My New Aleut Paddle In 1993 when I began building baidarka style sea kayaks, and after meeting John Heath, I started building (what I thought) was an Aleut style paddle. My first design for an Aleut style paddle was adapted from drawings and measurements...
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My New Aleut Paddle In 1993 when I began building baidarka style sea kayaks, and after meeting John Heath, I started building (what I thought) was an Aleut style paddle. My first design for an Aleut style paddle was adapted from drawings and measurements taken from a documented 1850 Aleut paddle. The drawings I worked from were very tiny and details were few. The major differences between the Greenland and Aleut paddles are; the Aleut paddles are typically 8' long and asymmetrical. The blade of the Aleut paddle is flat on one side and has a raised spine on the other. The Aleut loom is triangular in cross section and indexes the blade angle. In 2009 I visited the Smithsonian Institution storage facility to examine a number of Aleut paddles and kayaks in their collection. I examined and handled six Aleut paddles, 8' long and longer. Unfortunately the Smithsonian will not allow me to use my photos for publication here. However, the drawing above details the paddle features I saw. It was a
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