Build your own anatomically correct, authentic SW Greenland style kayak paddle, and learn how to adapt your Western paddling technique for use with a Greenland paddle. At the end of this two-day course you'll leave with a paddle that is a work of art and a joy to use plus many new skills on and off the water. Few things can match the satisfaction you'll feel when you go kayaking with a paddle you carved.
We will provide you with a piece of "paddle-wood" (clear, straight grained cedar with no laminations) and the tools you'll need to carve it into a working paddle. Each piece of paddle-wood is personally hand-selected by George Gronseth from a stack of the highest grade lumber to assure your paddle blank is the creme de la creme. The raw blank itself is a beautiful sight, but that's not why we go to all this trouble. The wood we select has a tight, straight grain with little or no knots. Carving wood this perfect is a confidence building joy to work with. And if you like the look and feel of wood, you are going to really appreciate the fact that a paddle carved from unlaminated wood this perfect doesn't need any slippery varnish or paint coatings to cover or seal it. Nothing will come between your hands and your paddle. You'll actually get to feel the wood in your hands, not some plastic varnish, and you won't need to sniff any glue either, because with wood this nice there is no need to slice and laminate it. If desired, you may apply a little teak or other natural oil to harden its surface and give your paddle that finished appearance, but even this is optional.
To get the full advantage of a Greenland style paddle, every dimension of it needs to be sized to fit your hands and body, and subtle details of the blade's cross-sections are extremely critical too. Many people now offer custom made Greenland paddles for less than the cost of this class, but there's no-one outside of Greenland building paddles that work like the paddle you'll build in this class. In books on Greenland kayaks, the drawings of paddles are generally in the same scale as the kayaks -- which makes for tiny views of the paddles. These illustrations show few, if any, cross sections of the paddles and these cross sections are so small that it is usually impossible to discern significant details of the blade's shape. George Gronseth knows what's missing from these illustrations because he went to Greenland not as an anthropologist, but as a kayaker and engineer curious about Greenland paddles and how to use them. While there, George not only studied Greenland paddles in museums, he took a variety of real Greenland paddles out on the water and tested them to see how they worked. Now after nearly twenty years of experience building, testing, experimenting, teaching and expeditioning with Greenland style paddles, George knows what makes a good all-around Greenland kayak paddle. If all you do with a paddle is play around with trick Greenland rolls, then most any wooden paddle (or even a Graphite "Greenland paddle") will work okay. But if you intend to use your paddle on long trips and rough water, then you want the very best fitting Greenland paddle with all the best features a Greenland paddle can have. George's introduction to Greenland paddles and Greenland paddling technique began with his trip to Greenland in 1990 when he participated in the Greenland Qajaq Club's kayak training camp. See his "Sea Kayaker" magazine article, "Learning To Paddle the Greenland Way" (Spring 1991 issue, reprints available from Sea Kayaker magazine) for an account of that experience and an introduction to the many significant (and until recently, shocking/controversial) differences in technique for using a Greenland paddle vs. a Western (or some say Euro) style kayak paddle. No-one outside of Greenland has as many years of experience teaching and using these paddling techniques or paddling as many miles with a Greenland paddle as George Gronseth.
Course time will be divided between building your own paddle and on the water paddling technique instruction. Since shop time will of necessity be the majority of the course, students are expected to have already practiced basic kayak safety skills (capsizes, wet exits, re-entry rescues, bracing, and Eskimo rolling) or take our Paddling Strokes & Rescue Techniques Course or our Five Day Training Camp as a prerequisite to this course.
Tuition = $600.00, includes paddle-wood, use of carving tools, use of dry suit, and instruction.
Enrollment in this Greenland Kayak Paddle Carving and Paddling Technique course is limited to
a maximum of five total students.
View the Course Schedule
© George Gronseth 2003, all rights reserved.