Re: [Paddlewise] Re.: reindeer speed in water and re.: paddle length

Dear Richard and all, I don't think there is any evidence to support paddle
breadths being limited by the dimensions of available wood.  The scarfing
technology of the Inuit was first-rate given their resources, and if wider
wood was desired, they would have made it wider.   Labrador Inuit used paddles
much narrower than the Caribou Inuit even though they had enough lumber (from
local timber) to build schooners (see John Murdoch's 1892/1988 "Ethnological
Results of the Point Barrow Expedition," p.332 [note1]).   There is even
evidence-- in the context of Greenland (which has no standing softwoods)--
that paddles became narrower during the period where lumber began to be
imported from Scandinavia (Golden's 2006 "Kayaks of Greenland," p. 484-487).
 
I'm a firm believer that Inuit kayaks and paddles appear (size & shape) the
way they do only because the builders wanted them to look that way.  
All the best, Harvey  

--- On Tue, 7/21/09, Richard Culpeper <culpeper_at_tbaytel.net> wrote:

From: Richard Culpeper <culpeper_at_tbaytel.net>
Subject: [Paddlewise] Re.:   reindeer speed in water and re.:  paddle length
To: "'Paddlewise'" <paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net>
Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 10:04 AM

........  I also expect that
the blade dimensions might be a result of the materials at hand, for spruce
tend to be skinny in the Caribou Eskimo area, however, there are anomalies
in the Thelon area where trees have diameters large enough to make blades
wider than 4 inches.  (See Kevin Timoney's "Tree and Tundra Cover Anomalies
in the Subarctic Forest-Tundra of Northwestern Canada" for a survey of
diameters of trees.)
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