Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own

This book combines practical woodworking technique with practical canoe use experience... [It] covers every single aspect of canoe paddle building.
-- Sawdust and Shavings

Despite the growing interest in making paddles and canoes, it can be difficult to find reliable information on that craft -- except for this book. First published more than a decade ago and having sold 35,000 copies, Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own is the ultimate modern guide to the traditional craft for both the how-to beginner and the skilled woodworker.

In Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own, longtime canoeist and woodworker Graham Warren provides detailed information and guidance to make a canoe paddle that will be used with confidence and cherished for generations.

The book is thoroughly illustrated with photographs, line drawings and plans with measurements for:

• How to make a paddle having a single blade, a bent shaft, or double blades
• How to protect a paddle with oil or varnish
• What to look for when test-driving a paddle
• How to decorate a paddle
• How to care for and repair a paddle.

The authors include an appreciation of the evolution of the paddle plus a special chapter by renowned canoe-buuilding teacher David Gidmark which celebrates paddle-making in the native tradition.

Graham Warren has been building wood-canvas canoes and paddles since 1991. His articles on canoeing have appeared in many journals.

David Gidmark teaches canoe building in Wisconsin, New York, Tahiti and Quebec. His previous books include Building a Birchbark Canoe and Birchbark Canoe: Living Among the Algonquin. Gidmark and his wife live in Maniwaki, Quebec.