Gibban

A neighbour in the building caught me loading some paddles into the car and inquired about the hobby. Turns out she needed a gift for a paddling friend and another commission came my way. In this particular case, she snuck into her friend's place while she was out of town, grabbed her paddle, and asked me to replicate it. From the shape of the paddle, it looked to be similar to a Grey Owl Tripper - 58" long with a 27" blade and a 6-1/4" width. This one had a Black Feather branding on the blade face, but I couldn't find a Black Feather paddle company on the net. Instead, I'm assuming it is the logo of Black Feather Adventure Company , a wilderness outfitter based out of my hometown of Toronto. I almost signed up for their Arctic Canoe excursion down the Soper River last summer, but opted for Arctic Watch instead. What intially struck me about the paddle's design was that the wide & thick blade surface coupled with a thin 1" shaft and a small pear ...

An interesting Birchbark canoe project is in the works for this summer. The folks at Voyages of Rediscovery are raising funds for a canoe build on Bear Island, Lake Temagami. They've begun their drive with a detailed video of their goals and intention (see below) Seems like worthy project to involve the youth of the island and bring back some pride in their native canoe heritage. Their project site on Kickstarter mentions their fundraising progress...they're getting close to their goal of $10,000. Their pledge page also lists some tempting "rewards" for pledges ranging from bumper stickers, T shirts, DVDs, crooked knives, for donations of $25 or more. The builders previously built a 25 foot trade canoe based from a historic HBC freight canoe photo taken on Bear Island in 1896... Photo credit: R.S. Cassels collection at the National Archives of Canada. Here are some of their Program Objectives: Film the entire project and conduct interviews with tribal community member...