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Master Paddle Maker, Graham Warren, of Moosehead Canoes & Paddles has released another must-have publication for anyone interested in this art form. Entitled,  100 Canoe Paddle Designs,  it features measured offsets and historical background for a wide array of paddles. Here's a glimpse of the cover...




Using digitized methods, basic outline sketches of the paddles have been rendered along with their precise measurements for anyone wishing to replicate the designs. Given the high cost of print media these days, the book is all black & white, but it isn't meant to be a coffee-table conversation piece, anyway. It was created by a paddle maker for other paddler makers!

Graham has meticulously documented a cross-section of functional paddles from around the globe. In fact, half the book is devoted to paddles outside my obviously Canadian-biased concept of "canoe country". There are fascinating examples from the Caribbean, South America and the Pacific Islands. For the history buff, he has included ancient paddles unearthed in archaeological digs in China, Denmark, The Netherlands, and the U.K. And, for owners of heirloom cedar canvas canoes, he has included offsets for famous brands like Chestnut, Peterborough and Rushton replicated from historic catalogs.

A few of the paddles in the book have been featured here on the site, including the c1878 Maliseet at the York Sunbury Museum, the Iroquois paddles at the Royal Ontario Museum, the c. 1860-1875 voyageur paddle authenticated by Canadian Antique Roadshow, and the "Northeastern Woodland" paddles at the British Museum.

Graham humbly mentions that he is no professional archaeologist or ethnologist but he does a marvelous job of providing the relevant background on each of the designs along with additional reading sources.

Most interesting and also very unique is the "Consensus Paddle". Offset data from 50 paddles in the book were entered into CorelDraw and a composite sketch created. I'll keep the surprise open for readers, but the blade design that resulted from this global pool of paddles is something that looked very appealing for a future carving project.

Between this new book and his previously publications - Making Paddles in Wood (see this post here) and Canoe Paddles: A complete guide to making your own, there are now more than enough plans to keep the enthusiastic paddle maker content for years to come.

Hat's off to Graham for doing a wonderful job in creating this outstanding paddle making resource.

In my never ending quest to learn more about unique paddle designs, I stumbled across the page of Dr. Gordon L. Fisher describing his recent (2008) publication, Guideboat Paddles: An Adirondack Treasure. Available online is a PDF format excerpt from the book that shows some black and white photos documenting grip carving. Intrigued, I ordered a copy and recently received it in the mail.

Single blade Adirondack style paddles are quite a speciality in the paddling community. Their usage and history localized to the Adirondack region of New York state. My knowledge of guideboats in general was quite limited having assumed that they were exclusively rowed with oars rather than propelled with single blades, but an informative opening section in the book describes how many guides would silently maneuver the guideboats with single blade paddles as their sporting passengers would hunt deer and other game. Often, while one person powered the craft with oars, a helmsman would steer the boat with a single blade from the stern. Single blade paddles were therefore quite functional with guideboat touring.

The truly interesting feature of the paddles, however, are the circular grips. The book details some of the surviving historical paddles now at the Adirondack Museum and provides plenty of computer generated sketches and technical details necessary for reproducing the unique handle designs. Offset data as well as fullsized portions of the blade curves make reproduction a breeze. From a canoeing persepective, the narrow, straight sided blades would serve well for solo paddling, although the length of the paddles (and proportional blade lengths) would need to be reduced , especially when kneeling. Other than that, these are some designs I intend to replicated soon.

What I thoroughly enjoyed about the book, besides the plentiful illustrations and photos, was the historical context of each of the museum paddles described in the text. To many, a paddle is just a utilitarian object until a story is attached to it and its history revealed. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Gordon's contribution to the paddle making community and hope to make a trip to the Adirondack Museum one day and check these unique designs out with my own eyes.

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