De Pan

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...

David A posted a photo of the full sized Maliseet Paddles in the collection of the British Museum.



Unfortunately the photograph is blurred due to the glass of the exhibit case so the etching details are not visible. But the full length of the these graceful paddles are clearly in view.