: A question Nick how many native paddles have you made? How many hours have
: you used a native paddle?

I have made two and used them for about a one season. As such this does not give me much grounds to critisize greenland paddles, and you should note that I don't. Instead I am trying to point out that modern paddles can very good in the ways greenland paddlers find important, but only if they are well designed. Most commercially available modern paddles are not well designed for anything beyond straight ahead paddling and most greenland paddlers critisize modern paddles based on these poorly designed examples. Most modern paddles are designed for manufacturing considerations, not paddling.

If someone made a "greenland" paddle with a 1/64" thick blade, few people would like it. It would be a paddle with some very annoying tendancies, such as being very unstable while sculling. If I were to base my characterization of all "greenland" paddles on this one example, I would be way off base. Just because a majority of modern paddles are made like this does not mean the whole class should be judged on their performance.

If it makes you feel better, I think most greenland paddles are better than the average modern paddle. I just feel that the best modern paddles are very good and cast in a bad light due to their lower quality brethren. I have tried some modern paddles I felt were truly awful, more that are OK but nothing special, and only a few which were really good.

The biggest advantage of greenland paddles is it is so easy to make a good one, while making a good modern paddle is difficult.