c1840 Figured Maple Paddle

From Cinoa.org...

A Fine Northeastern Woodlands Native American Maliseet or Micmac Maple Wood Single Blade Canoe Paddle. Old smooth and dry patina – the letter ‘Y’ carved to one end. Circa 1840. Size: 203cm long – 80 ins long. Beautifully crafted from one piece of figured maple wood this paddle was made to be used with a birch bark canoe. It is generally considered that Micmac and Passamaquoddy birch bark canoes were the finest of all bark canoes and were built for use on both rivers and the ocean.

The maple looks to have darkened considerably with age, almost to a cherry colour, but the paddle seems sound. I really like the elongated grip and spined blade. If you look carefully at the bottom of the the grip area, you'll see a carved drip rings. This is definitely a design I'll consider replicating in the future.


Dec 7, 2015 Update: This paddle is no longer on the Cinoa.org site but re-appeared in 2015 as part of Woolley and Wallis Auctions in the UK. See updated link and additional photos HERE.

Japanese Canoe Paddles

It seems that Native canoe paddles aren't just part of the North American psyche. Hidenao Matsubara of Indian Canoe Craft in Hokkaido, Japan has a page on some of his carved paddles. The Google Translated page reveals some info in typical computer translated english, but the paddle pics are gorgeous. Here are some samples below:


The grips on the last three paddles are quite unique and the eloquent chip-carving on the last paddle is something I'd like to try with some of my future attempts. Matsubara also has a fantastic page on Aleut Paddles which are far more beautiful than my attempt at this design earlier this year.

Pin-Up Girl Paddle

Came across this painted paddle with a 1940's era pin-up girl (rather scantily clad for times I suppose) posted at the Cherry Gallery's website


Pin-up Girl Paddle

The gallery also has a page documenting a birchbark canoe model. It's not to scale but has an interesting lashing technique - the continuous lashing around a round gunwale giving it the illusion of a stronger bind. This is the style of lashing often seen on Mi'kmaq canoes. This method requires many holes piercing the bark in close proximity and apparently weakens the bark. Ferdy Goode mentioned to me that it is kind of the equivalent of perforated notepad paper that's easy to tear off.


Canoe model with continuous lashing


Close up

More Alternative Bark Canoes

Johan, a reader of my blog from Belgium, took the liberty of emailing me more photos of Hans-George Wagner's fantastic plywood bark canoes to post on the site. Here they are below:








Johan also mentioned a kids school project where the youngsters built a canoe using hardboard panels and nailed gunwales. The gore lashings are different is that the kids used a cross pattern rather than a parallel stitch commonly seen in other boats. Curious that the stitches don't seem to the sealed with any pitch while the panels look to be oiled/varnished. In any case, a fantastic school project!





Many thanks to Johan for these shots and if any other readers have canoe related info that would like to share, I'd be willing to put up some posts on the topic. Feel free to email me.

Historic Passamaquoddy Paddle - Part 2

My last paddle project was temporarily put on hold after the birth of my son. But in an effort to resume a little bit of normalcy in our daily baby routine, I finished off the grip section during a brief respite from diaper changes and burping duty.


Incomplete grip area; Completed burning
I was actually working on the decoration of this paddle the night my wife's water broke and will always associate it with the panic and excitement of my son's early delivery. As such, I decided to dedicate this one to him and burned his full name, date and time of birth in the empty triangular space on the grip. I'm hoping it'll be a family heirloom and he'll appreciate it when he's old enough.



The Dedication Inscription
To seal it, the paddle was oiled rather than varnished to give it a more natural, matte finish. The fact that oiling is so much easier than varnishing is a plus. A quick 15 minute job for a single layer rather than the much more time consuming affair with varnish, solvents, safety gloves and a wailing baby in the background. Over the last few days, I've been adding additional layers of 1850s Circa 1850s Tung & Teak oil to give the paddle the desired sheen I was looking for. Here is the final result posing with Toronto's first snowfall in the background.


1849 Historic Passamaquoddy Replica
I really like these abstract scroll designs on certain paddle blades and plan to do more of them, hopefully eventually getting enough detail to replicate the c.1878 Maliseet Paddle I posted on earlier.