A few years later from this original post:

I ended up making another North West style paddle, once again out of yellow cedar. This time, I painted two different NW coast designs (one on each side of the blade) that I had seen in the UBC Museum of Anthropology. The previous 'hybrid' one, I had used and the paint started coming off. This one I kept on my wall.

This paddle above is one that I bought at a street garage sale for all of five dollars... and it's probably my favourite paddle! It's a "Lolk" from Coldwater Ontario, made out of one piece of cherry. The blade is very thin and you feel the flex and snap when paddling a J-stroke. I have brought this paddle with me everywhere I used a canoe; on the Rio Branco and Negro in the Amazon, down the Yukon river and to the Bowron lakes in central BC. It was originally varnished but I sanded the loom as I prefer oiled wood. I then painted a wolf paw on one side in honour of my father, an avid canoeist, naturalist and artist. He painted this symbol next to his signature on all of his oil paintings. I added red paint on the tip and varnished the blade.

Back in Manitoba to visit my sister and her family, I saw my old paddle that I had bought as a teenager. We went for a paddle down the narrow Seine river in St. Boniface. For some reason, almost everyone I knew who canoed back in the 70s and early 80s from Winnipeg and NW Ontario had wide blade paddles. That was the style back then. I only discovered and got into the longer narrow paddles later when I read up on them and started making my own.

We almost always painted a design on our paddles.

I recently bought a wood burning pen after seeing some nice artwork on wood from two friends of mine. This lends itself well for doing an image on a paddle. I picked up another used, plain and cheap paddle and, after sanding off the varnish, tried it out. I figured black spruce trees would be simple enough. I then did another one on my good ash paddle blade and yet another one on a friend's paddle.

An old paddle left behind on a portage.

I had quite a few different pieces of wood from previous projects so I decided to make myself yet another paddle (!) this one a laminated one, which I had never done for a canoe paddle. I got all the strips cut on a table saw at my friends workshop then epoxied them together with clamps The shaft and centre of the blade is red cedar, then in pairs going outward there is ash, yellow cedar and oak. On the handle I added walnut on the edges as I only had a small piece of that lovely dark wood. As red cedar is quite soft, I knew I would have to fibreglass the tip to reinforce it. It was a bit of a mess with the cloth and resin so after sanding, I just used a quick drying epoxy once again, sanded and repeated until it was smooth without too much of a seam.

Tracing one side of the Beaver tail template
before using a jigsaw to cut the shape.

The handle taking form

pre reinforced tip

As previously mentioned, I have also made several traditional Greenland kayak paddles. They are always fun to make because you essentially use two hand tools, a hand plane and a spoke shave. You find a straight grained 2x4 of either red or yellow cedar about 7 feet long. Once you draw out the lines, you start shaving away. The first few I made were from a single piece of wood. I have also laminated a few, with different tones of wood and I have added a hard wood tip, either ash, walnut or purple heart.

As I have a few traditional skin-on-frame kayaks that I have made, you tend to use the traditional paddles that go with them. The Greenland paddle is the most popular one. There is also an Aleutian paddle which is pretty much the same however it has a lip in the centre of one side of the blade. They have become quite popular even with paddlers that have conventional kayaks. I still get a few people wondering how one can paddle with what looks to them as a "stick".