Re: [Paddlewise] Paddle form - wuz flutter

   Since subsistence hunters managed to subsist, perhaps they had access
to driftwood. Just a shot in the dark...no knowledge implied.

Brad

Quoting Craig Jungers <crjungers_at_gmail.com>:

> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 7:21 AM, Nick Schade  
> <nick_at_guillemot-kayaks.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>  For a subsistence hunter with limited access to quality paddling-making
>> materials, reliability alone would probably be sufficient reason by itself
>> to settle on a paddle form.
>> Nick
>>
>
> There has to be a lot of sense in this. One of the most intriguing things
> about the GP form of paddle is that it had its genesis in a part of the
> world where there are damn few trees. I don't even recall seeing a lot of
> driftwood the summer I spent flying in and out of Greenland's west coast
> drilling for oil in the Davis Strait.
>
> Harvey Golden says that there was a lot of innovation in Greenlander's
> kayaks over the last 200 years. Which corresponds neatly to the Europeans
> discovery of the cod fishing grounds of the Grand Banks. The use of the dory
> to fish for cod must have created a windfall (no pun intended) of new
> material as the planking of those small boats started showing up on S and W
> Greenland shores.
>
> It would be interesting to be able to go back in time and catalog what was
> available on those shores and correlate that with what the Inuit did with
> their designs.
>
> Whatever it was it was almost certainly, as Nick implies, pragmatic and
> driven by reality. No marketing departments around to tell them what they
> reallly wanted.
>
> Craig Jungers
> Moses Lake, WA
> www.nwkayaking.net
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************