[Paddlewise] Paddles and history

Just this weekend I had occasion to talk with Professor Inverbon who has
recently returned from studying the courting habits of Patagonian Indians.
Whether because the Professor has gained better control of his libido or
because the Chilean Federales have a lax interpretation and enforcement of
the law the professor managed to stay out of jail. In any case, the
conversation  (as always) shifted to kayaks and, eventually to paddles
whereupon I told him about the recent discussion on Paddlewise.  This
brought a smile to his face and he went on at length. (I reproduce this
nearly verbatim. I have left out some of the professor's more colourful
expressions).
Said the professor:

John, your friend Peter seems to suffer from the engineer's disease.

The engineer's disease? I asked.

Yes, they often succumb to it and manifests itself in embracing an idea so
tightly and with such force that they  squeeze the truth right out of it. It
doesn't help that engineers learn so little about history being much too
caught up in numbers and formulas. The truth of the Inuit paddle is much
more interesting than a bunch of Inuit paddlers carving thousands of paddles
until they hit on one they like. One might as well call an infinite number
of monkeys typing through infinity "genius" when they come up with "The
Merchant of Venice" or "Debbie Does Dallas". There is more to the Inuit than
trial and error.

The Inuit paddle was really the result of chivalry at its peak in Inuit
culture. I know, you think chivalry and knights, started in Europe and you
have the books to prove it.  Poor deluded soul. The Brits and Euro's have
always believed that, because they wrote about a thing or named it that they
discovered it. When they sailed up to a point of land or bay and named it
Pederasty Point or Buggerme Bay they assumed ownership and rights of
discovery while completely ignoring that the local inhabitants encumbering
the place had already named  the place. They simply failed to draw up a map
or write it down. It did not help that the English, or Spanish, or whatever
explorers could not understand or properly pronounce native dialects. Canada
got its name from a simple misunderstanding. The natives, pleased to get a
visit from the French, invited them down to their local house of
prostitution since they knew the French enjoyed such things.  Unfortunately
Champlain thought Kanada was the name of their country  and not the word for
"Let's go have some fun big guy."
And so it is that history has some humorous foot notes.

And so it was with chivalry. Long before the first Templar kissed the Pope
or Galahad picked the lock on Guinivere's chastity belt, or Merlin stunned
the court with parlour tricks the Inuit were rescuing plump little maidens
from fire breathing Lemmings. Yes, Chivalry was well into its grandest hours
long before the BCU discovered Greenland.

How do you know that? you ask . You just said they wrote nothing down. Is
there an Inuit Don Quixote?

Well you might ask. We know from cave drawings in the great pingoes of the
north where I and others laboured diligently for many years to piece
together ancient Inuit culture. There, in the Pingoes we discovered
pictographs carved in the ice walls showing Inuit knights riding upon
trained walrus and jousting..

What has this to do with paddles?

Simply that the Inuit, above all were practical people who made every object
do double duty. Thusly they used their paddles for paddling but also
jousting. The oldest pictographs clearly show them using wide blade low
aspect ratio paddles but the also show the consequences. As anyone who has
traveled in the far north knows, the wind blows incessantly and powerfully.
Clearly the downwind Inuit knight would have an advantage being able to gain
considerably more speed than the poor knight traveling against the wind. The
Inuit's natural sense of fair play would not tolerate this so the only
jousted across the wind. Of course this would create more problems. The
Rollicking gait of eth walrus and the low aspect ratio blades that have cons
iderably more drag (as pointed out by your friend Mr. Edelman) would give
the knights control problems. The resulting entanglements  tended to destroy
the mood of the moment and the Inuit damsels would roll on the tundra
laughing at the entanglements instead of smiling demurely a their heroes who
were wearing little bits of garter belt on their parkas and doing their best
to impress them into a late night liaison. Clearly something had to be done
and that was the development of a low windage paddle that would still move a
kayak but would not disrupt the jousting.

 As with so many things the high aspect ratio paddle is not the result of a
search for the best paddle but a search for a reasonable compromise to allow
one object to serve a multitude of uses.  Unfortunately, modern paddlers,
obsessed with a superficial reading of Inuit culture,  have put their own
spin on events and added two and two to get five.

Don't thank me, he said as I got up to pour him another glass of Quail's
Gate Old Vines Foch. "I feel an obligation to get the facts clear even if I
have to do it free of charge."

Sincerely,
Dr. Peregrine Inverbon, Ph.d., DD, LL.d, Ph.G


Transcribed by Professor' Inverbon's humble servant John Winters






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