The free online library at Archive.org has a great book outlining the extensive history of the Native culture on the East Coast. Twelve thousand years : American Indians in Maine by Bruce J.
Bourque is a thorough publication that features some photos beyond just the Maine border to include First Nations groups from Canada. Among one particular shot in the appendix section is photo A-18 featuring a Mi'kmaq group with canoe in front of a bark wigwam.
The two standing gentlemen at the far right and far left are each holding up an inverted paddle clearly showing the shape of the blade.
Where are most of your patterns taken from, old paddle designs or do you make your own designs.
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I try to reproduce paddles from old photos or illustrations. Often use photoshop to blow up the image to scale and work from printed paper templates. There's a bit of creative license used because you can't really see the blade thickness so in that case the wood stock used dictates the final dimensions. Before the Covid issue, I had started visiting some museum collections to get more detailed measurement data on some historic paddles.
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