John Winters wrote: > As Richard Malarich suggests, commercial builders have purloined the term > "Greenland kayak" and corrupted it to the point where the public perception > of what constitutes a "Greenland style" kayak has no relationship to the > boats built in Greenland by native people. > > The practice of labelling anything with one or more of these > characteristics as a "Greenland kayak" or "Greenland style" kayak > exemplifies the triumph of advertising over reality. I always found it amusing that Folbot hooked on to the idea with the names of its models. It came out about 10 years ago with a double and a single called the Greenland II and Greenland I, respectively. The single had a 32 inch beam, huge cockpit, flat bottom...anything but a Greenlander...East, West, North, South or any points of the compass. Well, they did have hard chines anyway. :-) In a display of chutzpah, Folbot replaced the Greenland I with a model that shows its neutrality in the kayak design wars...its Aleut 1. A shorter version of the Greenland I but no more Aleut than the Greenland was Greenland. The company did get a letter from some tribal rep complaining about the use of the word Aleut. Both boats would have driven purists insane. Don't get me wrong. I think the models are just fine. The Aleut is actually a better boat than the Greenland (I mean the Folbot models in both cases. :-)) Folbots are good reliable boats, etc. I would like them better if they had names such as the Charleston, the Carolina, etc. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Jan 05 1999 - 06:06:26 PST
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