Walnut Laminated Voyageur

A common paddle design marketed today is the so called "Voyageur" blade, essentially a straight side paddle with a wide, squarish tip, and recurved shoulders at the throat. Despite the persistant occurance of this design in modern stores, there is little evidence that it resembles anything that the real voyageurs may have actually paddled. Certainly in the paintings of Frances Anne Hopkins, the paddles don't resemble this blade design. The only other time I've seen the recurved shoulder design is with an early Mi'kmaq design documented by Adney.

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

In any event, I had made this blank many months ago from scraps of black walnut and a 3/4" wide strip of yellow poplar. Given the small width of the poplar, the walnut was laminated from the grip all the way to the blade resulting in a neat contrasting look in the shaft area. Walnut and Yellow Poplar are both very easy to carve and the simple, straight edges meant that cutting out and shaving down the blade and grip was very quick. This was one of the fastest paddles I carved out from a blank. Here are some pics of the job.


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


Final work all oiled up

Oil Finish

Graham Warren's book on Paddle Making mentions his preference for oiling one-piece paddles as a waterproofing finish. His arguments include the ease in which oil can be applied, the difficulty in messing up the finish, and the feel of well-oiled paddle being superior to a varnished one.

With a few one-piece paddles completed, I figured I'd try this method of finishing. Everyone seems to have their own secret recipe for oiling, but I simply used 1850s Circa 1850s Tung & Teak that is apparently a marine quality, low lustre oil. Following the bottle directions was simple enough. Rub a liberal amount with a lint-free cloth, let soak for 10 minutes, and then remove the excess by buffing with a clean rag letting the coat dry for 24 hours before re-application. Using the paddle rack on the storage shed door, I applied 3 coats over the holiday long weekend on the Omer Stringer Birch and the Maple Solo Sparrow. Being light coloured woods, the finish didn't change the tone of the wood very much, so it really brought out the pyrography work.


The oiling set-up; Final paddles posing in the sun
I also ended up oiling the Walnut Nuthatch paddle which really brought out the beauty of the wood. If I ever make another walnut one-piece, I'll be sure to oil finish rather varnish. The nuthatch burning also comes out nicely with the oil finish.


Oiled Nuthatch paddle; Blade closeup
All in all, I like the simplicity and relatively low toxicity of oiling although it requires much more frequent application and touch-ups to keep the paddle properly sealed. Not a big deal for one-pieces, but Warren warns it is not suitable for laminated paddles given the potential for water seepage affecting the glue.