The North Woods Paddle

by Rick Waters

Many a paddler has stood in mystified silence watching a skilled team of North Woods travelers plying their seemingly delicate paddles across the waters of canoe country. Somehow it seems impossible, or at least improbable, that large, loaded traveling canoes could be propelled with so little apparent movement by the paddlers, with such fluid grace that scarcely raises a ripple to hint of the path of the paddle. Yet the canoe, as if governed by a mystical force, not only behaves, but behaves quickly, cleanly - the way an arctic char might use the water of it's realm.

Much of the secret lies in the paddle, and the technique best suited to its use. With practice, much that is mysterious at first settles into a sophisticated balance of properties that blend canoe, paddler, and paddle into graceful harmony.

-- Garrett Conover

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While the eerie cry of a loon cascades across a lake in northern Maine and the sun becomes a golden glow in the west, I help our guides Garrett and Alexandra make camp. I am sore and aching from a day of paddling, while Garrett claims only to be "pleasantly tired." He explains that the difference in our degree of fatigue is not due to conditioning but, rather, due to the paddles that he and Alexandra make and use and the North Woods stroke they employ while paddling. I had noticed a difference in the movement of their canoes - no bobbing and weaving like my canoe but a smooth, straight, silent path while their bodies rocked slightly back and forth.

Garrett and Alexandra Conover operate a guiding service called North Woods Ways out of Willimantic, Maine. They lead canoe and camping trips through northern Maine and Canada all year round. They have made a commitment to studying the basic and refined skills and crafts of people of the northern forests. An abiding respect for the beauty and practicality of these northern ways prompted them, along with others, to found the North Woods Arts Center, which they operated for a number of years out of a post and beam lodge they built in Atkinson, Maine. Although now closed, the drive that created the center lives on in Garrett and Alexandra, and they continue to do research each year in the far north among the Naskapi and Montagnais peoples of Quebec and Labrador, as well as the woods people of northern Maine.

The purpose of the center was to preserve these skills and crafts, not only through research, documentation, and publication, but also through hands-on educational experience. Information comes from many expert sources, and they once offered a wide variety of classes including: snowshoe making, crooked-knife construction and use, basketmaking, wood and canvas canoe building and repair, paddlemaking, post-and-beam construction, log cabin work, skin tanning, the use of birchbark, and blacksmithing. Field courses consisted of a two-week Maine Guide competency program, workshops in North Woods paddle techniques and whitewater skills, and winter camping instruction. Much of this work continues today, offered by the Conovers and friends Rollin Thurlow, Jerry Stelmok and Dave Mussey, each out of their respective businesses. The spirit of the North Woods Art Center lives on, even though the enterprise itself no longer operates.

Garrett and Alexandra learned many of the skills they teach from the late Mick Fahey, a noted veteran of the North Woods (see note 1). Perhaps the most obscure of all knowledge that Mick passed on to them was the North Woods stroke, the paddling stroke employed by the Indians, voyageurs, guides, trappers, and anyone else involved in serious canoe travel. Yet in a sense, the North Woods stroke and the North Woods paddle epitomize Garrett and Alexandra's life's work and all that Mick passed on to them. For they have not only preserved the knowledge of how the North Woods were traveled and the skills to make and use the paddles, but through guiding canoe trips, they are also preserving the need for efficient canoe travel.

The North Woods stroke is considerably different from the J-stroke we all learned at summer camp. After camp has been made and dinner eaten, Garrett sits near the campfire and, to illustrate the differences, he mimes paddling a canoe. "The J-stroke overuses a few muscles and expends a lot of needless energy. In addition, you need to compensate continually for not heading in the direction you want to go. You end up crabbing down the length of a lake."

He shifts on his fireside perch to illustrate the oblique sitting position used in the North Woods stroke, and his voice rises as he sings the virtues of a stroke evolved over generations of constant use. "The North Woods stroke places all your muscles in a line and uses them all a little bit. It is a very efficient stroke involving subtle arm and body movements that enable you to paddle all day with little fatigue. The paddle flexes instead of your back." (see note 2).

The paddles that Alexandra makes are works of art. They blend graceful, delicate lines and flexability with strength and utility. Comparing a store-bought paddle to one of Alexandra's North Woods paddles is like comparing a fast-food hamburger to a gourmet meal. The first thing one notices about a North Woods paddle is that half of the shaft is handle. The paddle can be gripped at the end or any one of three "grips" carved along the side of the handle. This allows the paddle to be used as a long or short paddle with equal comfort. The edge of the handle is scalloped to allow the canoeist to find the "grip stations" without looking. The shaft is narrow (1" in diameter), and the long, narrow blade is thinned before the tip to reduce weight and increase flexibility. The paddle can be used from a standing, sitting, or kneeling position and in any type of water. Each paddle is custom made to fit the height of the owner, and each blade is carved to get the proper strength and flex from a particular piece of wood.

Alexandra is remarkably adept with an axe and can literally split a pencil line. Using an axe and a crooked knife, she can make a paddle in a day.

Garrett and Alexandra, however, are not bound to an ethic that prohibits the use of power tools. She has made over 300 paddles (as of 1996 - ed) and has only recently obtained access to a bandsaw. She recently purchased a portable power plane to assist with the initial stages of thinning down the blade. The fine finished lines are produced through the use of a spokeshave, wood rasp and crooked knife.

To augment their regular income, Alexandra and Garrett make several North Woods paddles each year for sale. Due to the diversity of their activities, however, they are not interested in full-time paddle production. What follows is a step-by-step description of how to make your own North Woods paddle. Paddle plans and an instructional brochure written by Rick Waters is available from the Northwoods Canoe Company.

Ash and maple are the two types of wood to use when making a North Woods paddle, and it makes little difference which is used. Choose whichever is available. If you are starting in the woods, fell a tree 16-18" in diameter. Cut a clear section 6' to 7' long, depending on the length of the paddle, and split it through the center. Split this half-round in half, and you will have a quarter-round approximately 9" on a side. You should get out the piece near the outer growth rings but inside the sapwood, where the growth rings are the flattest. This is the same piece of wood to look for if you are buying a "blank" from a lumber mill. Paint the ends of the blank with hot linseed oil, parafin, or red lead to prevent checking, and allow the wood to dry for as long as possible. The blank should measure 5/4" in thickness so you can get a straight paddle, even if the board warps slightly while drying.

Finish may be either oil or varnish. Be aware that some oil finishes will not prevent the blade from cupping. Three or four coats of a high grade marine varnish will prevent any unwanted wood movement.