Graham Warren refers to this design more precisely as a "North West Voyageur" simply because it appears in the voyageur art of Howard Sivertson. For some examples, I checked out a book of his entitled, The Illustrated Voyageur: Paintings and Companion Stories which has some delightful anecdotes and illustrations, although probably not entirely accurate.
Cover of Sivertson's Voyageur themed book
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Unfinished paddle; Blade Closeup
Since I was using left over cutoff scraps, the grain pattern isn't perfectly symmetrical on the blade. There's also point on the blade where the grain reverses suddenly giving the appearance of a horizontal "scratch".
I've read plenty of criticisms of this blade design on canoeing forums with many paddlers literally calling this blade shape a piece of junk. Personally I found it an acceptable design although the larger squarish tip certainly made for a noisy entry and the recurved shoulders tended to cause some cavitation and loss of power when paddling with a quick pace. But I found that if I slowed down and relaxed the pace it handled well with underwater recoveries. The walnut-poplar lamination also resulted in a super-light paddle and there's no denying the rich-chocolatey appeal of the wood. Instead of adding any additional pyrography to this one, I've settled on simply oiling it and using it as an occasional light use paddle
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Cjoq7L8LMuRPTaPb_j8KJpnSP0Qf7EpsAX4nv4G920cDUSOno4EJT4radZV0x2BX0koFbOqFsXeZ-OZiFdX7uen6ydLPSTMGZDYRUi-vcwqrfSD3IgneGodI13wI89YBZIxccgRdj_1B/s320/Oiled+Walnut+Voyageur07.jpg)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpXj1ofecEaSofdmeJT1InxPnIsbOQB5_bXtkAUtb6aGm5zr-HoQJfPGWqUyxSaCeTrZrXJ_04-oeo6t6B4WdDxacX7TNmIkMROgk3xFb7yjXPbpA1Ysq9dD3XRzuzOhw6JZQTvfX6Z3ag/s320/Oiled+Walnut+Voyageur08.jpg)
Final work all oiled up
![](http://lh3.ggpht.com/_4rXsS2OHCvI/S7KmcXnfUQI/AAAAAAAAFVI/xHUYyjB1cWE/s800/paddle_divider.jpg)
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