> Comparing the length of the paddle to the paddler, it would seem to be
> about 12 feet long (the paddler is probably closer to 5' than 6'.) Pretty
> long. The ones I saw at the Canadian Canoe Museum were 10' long, and
> narrow. The guide commented to me that the design was constrained by the
> available materials, as there are no trees in Greenland. With that in
> mind, the long narrow paddle is an ingenious solution to the problem of
> not being able to make shorter, wider paddles. This shape probably isn't
> the best, just the best they could do with what was available. Besides,
> you couldn't use a wide paddle blade as a spear, as the Greenland Eskimos
> used theirs.

This is an interesting topic and I thank Brian for posting the pics of the labrador kayaks.

This topic is called long Greenland paddles is misleading since we are looking at Labrador paddles. The Labrador paddles are long and narrow because over time they were found to be the best suited to the job of propelling the large and heavy Labrador kayaks. These single kayaks were 21-27 feet long and averaged 25.5" width they weighed from 90-150 pounds. The paddles besides being long were fairly heavy and rested on a rub strip of bone or antler at the front of the coaming,in use the paddles were slid from side to side and levered against the coaming rub strip, the paddle blades were not immersed very deep.

A friend of mine built a 24 foot Hudson Strait kayak and found it to be very manueverable and fast... he used a 12 foot paddle 2.75" wide.

Tom