Tips Sail

Here are some more single blade kayak paddles, made by Alutiiq artist, Jerry Laktonen.


Jerry Laktonen's Alutiiq Paddles
Jerry's site, whaledreams.com has the following information about their shape and function...

"The Alutiiq kayaker (canoeist!) kneeled rather than sat in his baidarka (Russian for little boat) and used a single bladed paddle, from a more upright position. The shape of the paddles were long and pointed as to enter the water quietly while hunting. As the blade was fully half the length of the paddle, the surface area needed for power paddling was there when needed . just as if shifting into a lower gear. the shape also was beneficial in that it moved easily through the wind while being brought forward."

Lately I've been trying to research the use of single blade kayak paddles from the net. According to KayakWiki site:

"Most modern kayakers associate a single blade paddle with canoes. However, single blade paddles have been used for centuries in kayaks, especially in the western arctic, Alaska and Siberia. Koryak, Chukchi, Aleut, Kodiak, Bering Sea, Bering Strait and Mackenzie Delta hunters used single blade paddles. Kodiak and Chugach paddlers used single blade paddles almost exclusively."

Tuktu Paddles has a great page on single bladed paddles. I especially liked the King Island designs. These plans for these same paddles is available in PDF form from David Zimmerly's page on Artic Kayak paddles. The 1st design with its recurved blade is interesting to me. I've already cut out two blanks with the this design - a one-piece birch and a walnut/cherry/laminated combo.


King Island Single-bladed Paddles UM #8565 & #8566

Hidenao Matsubara of Indian Canoe Craft has a photo of a single blade paddle with his baidarka. See below


Matsubara's beautiful carved Baidarka paddle

Finally, Harvey Golden's amazing pages on Traditional Kayaks contain some images of single blade kayak paddles


Eskimo Seal Hunter--Bering Sea.


Kodiak Three-Hole Baidarka


Yuit Kayak, likely taken at Nome.

A while back while working on my first crooked knife blade from an old file, I got discouraged with the speed of progress without power tools. In a moment of self-doubt about whether I could finish the project, I ended up ordering a crooked knife blade from Orien MacDonald after coming across his page on Etsy. I liked look of his blade, especially the fact that it was offset from the tang allowing for a greater and more comfortable angle for carving. Here is the blade he made for me with a traditional, bent tang.


New Crooked Knife Blade
When working out ideas of the handle, I had collected some pieces that were promising options. For this knife, I decided on the yellow birch handle (2nd from top) in the photo below:


Handle choices
It was shaped with some rasps and a spoon carving knife to hollow out the thumb rest area. I decided the decorate the birch with some basic woodburning patterns to mimic the chip-carving I've seen on various knives. Here's one angle of the completed knife handle.


Decorated Handle
The bottom was chiseled out to fit the tang and the blade secured with leather lace. Here's the finished knife below showing off the offset angle of the blade from the handle as well as the curving angle of the blade from the horizontal view.


Offset from handle's axis


View from the horizontal plane
Here's a comparison shot of the new "Orien Crooked Knife" and the homemade Olive Crooked Knife. The homemade blade is longer, thinner, and flat and I can see it working well when shaping canoe ribs and larger surfaces like a paddle blade. For all around carving though, the Orien Knife would look to be more versatile to carve out paddle grips, the shaft, spoons, bowls, and other bushcraft items.


The budding crooked knife collection