De Pan

Here's another antique paddle from the archives on LiveAuctioneers.com. It is described as a Penobscot Paddle, circa 1900 with a red-brown pigment on the blade. The delicately shaped handle has wonderful curved features with incised floral and C-scroll designs. It's a long one at 77 inches!


Penobscot Carved Wood Paddle
circa 1900length: 77 inches

The same paddle posted on Skinner Auctions revealed an estimated price of $400-$600 with the final hammer price of $2,370.


Feb 23, 2016 UPDATE: This paddle is now in the collection of the Hudson Museum, University of Maine. For more images and other details see post here. 

Found another slightly higher resolution image of a painting by Lieut. Robert Petley (1809-1869) previously posted back in 2010.



The higher resolution image shows some subtle chevron markings on the blade the paddle...

Another Adirondack Guide Paddle for sale by the folks at Summer Antiques. The grips on these paddles are so unusual. A previous post shows off some more of their selection which haven't been sold by the looks of things.

Just discovered another museum on my bucket list to visit. The Musée des Abénakis is located in Odanak, Quebec on the shores of the St. Francis River. Home of the "St. Francis Abenaki", the museum looks to have a marvelous display of the canoe culture in the region.

A permanent exhibit called Wôbanaki, People of the Rising Sun features a full length bark canoe with baskets and an interesting paddle.




More photos from the museum show another angle of the canoe and paddle...


The enlarged photo reveals a paddle with some sort of etching on the blade and a zig zag motif of the elongated grip...


While searching on Flickr for any more uploads of the museum by visitors, I stumbled on this one by TourismeNicoletYamaska. The decorative etchings are not very visible but the overall blade shape, carved drip rings and grip shape are quite nicely captured...

Here's an image by James Peachey (active 1773-1797) documenting a stylized canoe with inhabitats. Paddles look to be painted red  fitting the theme of earlier images...

Not sure how I missed this blog post from the Canadian Canoe Museum featuring pyrographic artist Cara Jordan. The post highlights her passion for the wood burning art form and includes some pics of some of her paddle artwork...beautiful stuff!

Thanks to the winter storm hitting my region today (which really isn't that bad in my opinion), my workplace has cancelled all classes...this means a SNOW DAY and a chance to post another paddle picture. This one is from February's "Current Items" page at the Cherry Gallery which features a nice looking Adirondack paddle.


Looks like it has already sold. The details from their site...

Adirondack Guide Boat Paddle
This guide boat paddle has a characteristic elaborately carved diamond-motif handle and a long, narrow blade. The front of the blade is painted with the four playing card suits - perhaps the guide was a gambler...
Circa 1900
5" w, 58.5” h

The carved motif area below the circular grip adds a nice decorative flair to whole piece. Here's another angled shot showing this interesting Adirondack feature.


Diamond Motif on grip

Family group of Menominee in a bark canoe. The male figure on the far right has a straight sided paddle which looks similar in design to the antique Chippewa Paddle featured earlier on LiveAuctioneers.com


Two Women and Five Children in Birchbark Canoe,
Women in Native Dress, Man Holding Paddle
Menominee Indians, Date: 1925
National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Full Citation


Paddle Closeup; Antique Chippewa Paddle

This weekend while Toronto experienced another mild spell in the weather, I finally finished another full-sized paddle. Back in the fall, work began on one of my many remaining laminated blanks - in this case, an ottertail laminated with a central strip of cherry, 2 strips of basswood, and some large cherry pieces for the blade and grip. I found the dark cherry and creamy basswood to have a nice contrast.


The blank last fall
Graham Warren's book mentions the importance of bookmatching the panels on laminated paddles to maintain a symmetrical look, but I was more interested in using up the offcuts to minimize wood wastage and I didn't really pay much attention to this approach. Given that the cherry was cut from the same board anyway, I assumed there would be a natural symmetry.

When carving down the blade however, some light coloured streaks of heartwood began to show - so light that the normally amber toned cherry looks as pale as the basswood strips on either side of the central shaft. Not so bad on the first side, but on the other, it gives the illusion of an uneven blade. Purely cosmetic of course but this non symmetrical look makes the whole thing look somewhat flawed.


Uneven grain pattern on blade
I decided to decorate the blade and grip in a manner that would offset this visual blemish and ended up with another birding image, this one of an American Kestrel (Sparrow Hawk). These diminutive little birds have a colourful coat of feathers which I tried to replicate with various shades and textures. Some freehand leaves and branches were added as accents. Varnishing will have to wait until the weather warms up again.


Kestrel Image on the blade; Leaves on the grip


The unvarnished paddle

Newell Convers Wyeth Wyeth (October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945), known as N.C. Wyeth, was an American artist and illustrator. According to Wikipedia, this prolific artist created over 3,000 paintings and illustrated 112 books! Here's a painting featuring a decorated paddle blade...


The Indian in His Solitude
NC Wyeth
1907


Paddle Closeup
The paddle decoration seems very similar to Indian Maiden by Moonlight by Charles Realyea that I posted about here. The 2 artists seem to have been contemporaries so might've influenced each other.