A Greenland paddle devoteeMore people are using Greenland paddles. I wonder why. Is it better technology than what western technology has come up with?
I think it might be more a question of resources than an end product of trial and error.
I recently purchased a book entitled "Lands Forlorn" by George M. Douglas about a 1912 copper exploration expedition to the Coppermine region in Canada's north. There the party came in contact with Inuit and a picture on page 224 shows a kayak frame with an Inuit hunter holding a doubled, wide bladed paddle.
Th Arctic Ocean flows out through the channel between Baffin Island and Greenland. There wouldn't have been much wood drifting north from forested areas. What wood did wash up on Greenland beaches would in all likelihood have been small sticks. Would the Greenland Inuit have had to make that wood work to fashion a paddle?
Could the wide blade of Coppermine Inuit have been due to access to wider sticks of wood? They did frequent treeline country to hunt cariboo.
I don't know.
I'm happy with my Euro blade and I think I'll stick (pardon the pun) with it.
Greenland paddle - Sean's take
ReplyDeleteActually a GP's blade width is determined by the size of the paddler's hand. With a GP paddling stroke and, even more so in rolling, the hands are moving all over the paddle loom and blade. If the blade was wider than the grip of the paddler, the sliding stroke would not be possible nor would many of the 30 plus rolls. I think this last point is why the number of rolls possible with the Euro is so much less than that of the GP.
Also, the Inuit built very intricate wooden frames, stretched skin over them and made boats that were paddled in some of the most inhospitable waters on the planet. As such, I don't think they'd have any problem lashing/fastening a few pieces of wood together to create a wider blade - if they thought they needed one.
Finally, the Inuit must've understood hydrodynamics as their kayak hull shapes varied greatly. They certainly understood the use of chines and the importance of hull length and width. Therefore it's not hard to imagine that they understood the basic principles of paddle design. I'm sure they knew that a bigger paddle could push more water but chose to go the other route. I'm thinking they understood the need to be conservative on long paddles, therefore a smaller blade would be less of a strain on the body which would equal greater endurance.
Of course I stand to be corrected,
Sean
That's plausible too Sean, unfortunately there's no way to know for sure. I was struck by the wide blade of the Coppermine Inuit. Maybe they needed the wider blade for rock hopping *lol*
ReplyDeleteTony :-)
In Harvey Golden's "bible" - Kayaks of Greenland - he dealt with this very issue (sorry don't have the book here to give an exact page refernnce.) Apparently in an 1882 narrative somebody noted that the paddles blades were narrow and posited that it was because of the lack of large wood. Golden calls this interpretation "naive" and goes on to say that paddle blades in Labrador (near Rigolet) were very narrow and long yet there were trees of sufficient size from which to build schooners. Go figure!
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Coppermine Inuit dude was a whitewater kayaker. Did he have a short, stumpy plastic boat in the picture as well?
I might be naive, maybe they didn't have band saws and electric planers to cut the big sticks down?
ReplyDeleteTony :-)