Canoe Paddles ─ A Complete Guide to Making Your Own

Canoeists are increasingly discovering the deep satisfaction in creating their own equipment rather than adapting to the generic standards of boats and paddles available through retailers. Indeed, interest in making paddles and canoes is at an all-time high with recreational boaters. For the how-to beginner, a paddle represents the perfect challenge, both finite and functional. For the skilled woodworker, the opportunity to experiment with design and technique and thereby create a tailor-made product that perfectly suits a paddler's needs is a dream come true.

In Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own, longtime canoeist and woodworker Graham Warren presents detailed blueprints for making paddles that you will cherish and use with confidence. From his insightful look at the way a paddle works when it meets the water through the selection of the best woods, adhesives and tools, Warren takes the reader on a veritable paddlemaking odyssey. You will learn how to make a paddle with a single blade, a bent shaft or double blades; how best to protect a paddle with oil or varnish; what to look for when test-driving your paddle; how to decorate it; and how to care for and repair it. Warren also includes an appreciation of the evolution of the paddle, and a special chapter by renowned canoe-building teacher David Gidmark celebrates paddlemaking in the native tradition. Canoe Paddles is thoroughly illustrated with photographs and drawings.

Graham Warren has been building wood-canvas canoes and paddles since 1991, having been inspired by the work of master birchbark canoe maker Henri Vaillancourt. Since then, Warren has canoed extensively in Scotland, Norway and Sweden. He lives in Derbyshire, England, with his wife and three children. His articles on canoeing have appeared in numerous journals.

David Gidmark teaches canoe building in Wisconsin, New York, Tahiti and Quebec. His previous books include Building a Birchbark Canoe and Birchbark Canoe: Living Among the Algonquin. Gidmark and his wife live in Maniwaki, Quebec.