How do you make a canoe paddle in the wilderness?

[Murat V]

Great looking knives, Boatman. Maybe we should start another thread about crooked knives to talk about different blade shapes and carving?

Glenn, there's a new Ray Mears video (link here) showcasing his wilderness paddle carving skills. It's from a promotional contest being run this year by Ontario Tourism - an 8 day guided trip with Ray and Becky Mason in Wabakimi. The brief carving footage starts around the 1:15 mark. Here's a screenshot of his completed paddle...

If you win the grand prize it might your chance to learn about wilderness paddle carving up close.

 

[Boatman53]

I'll start one now. I don't have all organized yet but I'll get started.
Jim

 

[Philtrum]

Paddles in a civilized environment are made in a wide variety of ways. I've probably made around a hundred paddles, ranging from one piece paddles to multi laminates. The one piecers, the closest you would get to a wilderness comparison, were made with a bandsaw, a thickness planer, an electric hand planer, a manual planer, spokeshaves, belt sanders and a palm sander. The kiln dried hard wood that they were made out of would have not responded well to working with an axe and crooked knife. It's fairly easy to rough out a paddle with electric tools. Making a paddle in the bush is either harder or easier, depending on your level of "good-enough", but it is certainly not the same.

Nonono... I meant the same way you'd make a canoe move (using a paddle). It was a pun. duh

 

[Murat V]

Here's an article by Lloyd of CanoeCanadaEast. One of his paddles broke while guiding a group. Wasn't exactly a crisis situation but he managed to carve a functional paddle from a piece of driftwood lumber he found. Used a saw, axe and regular knife to quickly whip it up and finished it off with some duct tape to prevent to splinters / blisters. He smartly points out that your emergency paddle doesn't need to be pretty to get you out of a situation.

http://www.canoecanadaeast.com/do-it-yourself-emergency-paddle.htm

Also, if you're into history, the Canadian Canoe Museum has a display of a bush paddle carved by George Douglas during his 1911 expedition to the Coppermine River (free online copy on Archive.org here). It's a perfectly functional paddle made from quite substandard, knotty spruce that probably would be rejected by someone making a "proper" paddle. Think the lesson is that wood selection might not be as critical for a short term emergency. You can't be too picky in the far north at any rate.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Here's an article by Lloyd of CanoeCanadaEast. http://www.canoecanadaeast.com/do-it-yourself-emergency-paddle.htm

"Wood selection is about the most important thing, dry dead cedar is about the easiest to work with, but often beggars can't be choosers."

I read two things into this claim. First, cedar is favored because it is soft. Second, he would rather work with dead cedar than live cedar.

This second preference clashes with the opinion that green wood is more workable than dead wood. I have no practical experience, but would like to know the correct answer. Surely there is one. Or are some woods more workable dead than alive and vice versa?

Very informational finds, Murat.

 

[Murat V]

Glenn, Mem is quite correct that crooked knife carving is generally best on green wood. This is particularly true for the hardwoods most typically favored for paddle making - maple, white birch, ash. Almost all the surviving native paddles in museums todays are pretty much from these long-lasting, tougher hardwoods. These woods would be used if more durable and permanent paddles were desired. Plus, because of their relative hardness, the paddle can be carved thinner to cut down on the weight. Many of the surviving paddles have a shaft thickness of around 1" to 1- 1/8" much like today's mass produced paddles - quite comfortable to use. Once seasoned however, maple, birch and ash are very difficult to work with a crooked knife. I've tried (despite reading about this) and quite quickly had to resort to using a block plane or spokeshave to make headway with these seasoned hardwoods.

However, there are always exceptions. Dead / seasoned cedar or spruce can also be carved by a crooked knife to make lightweight, functional paddle. However, these softwood paddles need to be left quite thick since they are substantially weaker. This is especially true if the grain is not ideal or knotty. The Douglas paddle at the CCM is quite thick and crude and would need to be given the knotty imperfections in the shaft. Ray Mears' cedar example in the video was purposely left thicker because the wood is weaker. I've also seen Eastern Cree paddles closeup (made from spruce) that had a shaft thickness close to 1-1/2"...very thick and robust. For comparison, the spruce pole I made is 1-1/2" thick to survive the strain.

The disadvantage of using green wood is that as the wood dries, it may be prone to splitting or warping (depending on the species). But this is really only relevant for a paddle you want to keep, not one you need for a survival situation. I believe Lloyd's mention for "dry dead cedar" is that it offers probably the most ideal solution for a quick emergency paddle. The wood is soft but strong enough to get you out if you leave the paddle thick. Larger cedars tend to have knot free sections in their lower trunks (not always the case with spruce). They are distributed over much of the "classic canoe country" of Central and Eastern Canada and favor shorelines and other moist sites close to drainage ways like creeks and rivers...i.e. close to where one would be paddling. Mear's canoeing buddy (Ray Goodwin) was able to quickly find loads of downed cedar on their Missinaibi trip.

One more resource for you. See if you can get a hold of either Graham Warren's book, Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own or David Gidmark's book Buidling a Birchbark Canoe: The Algonquin Wabanaki Tciman. Both books have identical chapters on "Paddlemaking in the Native Tradition" (with additional section on making your own crooked knife). There are a few paragraphs on ideal wood selection (the aforementioned maple, ash, white birch) which need to be worked green as well as spruce and cedar which he cites can be used dry. He also touches on other woods not regularly used, such as oak (difficult to carve), yellow birch (because the grain reverses frequently), hemlock and balsam (because they splinter easily) etc.

Just to add another dimension, Gidmark mentions that blade shapes and bevels for crooked knives also make a slight difference in carving ability. He correctly points out that a steep bevel works best for hardwoods (for paddles, snowshoes, canoe thwarts) and a shallow bevel more ideal of softwoods (paddles, birchbark canoe gunnels and sheathing, etc). I have three crooked knives (I'll post later on Boatman's recent Crooked knife post). Basically a steep bevel, a shallow bevel angle and an all-purpose one somewhere in the middle that I take on trips.

 

[memaquay]

Excellent summary, Murat. Cedar can certainly be carved dry or wet, and it is often readily available, but it would be a very temporary paddle. Anyone ever own a Clements paddle and remember how thick the shaft was? That's because it was a softwood paddle. I have broken the shaft of every softwood paddle I ever owned. Once I get a crooked knife, I'm going to cut a birch down, split a board out and give it a whirl.

 

[ppine]

I have lost paddles many times in upsets, but always gotten them back in eddies. I always bring some tie wire incase a shaft gets broken. It is still conceivable that making a paddle could happen. The pole idea would work for a short=term solution especially in shallow water or near shore.

For making a paddle, I would chose a species that splits readily like popular, white or red cedar. Pine or spruce would work in a pinch if it had straight grain and was not too green. An axe could be used to fashion a paddle. I would lean toward a Greenland style paddle of one that is not too wide but with some length. It would be much easier to make. It is also possible to split a sapling, and add a slab of split cedar for the blade. Wire and nails could be used to hold it together. I have a hoof knife made in Sweden that is a pretty good substitute for a traditional crooked knife.

 

[HOOP]

Sharp axe - no problem!

Douglas Kakekaspan of Fort Severn hewing a new paddle on the Black Duck River
Date July, 1953
Place BLACK DUCK RIVER (ONT.)​

Archives of Ontario​

Item Reference Code: C 330-14-0-0-165​

I linked this from Murat's blog. I would have linked directly from the Ontario Archives, but their search engine does not work anymore and these photos are no longer findable.

That paddle he is making is for freighter canoes, where the extra length is needed for using standing up technique when poling upriver and snubbing down river. Also the seats/thwarts on a big freighter can be quite high, and sometimes the sternsman sits up high on the stern deck, so the extra reach is needed. The point at the tip is designed for getting purchase between rocks, and in sand, without cracking the blade.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I'd like to integrate what I've read so far into practical knowledge for the average canoe camper. This person is alone in the deep woods with no paddle. He has some basic skills with knives, saws and maybe axes but no particular wood carving skills, and certainly has never made a paddle.

What wood should he pick? I start from the premises that the paddle doesn't have to look nice, be light, or last more than a few weeks. It can be thick and somewhat clumsy. We need salvation not aesthetics here.

Therefore, for his mediocre woodcraft skills, he looks for a soft wood, easy to carve with his tools. The cypress tree erroneously called cedar in eastern North America seems like the best choice. It's soft, light and apparently (from birchbark canoe making lore) can be split relatively easily. Live or dead cedar? There's a lot of written and video evidence in favor of finding a downed cedar rather than chopping down a live tree. If in doubt, test, as below.

What if our stranded canoeist can't recognize Thuja occidentalis or any other trees. A tree is a tree. For such a person, it would seem logical just to test various downed and live trees for ease of chopping, splitting and carving with the available tools. Pick the one that's easiest to carve as long as it's not rotten. Hack and cut away to test for splitability and carvability. Look, additionally, for straight grain and no knots.

What tools? I continue to reject the crooked knife for discussion because no average canoe camper carries one. They probably don't carry a long machete either, but some long "survival" knives overlap with short machetes in length. We have video or good historical evidence that a paddle can be carved with: saw, axe and knife; axe and knife; and axe alone. Can it be done with a large knife alone? I think so, but we may have to go to Central America, South America or Asia to find average campers with big knife skills. Finally, if a paddle can be carved with a knife alone, it can of course be constructed with a knife and saw.

How about saw alone?

 

[Canotrouge]

I do most of my paddle out of sitka spruce now and never had a problem with breakage. I make the shafts oval in shape and they are just under 1 3/8 x 1 1/8, and they are plenty strong and so light compare to a hard wood paddle. I want to play with birch I think it would make for a nice paddle that would still be fairly light. All paddle from the west coat are/were soft wood, Yellow cedar mainly. And I read that first nation people would use what they had at hand to make paddles, so if you were from a place that ash, maple would be readily available, then that's what they would use, but in the boreal forest, where you find mainly spruce, pine and birch, some tamarack, these would be use, the wouldn't travel long distances just to get a piece of wood that was some what better... The first paddle I made was yellow cedar, and it is still going strong. Mind you, when running class III rivers, I tend to use a ww paddle.

I'm with Mem, I want to cut a birch tree and do the entire process with and axe and crooked knife!!

Cheers

 

[memaquay]

If one is intent on not bringing an axe, I'm sure a knife would do, but I would prefer doing the bulk of the work with an axe. I have worked with a lot of birch, it's an easy wood to work with, so it would be my first choice. But basically, you gotta work with what you got, anything is possible with intention and some creativity.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Okay, if you guys say you go on canoe trips with crooked knives, no reason not to use them when you lose your paddle. But I've never known anyone to bring one in all my years of paddling. Remember, one of the ideas behind this topic was the minimum number of tools. I think the answer is a knife--which is a more minimal tool than an axe--but can't prove it by actual experience, videos or articles (yet).

I'm now wondering if the Indians did, or we now could, make a laminated paddle in the wilderness. I mean, I'm impressed at how easily cedar can be split into beautiful thin strips for canoe ribs and stems. Maybe thin strips of cedar can be laminated with spruce gum into a block, which can then be carved into a paddle.

I once attended a talk by the late John Heath, who was the leading expert on Greenland paddles. He strongly refuted the claim that the Inuits made skinny paddles solely because they were limited by the width of the solid pieces of driftwood they could find. He said they had laminating technology for centuries, using some sort of saps or gums, but they chose the width of the paddles and wanted them solid wood for functional reasons.

 

[oldie moldy]

This sure is a fun thread to be thinking about. I do believe that a lot of this vigorous back and forth discussion would be rendered moot if a person could actually try using the limited selection of tools Glenn describes.
When you haven't anyone to argue with but only the wood at hand, the work going forward (or not), then the need to use what kind of tool ought to be evident. And when the need for a given tool is apparent, take pity on yourself and get the blinking thing.

I've said some rude things about the thick "batoning" knives, but if I understand the idea of a convex grind on the blade, it seems to me that here might be a useful application for such a knife. That thick spine on the knife ought to give plenty of purchase to the whacking stick and if you rolled the angle of cut to take the amount of wood you wanted, it seems very workable to reduce the unwanted high points.

Maybe what a person ought to do is the next time you're camping, find a section of log and try carve out a section mimicking the flat of the blade, then go on and carve out wood until you have a workable shaft. You needn't produce a paddle, just learn what's necessary to carve one.
Then and if you should ever really need to produce something like a paddle to get you home, well shoot, you have some experience at what will be required.

It's hard to describe, but some of my tools that have really served me, over time I've come to love them. I know that sounds soppy, but it's true. And such a prized tool isn't any burden to take; I know it's earned it's place in the past and if needed will in the future too. You'd be surprised how light my trusty axe is!

For someone who isn't accustomed to using edged tools the idea of learning to sharpen them may seem daunting. The difference between using a dull tool and that tool when it's sharp is just huge. And when you come to try to learn how to use it, it's so much harder and a whole bunch more dangerous.

Maybe this will help: Imagine you're at a picnic, there's wonderful corn-on-the-cob. You munch right on in using the teeth God gave you.
OK, got the picture? Now imagine that you've lost all your teeth and must "gum" the corn off the cob. That's the difference between a sharp tool and a dull one.

That's what I think anyways.....

Rob

 

[Murat V]

Well said again Oldie. Maybe someone can spend a rainy day at camp this summer trying to make a functional paddle with just a knife and report back. I'll try and give it a whirl too. Like Mem echoed also, with enough perserverance and creativity, some method of propulsion can be achieved.

Glenn, you questions about native built laminated paddles is an interesting one. I've never come across any surviving ones made with just bush materials, but perhaps there are examples. I'll send a query over to the Canadian Canoe Museum folks to see if they have any thoughts.

My 2 cents on the process of using spruce gum "glue" is that for an emergency paddle it would be quite labor intensive and challenging. Most birchbark canoe construction videos conveniently show footage of a quick and easy harvest of gum, usually at the end of the film when the final sealing of the gores takes place. It gives the illusion that the gum is readily available at moments walk into the forest. Truth is the gum / resin harvesting itself is a time consuming process. Usually when searching the forest for a suitable birch tree and cedar trees at the beginning of the canoe building process, the builder would also be on the lookout for spruce, tamarack or pine to tap for resin. The process is similar to maple trees for sap - the tree must be injured and the ooze collected. Only after weeks is sufficient gum harvested. This is why birchbark canoe users tend to bring a collection of refined gum in a pitch pot to do repairs on the trail. The likely hood of gum scarcity is significant.

Interestingly, when I was harvesting for my own bark canoe build, I curiously found that the biggest scores of gum were in urban areas, not the wilderness. The pruning of lower branches in parks and boulevards meant more gum collection, especially if the tree was "infected" with a little bug called the Pitch Mass Borer (Synanthedon pini). The tree responds by producing a copious amount of gum as a defense mechanism, especially close to pruned branches. Here's a pic. The white bubbly stuff is a huge glob of gum from a white pine...

Back on topic. The gum, while sticky, certainly doesn't qualify as glue at this stage because of the bits of bark and grit. These usually need to be filtered or skimmed out by melting the gum. That means heat and some sort of container. If you are a minimilist and carry only one cookpot it would be ruined for future cooking / water boiling. Furthermore, the cleaned resin at this stage is quite brittle so to prevent cracking it is usually softened with some sort of fat (bear grease traditionally, but vegetable shortening or lard can be substituted). Still, while certainly being waterproof and sticky, I don't believe the concoction would have enough adhesive power to handle the stresses a paddle blade has during usage.

Curious about the lecturer mentioning laminating technology used by the Inuit of Greenland. I would not have thought that they would have ready access to plant gums and saps common in the Boreal forest. Animal hide and fish glue perhaps? Maybe some more experienced bushcraft folks can chime in on their wilderness glue experiences as well. Either way, I'd still surmise the process of manufacture wouldn't be practical for an emergency situation.

P.S.
Found one more link about carving from Jack Mountain Bushcraft. They use an axe, wooden wedge, and small knife to finish their emergency paddles.
http://tomahawksadventuretravel.blogspot.ca/2014/05/wilderness-canoe-paddles.html

 

[ppine]

Canotrouge makes a good point about the strength of well made paddles. I made one out of walnut, ash and mahogany laminated together. It is not the lightest paddle around, but has some extra heft to it because I mostly paddle rivers. Last summer I used a lighter paddle made by Sawyer out of cedar and ppine for a week. It felt flimsy in my hands by comparison.

 

[Guest]

This sure is a fun thread to be thinking about

It sure has.

Nevertheless, here is my no paddle solution. Find a nice smallish tree with a suitable fork in it. Cut it off the right length. Cut the fork a suitable length. Tie anything....canvas, sticks, a shirt.... across the opening. Eh voila, one ugly but functional paddle
Christy

I have a very distinct mental image of having seen a photo of just such an emergency paddle. If I remember correctly the Y blade was wrapped in duct tape. That sounds like a workable solution without the tool and time requirements of finding, splitting and somehow carving a suitable log.

In that solution green wood would probably work better, perhaps with a piece of cut up dry bag laced and corded to the Y instead of (or as well as) the duct tape. Maybe a three pronged trident, with the outer limbs tied to the main stem in a (|) shape so the blade had a more rigid center spine.

That Y stick “single blade” for control strokes, and a 12’ length of sapling pole flattened on the ends to use as a wind milling double blade would seem the fastest and easiest things to make.

That flatwater windmilling stroke with a long pole is surprisingly effective. I have paddled beside poler friends doing just that in deep water and they stayed right with me, albeit with some effort, couching erect, knees bent with a lot of torso rotation and shoulders into it. Maybe more effort than necessary, as I was admittedly challenging them.

I think I may have found myself something to occupy myself with, on our next base camp trip.

Me too. Although I wish I’d thought of it when my kids were younger and more naïve about impressment into experimental camp service.

 

[Canotrouge]

Buy your self an axe, sharpen it razor sharp, and learn to use it. Every thing an knife can do I can do with an axe, but there is a lot of stuff I can do with an axe that can't be easily done with a knife. That is the reason why every one use to cary an axe in the bush, every one, men and women. Buy an axe!!

 

[oldie moldy]

So....Canotrouge, if I understand what you said in #59, you think an axe might be a pretty workable tool? Hmmm.......

Please forgive me, I couldn't resist. Enjoyed what you wrote, really brightened up the morning! Did I detect just the littlest bit of exasperation?
Thanks for a great start to the day! Couldn't agree more.

Rob

 

[Rippy]

[h=1]How do you make a canoe paddle in the wilderness?[/h]
When I originally read the title thought it was going to be a joke or jest.
Example: How do you make a dead elephant float? One glass of root beer and two scoops of dead elephant.

I don't want this to come off as a rant, it's not meant to be. This morning I'm wandering around my empty head and pondering things. As far as the topic goes I see it differently. You either already have the ability to fashion things with hand tools or you don't. So if you're handy with hand tools at home and in your normal life, you would just use what you have to make what you need. If you are on the opposite end of the skill chart you shouldn't try to learn how to handle sharp things in the wilderness where there is no emergency medical service for miles. In that case the forked stick and duct tape or dry bag maybe the safest route.

If you think you might have the skills to fashion wooden things with sharp tools but haven't built anything yet (I consider knives, axe, dinner fork etc tools) the place to hone your skills is at home.

If you are extremely rooted in the modern world of convenience and don't have any skills going into the trip, IMO you shouldn't be on a wilderness trip un guided in the first place. We all worked up to the current level of tripping we take. Skills were learned along the way. We are all still learning.

Glenn this is not meant to be a shot at you or to infer that your question was dumb, it isn't. It just got me thinking about society in general. As a whole we are so far away from the common skills of the past that people who can use their opposable thumbs to fashion something that they need are the exception not the rule. However, IMO this site because of the nature of it's theme, draws an above average number of skilled people. Maybe I'm preaching to the choir.