> I guess we could contact a museum...

My family made its annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage to Buckhorn, Ont., this weekend, which takes us right by the Canadian Canoe Museum, so on Saturday, I made the 35km trip back to Peterborough to see what they had.

It's a worthwhile trip if you're in the neighbourhood, but not to base your vacation around. It's much better on canoes than kayaks, right now, but they're raising funds to expand the exhibits. (I bought three raffle tickets on a gorgeous wooden canoe.) They have a progressive display of canoes including several styles of native canoes, and manufactured canoes including a lovely veneered canoe, partially decked, designed for courting, with a front seat that faces backwards so the winsome lass can recline facing her suitor (get your minds out of the gutter! She's only semi-reclined.) There is a tray for a Victrola (wind up record player), and a cabinet for refreshments. I guess the modern equivalent to that would be a ghetto blaster and a six-pack.

The kayak gallery has about six Eskimo kayaks. Most date from the early 20th century, from Greenland or Baffin Island. One was from the West Arctic. I had no means of taking notes, so I'm going from memory on the following dimensions, (and I was converting to feet as I went along) but I am sure of the information I am including here. Most of the kayaks were 22 to 25 feet long, and one was 555cm, or about 18ft. This was also the narrowest, at 53cm, or about 21in. Of the rest, the narrowest was about 24in (62cm)in beam, and the widest was about 29inches, and that one had its widest beam aft of the cockpit. All the ones that I can recall had "D" shaped cockpits.

There are two kayak paddles on display. They are both about 10ft long. The blade length of the shorter of these is about 1/3 of the total length, or about 40 in. That blade was 62cm (3.5 in) wide, and rounded at the ends. One of its uses was enlarging the hole made in whales by the harpoon, when the kayaker was out whaling. The other had blades about 30in long, and widened from the handle to a squared off tip. And yes, they do look like poles. The shafts are very thick, appearing to be at least 2in. The young man who was looking after the museum that day suggested that the type of materials available would have restricted the design possibilities. The only wood they could get was driftwood, so they may not have been able to make a wider bladed paddle. This is an interesting point, as we have no such restraints, and can make a more efficient paddle any way we wish.

The said young man would have taken me upstairs to see the paddles that haven't been accessioned yet, but the curator only works on weekdays, and nobody had a key to that area. I'll be back there in August, but I think this discussion will be a little old by then. I'll take a tape recorder, tape measure and calipers when I go, though.

Hope this muddifies the clarification sufficiently.

Roger