Materials

Purchase the following materials for your kayak stand or canoe stand:

• Three 8-foot, 2-by-2 boards
• Two 4-inch, 1/4-inch lag bolts
• Eight  washers (four for the bolts, four for the deck screws)
• Two locking nuts
• Twelve 3-inch deck screws
• 1-inch nylon webbing, 5 feet

Tools

Because this project is simple, you can pull it off with a limited number of tools.

• Handsaw
• Drill with drill bit
• Screwdriver
• Wrench
• Lighter
• Knife

Building a Kayak Stand or Canoe Stand

1. Cut four 3-foot uprights for your stand from the 2-by-2s. Keep the cuts square.
2. Cut four 2-foot feet from the 2-by-2s.
3. Drill a centered hole that is big enough for your bolts in the center of each upright.
4. Screw a 2-foot foot to each upright to make four pieces that look like “T”s. Before you screw the foot into the end of the upright, drill a pilot hole to prevent the wood from splitting. The foot should parallel the bolt hole that you drilled in each upright.
5. Bolt two “T”s together to make a stand.
6. Cut two pieces of webbing 2 feet 3 inches long. You can vary the length as desired. A shorter length fits a narrower boat and rises the height of the stand slightly. The suggested size is a good length for using it as a kayak stand or a canoe stand.
7. Burn the ends of the nylon to prevent fraying.
8. Screw one end the top of one side of a stand and the other end into the other side. Use screws fitted with washers to prevent the nylon from pulling off the screw. Drilling a pilot hole helps prevent the wood from splitting.

That’s it. It’s an easy way to make a canoe stand or kayak stand.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: How to Build a Kayak Stand or Canoe Stand for $20 or Less

The canoe is a prototype that takes its inspiration from the popular Modern Malecite St. John River Canoe plans. I like the Modern Malecite, but I wanted something with more volume and efficiency for tripping. The canoe needed to turn easily for use on tight rivers, but it also needed to have enough directional stability to paddle across the flats. Additionally, it needed to perform well when heeled in Classic Solo Canoeing style. I wanted a classic look with a modern flare. I didn’t want high end that would catch the wind, but I needed a nice upsweep in the ends. I needed to balance all these considerations to arrive at a canoe that not only I would like, but other canoeists would enjoy, too.

If you’ve been following along on Facebook. You can see pictures from the entire building process. There’s nothing magical or all that hard — maybe sometimes frustrating though — about the process. If you have any do-it-yourself nature, a cedar strip canoe is easy to build and it’s a fun project. Something to consider. You can find lots of free canoe plans here. Eventually, the plans for the Ursa will become available. For this canoe, I used 3/16-inch strips on the bottom, 1/8-inch strips on the side, one layer of 6 oz. fiberglass on the outside, an extra layer of 3 oz. glass on the outside bottom, 6 oz. carbon fiber on the inside. The trim is ash. The decks are cedar and ash.

Launching the Ursa Canoe

We launched the new tandem canoe in the Grand Marais marina, and paddled it on a relatively calm Lake Superior for about 4 miles. It was a short paddle without a load, so although I do have initial impressions, they’re not enough to make any final decisions about changes. The one “big” change that was apparent is that we sort of got our seat placement wrong. We’re planning on using this canoe as a tripper and storing the heavy pack forward the yoke, which means that when unloaded, the bow rises up out of the water. I expected that, but I didn’t expect to get what I got. With another paddler of my same weight in the bow, it’d balance perfectly. In retrospect, I should have mounted the stern seat and the bow seat slightly forward of their current positions. (An argument for sliding bow seats). We also decided that we didn’t like the width of the outwales, which means that I have some hand planing ahead of me (this will also drop a few pounds in weight!). The hull is so stiff because of the carbon fiber, it doesn’t really need the outwales.

As far as initial paddling impressions, the canoe feels stable enough (Ilena thinks less than the Freedom, but I think about the same). It feels more stable than some Prospectors that I’ve used. It turns easily, but isn’t a bear to keep going straight. We took it into some tight quarters in local rock gardens on Lake Superior with about a 1/2-foot or so of swell. We also paddled on some small breaking waves, into slots, etc… We took it where I normally sea kayak. It turned quickly in the tight areas. I feel like I got this right. The next step is to paddle it on windier day to see how it performs. Speed felt fine. I’m not sure it was as fast as my Freedom, but it feels faster than the Prospectors that I’ve paddled (the main competition for this boat). I need to get out the Freedom and paddle it side-by-side to compare the speed. I paddled it Canadian-style solo (I’m really rusty!), and it was super fun paddled that way.

Paddling the Ursa Video

Here’s a video of our first outing with the canoe. At 30 seconds, you can see the weight imbalance caused by the seat placement. When/if I release the plans to the public, I’ll move the seats forward to account for this.

The testing plan originally included paddling it on an October trip from International Falls, Minn. to Grand Portage, Minn., but one person backed out, so now we’re taking a solo canoe instead of this canoe, so it won’t get an overnight test paddle until November (if the weather holds). There’s still lots of work to complete on this boat, such as painting the bottom and varnishing the inside and outside. I need to oil the trim and fill a few fiberglassing bubbles.

It feels great to get it on the water!

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Launching: New Tandem Canoe — the PaddlingLight Ursa Canoe

These two new services come with a fee. While I’ve made these plans available without expecting to make any money from them, these two new services take a significant amount of time. The printed plans cost $100 per set. The electronic nestings cost $30. The plans take 2 to 4 weeks to ship, and the electronic nestings take 1 to 2 weeks to ship, unless I have them finished. For those that I have finished, I’ll send them to you as soon as I get the payment info email from PayPal.

I’m currently updating all the free canoe plans and free kayak plans pages with the following info. If you want a plan that doesn’t include the “Buy Now” buttons, then you can order it from this page.

Sample Station and Stem Plans

The free drawings comes with a combined station and stem plan. You can work from this if you only want to print out one piece of paper. Great for framing and placing in the boat house (garage). Sample below.

Nesting Sample

These drawings come with multiple pages of nestings. Each station and stem is drawn separately. Use spray adhesive to fix the paper to your plywood before cutting out the forms. Nestings cost extra. Sample below.

Printed Drawings

Buy printed drawings that include the Station and Stem Plans and a full set of Nestings for $100. Comes printed on 24- by 36-inch paper.

Electronic Nestings

Buy a pdf of the electronic nestings for $30. You can print the file on 24- by 36-inch paper on your own.

Donate

If you build this canoe or kayak from the free plans, consider donating $30 for my time and effort. Any donations are appreciated. Whether or not you donate, please, send me a picture of your build–I’ll add it to a builder’s gallery.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Printed Canoe Plans and Kayak Plans Plus Electronic Nestings

1) Does the rear of the cockpit forms have a smooth transition so that the top of the entire coaming rim is essentially flat? I’m asking because the Siskiwit Bay built with a recess seems to have a sharp transition. I will probably build it without the recess to allow more room for my 5′ -8″ fiance (I am 5′-10″ a 200 lbs. ) If there is a sharp transitions, I don’t mind raising the rear of the cockpit an inch or two and modifying the deck forms.

The drawings come without a callout for the recess. That way you can build as you like or leave it off. I now build them as I did on my Iggy. You can also use Nick Schade’s method, which he writes about in The Strip-Built Sea Kayak: Three Rugged, Beautiful Boats You Can Build. I highly recommend his book if you don’t own a copy. If you leave off the recess the deck flows perfectly without it.

2) I’m trying to decide on the deck type. Although the standard deck allows for more knee room, will it affect the wind resistance more than the elliptical deck? I would like to keep weather cocking down to a minimum.

The deck choice is tough. Think of it as NDK vs. Valley. The standard is sort of like a NDK Explorer and the elliptical is sort of like a Valley Etain. The overall side profile is exactly the same, so the center of effort is the same, which means there’s no performance difference. Just pick the one you like best. For taller people (5’10″ and over), go with the standard, because it will fit your height (knees) better.

For weather cocking, add a skeg. It boat is designed to turn slightly into the wind with the skeg up. With the skeg completely down, it turns downwind. Somewhere in the middle counteracts the current wind speed and direction. You can also stop weathercocking by slightly leaning the kayak towards the wind.

3) I like the look, but I want a shorter kayak. I was thinking in the 16 foot range. Can I change the design?

There’s two ways to go about this. You could scale everything by 94% when you print, and then change the distance between stations by 94% to arrive at a smaller boat that ends up 16 feet long. Or you could just scale the distances between stations. I suggest using the second approach. This will result in a short and slightly more playful kayak while retaining the width, deck height and good looks. Keep in mind that the design displacement goes down by 15 lbs. On a more serious side, your efficiency drops by about 4% at touring speeds.

4) I need an 18-foot kayak for touring. Can I scale this design?

You can. I suggest changing the distance between forms until you get the length you want. Don’t take it longer than 18. For an 18-foot touring specific kayak, I’d actually take some of the rocker out of this design, add a bit more volume for storage and squeak a bit more efficiency at touring speeds out of the hull by increasing the prismatic coefficient. If I get enough requests or someone willing to invest time and money into prototyping an 18-foot Siskiwit Expedition, I could get talked into making a new design.

5) Why 3/16-inch strips instead of 1/4-inch strips? Can I use 1/4-inch strips without changing the plans?

I specify 3/16 inch strip thickness. Most builders will use 1/4-inch-thick strips, but many, including some professional builders are switching to 3/16-inch. On my boats I use 3/16 because it results in a lighter hull, that’s equally as stiff, that flexes slightly more than a 1/4 hull during an impact, and is stronger in tests. From Ted Moores’ Kayak Craft, 3/16-inch cedar strips covered in one layer of 6-ounce glass weigh 8 oz. per square foot, offer 0.73 inches of deflection and fail at 214 pounds. One the other hand, 1/4-inch cedar strips covered in one layer of 6-ounce glass weigh 9.8 oz. per square foot, offer 0.49 inches of deflection and fail at 221 pounds. Add another layer of 6-ounce glass to the 3/16-inch wood and the weight goes up to 10.6 oz. per square foot, deflection becomes 0.9 inches and pounds to failure happens at 500 lbs. On 1/4-inch wood with two layers of 6-ounce glass, the weight becomes 12.3 oz. per square foot, deflection becomes 0.58 inches and failure happens at 450 lbs.

The choice is personal, but during various tests that I’ve seen, 3/16-inch strips with the same layup are equally as strong as 1/4-inch strips. I like to save the weight on the wood, because I don’t believe that one layer of 6-ounce cloth is strong enough on the bottom of the boat. I prefer using either three to four layers of 3-ounce tight weave or one layer of 6-ounce plus one to two layers of 3-ounce tight weave. The lighter weight of the wood helps make up for the extra weight in the glass.

You don’t need to change the plans to use 1/4-inch strips.

6) Do the plans come with instructions?

No, they include only the drawings. I recommend using Nick Schade’s excellent The Strip-Built Sea Kayak: Three Rugged, Beautiful Boats You Can Build as a working manual.

7) What kind of strongback are the plans designed for?

The plans are designed for a simple external strongback. See an example of an external strongback in my Iggy build. I used 2-by-8-inch boards for the iggy. I recommend using 1-by8-inch boards for this one.

8) How do I align the stations onto the strongback? What are the lines on each station?

To align everything on the strongback make sure that the waterline is at an equal height above the strongback at each station. The centerline is aligned and plumb. The different lines are labeled below.

To make sure everything aligns correctly, add an equally tall spacer to each station. To make everything the right height make a spacer for your stem stations high enough to raise the stem 3 to 4 inches off of the strongback. Measure the height of the stem’s waterline off of the strongback and make the station spacers an equal height. Click the image below to see a larger example.

9) How are the stems aligned?

The stems mount up against stations number two and fifteen. The lines six inches for the tips of the stems show where station one and sixteen mount. You can safely leave off these stations although using them provides more stability in the cedar strips when you apply them.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: FAQ: Siskiwit LV Sea Kayak

Required Materials

• Rough-cut ash, 4 feet by 4 inches by 1 inch, straight grained (or other hardwood, such as cherry)
• Four 3-inch stainless steel screws
• Two yoke pads w/ bolts, washers and nuts
• Watco oil
• Printed plans
• Spray adhesive
• Saw
• Router with a round-over bit
• Clamps
• Sandpaper, 80-grit, 120-grit, 220-grit
• Drill with 1/8-inch bit
• Countersink bit

Yoke Building Instructions

Drill pilot holes into each side piece.

Step 2: Cut out the three different parts with a saw. (Please, don’t cut yourself. :)) Block plane or power sand the side pieces into the same shape if your initial cut wasn’t exact.

Step 3: Drill pilot holes into the side pieces and into each edge of the solo canoe yoke. The plans show the drilling locations. On the outside of the side pieces, countersink each hole enough hold a screw head. On the yoke drill holes large enough for your yoke pad hardware.

The hole for one yoke pad. Adjust as desired.

Step 5: Unscrew the pieces, and round over all the edges except the ones that you marked. Use a router bit radius that pleases your eyes. (Please, clamp down the pieces and be careful with the router. It could take a finger off.) You should also just sand a round corner if you don’t have a router.

Step 6: Sand the pieces starting with 80-grit followed by 120-grit and then 220-grit.

Looking at the finished sides of the yoke.

Step 8: Coat everything with three coats of Watco Oil. I like the green can, but it’s hard to find, so I usually use natural in the brown can. Let everything dry according to the instructions.

Step 9: Screw the side pieces to the yoke. Bolt the yoke pads to the yoke.

Step 10: Hook the back of the solo canoe portage yoke around the back of the seat as shown in the picture above. Slide a bungee cord around the seat to hold it on when you pick up the canoe. Portage as required.

Purchase Yoke Plans

The plans for the solo canoe yoke come as a pdf. When you print the plans, you’ll have a full-sized template for cutting out the parts. I’m selling the plans on a pay-what-you-can-afford plan. The standard rate is $15. For students, poor canoe guides, people on fixed income, the unemployed or if you just can’t afford the standard rate, we ask $5 or $10. For people that can afford more than $15, we ask for $25. If you absolutely cannot afford $5, we’ll give you the plans for free. Contact us with a message about why you think you need the plans for free, and we’ll send you the file. No questions asked. If you’re a writer and have something to say, consider a well-written article about lightweight canoe and kayak travel payment.

Pay What You Can Afford Pricing

Standard Pricing $15.00 Broke $5.00 Not so Broke $10.00 Rolling in Cash $25.00

The download will begin immediately after purchase and open in Adobe Reader. You need to save the pdf to your desktop to save it on your computer. If it doesn’t work for you, contact us.

Builder’s Photos

Randy Clough’s brother a furniture maker built this pad out of cherry. He beefed up the plan a bit and joined the pieces together with mortise and tenon joints. The finish is Watco oil and the pads are Chosen Valley. The solo canoe yoke looks so good that Randy’s wife even thought that he ought to use it for a wall decoration.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Solo Canoe Yoke Plans for Portaging

Building a Pop Can Stove

Most pop-can stoves take a few hours to make, but the process seems easy if you’re into do-it-yourself projects. This stove combines three parts. The stove’s main body comes from the bottom of two pop cans. The base measures 20mm high and the top measures 30mm. On the top, the bottom of the can is bored out and you poke 24 evenly spaces holes 15mm down from the top. The holes act as jets which expel vaporized alcohol from the stove. The third part is an inner wall made from a 40mm piece of can. After cutting the pieces, you stretch out the bottom to fit the top.

To assemble, you coat the lip of the stove’s bottom with JB Weld or High-Temp RTV Silicone, slide the two parts together and let the adhesive cure. After about 24 hours, the stove is ready for use. When finished, my stove weighed 0.5 oz., which when combined with my 0.5 oz. windscreen is 1.2 oz. lighter than my Penny Stove lightweight cooking system.

Review of Sideburner Alcohol Stove

For my test, I used a Snow Peak Titanium 34 fl.oz. pot and lid, which has a 5-7/8-inch base. I used 0.8 oz. of denatured alcohol. After lighting the stove, it took about a minute for the jets to light. Because I wasn’t using a priming pan, which is a pan that sits under the stove and helps heat up the stove and alcohol, I needed to blow on the flames to get the jets to light.

After the jets lit, I placed my Snow Peak pot filled with two cups of 65-degree water onto the stove. In just under five minutes, the water came to a rolling boil. The flame went out in seven minutes and 30 seconds. The flames seemed to touch just the corner of my pot, so I suspect I lost some energy up the side between the pot and the windscreen. If I make another version of this stove, I’ll change the jet’s position to 10mm from the top instead of 15mm. That should constrict the flame pattern.

Overall, I like this stover better than the Penny Stove. It doesn’t need the pot stand nor the penny, which simplifies the setup. I’m changing from the Penny Stove to a sideburner for trips where I don’t need simmering. Here’s my new cooking gear weight. With this new alcohol stove, it’s getting pretty light.

Cooking Gear Weight

• 5.8 oz. – Snow Peak 34-fl.oz. Titanium Pot and lid
• 1.0 oz. – Basic Sideburner Stove (0.5 oz. windscreen, 0.5 oz. stove)
• 0.2 oz. – Light My Fire Sporks
• 0.8 oz. – Fuel container (12 oz. soda bottle)
• 7.8 oz. – Total without fuel

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Homemade Sideburner Alcohol Stove

Pictures of the Unalaska Baidarka

Samson gave me permission to publish several photos of his Unalaska kayak. Note the wonderful bifid bow, and the string decorations at the bow. You can’t add those types of decorations to a plastic or composite boat. To me, the decorations make the boat look alive.

Baidarka Trailer

While Samson built the kayak, his friend and filmmaker Daphne Barbieri documented the process and produced a DVD about the process. Order Copies of the DVD from Daphne Barbieri.  Her email address is daphnebarbieri@tiscali.co.uk You need to specify the format – for the US and Canada order NTSC and these cost 15 pounds each.  For other parts of the world the format is PAL and that costs 10 pounds per copy.  Both prices are inclusive of postage.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Skin-on-Frame Version of the Unalaska Baidarka

Last year, we moved from a house with a big workshop to a small house with a shed that just fits the canoes and kayaks. I lost the place where I built boats, paddles and whatever else I needed to build. For this past year, I’ve struggled with finding satisfying projects and am attempting to keep my connection with boat building by doing my Winter Free Canoe and Kayak Plan Project. But, without a real project (even note the language I use when writing about my hands), my hands have suffered. While trying to find a reason why I need to use my hands and why if I don’t, I feel like something is missing from my life, I picked up The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture. Early in the book, Frank R. Wilson writes, “I would argue that any theory of human intelligence which ignores the interdependence of hand and brain function, the historic origins of that relationship, or the impact of that history on development dynamics in modern humans, is grossly misleading and sterile.” Does that answer my question? I don’t know, but I do know that when I make something I’m happier.

To help fulfill my hand’s needs, I built a willow basket. Somehow, I stumbled upon Jon’s Bushcraft’s Weaving a Wicker Basket tutorial. It looked like an easy enough craft to learn from the Internet, so I decided to try. I’ve always wanted to build a pack basket, but gathering and pounding black ask seemed a bit more than I wanted to commit to without a workshop. For the willow basket, I’d just need to gather some willow.

Finding willow ended up being harder than I thought. I found lots of thicker willow with lots of branches, but what I wanted was a thin willow shoot, preferably a year-old shoot from an old stump. I spent an entire day looking for the perfect sticks when it occurred to me to look under powerlines. In Cook County, power companies clear the lines every couple of years and they leave the stumps. My instinct proved right. I found a massive batch of perfect willow shoots.

I don’t want to rehash Jon’s Bushcraft’s tutorial, but I’ll make a few notes. First, making a willow basket is much harder than it sounds. In college, we used to make fun of the football players for majoring in basket weaving, but in retrospect, it probably challenged them more than we supposed. I ran into the first problems right at the start!

In order to link all the sticks together for the base of the basket, you’re suppose to twine the stakes together. I found that after I did as instructed, I had a hard time evenly spacing the twigs for weaving. For a second basket, I twined first around four spokes at a time for the first wrap and then two spokes at a time for the second wrap. This spread the spokes more evenly.

The second part that I struggled with was the French randing. I just couldn’t figure it out. I spent an hour one afternoon trying to figure out how to French rand. Eventually, I decided to skip it and just use a simple weave to build the basket’s sides.

In the end, I think my first basket turned out nice. It has enough gaps, that I’d lose a few berries if I went out gathering, but for bigger items, it’d work just fine. I think the weavers I used are just a little to thick. The next one will use thinner weavers. The process itself was satisfying enough to fulfill my hand’s needs. I love that I was able to turn something I gathered from the woods into a functional item using only a pocket knife and my hands.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Bushcraft: Making a Willow Basket

In a kayak, bungee cords crisscross the deck in front of the paddler. It’s easy to stash maps, bottles, and miscellaneous gear under the bungee cords, and it’s easy to get to that gear when needed. A map stored there allows you to watch the terrain as you travel. To duplicate the functionality of a kayak’s deck lines, I decided to outfit my canoe’s thwarts with bungee cord. Outfitting your canoe’s thwarts is an easy project.

You’ll need:

• 3/16″ or 1/4″ bungee cord
• A drill with a bit to match the bungee

Step One: Drill a hole through each end of the thwart. Center it on the thwart and drill about 3/4″ away from the canoe’s gunwale.

Step Two: Set your map case on the thwart situated about 1/2″ away from one of the holes. On the opposite side and about 1/2″ away from the map case’s edge, drill another hole.

Step Three: Run a bungee between the two holes and over the map case. Secure each end of the bungee cord with an overhand knot on the underside of the thwart.

Step Four: Decide what else you want to carry on your thwart and drill corresponding holes for more bungee. I like to mount my compass to my thwarts (see the picture).

Step Five: If you want to carry a water bottle, tie a loop of bungee around the thwart. Size it so that it securely holds the bottle to your thwart (see the picture).

Additional Ideas

On a solo canoe, I like to run a bungee completely across the rear thwart. A longer bungee makes a great place to store my coat.

On the portage, running a paddle’s blade under the seat and the grip under the bungee keeps the paddle secure until you reach the other side.

This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: Outfitting Your Canoe’s Thwarts

Steve Pyne’s Māori paddle is a carved masterpiece far beyond my woodworking abilities, so I decided to try to wood-burn the pattern onto my paddle. I had never wood-burned before, and, although not as skillfully burned as Murat’s paddles, I found the process of wood-burning a simple pattern easy and fun–well within the skill level of most paddlers.

For this design, I went through a little trial and error as I worked through the following process (pictures below).

Required Tools

• Flexible curve drafting tool
• Wood-burning tool- I used this Dremel.

Steps:

1. I outlined the design I wanted on my paddle based on Steve Pyne’s design. Although I didn’t follow his design exactly, I followed it closely. For outlining I used a flexible curve drafting tool, which I formed into the shape of the curves and then outlined with a pencil. I tried to mirror the design on each side of the paddle.
2. I burned the outline using a wood-burning tool. I found keeping a constant slow but steady speed prevented deep burn marks that look like ink blots. Also, pulling the burning tool towards me worked easier than moving it other directions.
3. Filled the space between the outlines with a set of curved burnt lines. I wanted to capture the look of Pyne’s carving, but I thought the wood burnt curves didn’t look very good.
4. I burnt the area between the outlines into a solid black. This made the pattern stand out.
5. Finished the paddle with heated tung oil. I heated the oil to just below the boiling point and then wiped it onto the paddle. I watched over the paddle as it dried and reapplied oil to areas that were drying out quickly. After about two hours, I wiped off the excess oil. I applied a second unheated coat in the morning and wiped it off after a few minutes.

After finishing the paddle, I took it into the Boundary Waters on my Hunt for the Viking Dolmen. The paddle still performs great and now it looks great. The orderly design contrasts with the chaos of nature and really stands out. Using it seems to impart a greater meaning into what was a simple paddle; the paddle becomes both a way to propel the canoe and a means to injecting meaning into each stroke. I don’t know why many Native American tribes decorated their paddles, but after decorating one myself, I see the attraction.  I will decorate future paddles I build. I’ve been eyeing the Malecite design recorded in Adney and Chapelle’s The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America.

Additional Resources

• Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own – Fantastic book about paddle building.
• The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America – All canoeists should own this book.
• Wood Burning Starter Kit- A high-end alternative to the Dremel.

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This article originally appeared on PaddlingLight.com. Leave a comment and an opinion by clicking through here: How to Decorate a Canoe Paddle