A Matched Pair: Wedding Paddles for Sarah and Jason

It was May 14, 2009.  Sarah and Jason were getting married in two days.  So, as I knocked on the door of her parent’s home, I asked myself why I was bugging her. 

Sarah came to the door and I immediately began to apologize.  The last thing anyone needed two days before their wedding was a friend coming to ask questions.  She dispelled my concerns instantly and invited me inside.  As always, she welcomed me graciously and openly.  Although her parents, Leslie and Lincoln, knew for weeks what I was planning, they had kept it a secret from Sarah and Jason.

As I stood in their dining room, Sarah looked a little puzzled as I produced a tape measure and a four-foot piece of dowelling.  By this time, Leslie had come into the dining room.  Her eyes sparkled and the grin on her face was threatening to explode.  She was incapable of standing still and the excitement rushed out of every cell in her body.

I turned to Sarah and said, “I want to take some measurements from both you and Jason.  I will be carving a matched pair of bird’s-eye maple paddles as a wedding gift.”

I first met Lincoln in 1994 when I was planning to restore my first wood-canvas canoe.  I needed to know whether or not a 16’ canoe could be moved into and out of the basement of our house.  Since I didn’t have a canoe yet, I asked my friend Ron if he knew anyone who owned one.  Ron came to my house with Lincoln and his canoe.  It was a big old fiberglass canoe that weighed a ton.  However, it served my purpose and in short order I knew that I could indeed get a canoe into my basement.  Both Ron and Lincoln remarked on my planning.  They both said they would have fixed the canoe and then tried to fit it into the basement.

The next summer – 1995 – Christy and I were going crazy with the preparations for our own wedding.  We had become good friends with Lincoln and Leslie, so we were not surprised when Leslie suggested that the four of us take a break from the mayhem.  She suggested that we take the canoes down the river.  Lincoln knew a good section to do and so a date was picked and we made arrangements to meet them at the appointed time – us with our canoe and them with theirs.

Christy and I loaded up our canoe and headed a few kilometers out of town to the put-in site.  Grand Forks is blessed with both the Kettle River and the Granby River.  They each have their own character and are well used by both canoeists and kayakers throughout the spring and early summer.  We turned off the road to the put-in and were greeted with a scene of chaos.  Half-a-dozen vehicles were parked and a dozen people were madly unloading boats and sorting out assorted paddles, PFD’s and the like.  As we got out of our car, Leslie came up to us.  The look on her face told us that this was not what she had in mind.

“I’m so sorry.  I wanted a quiet afternoon on the river – just you and us.  But, Lincoln didn’t want a good day on the river to go to waste, so he invited a few people from the kayak club to come along.”

We assured her it was fine – the more the merrier.  However, as we got the canoe off the car, Christy and I looked at each other and gave a collective sigh.  We were really looking forward to a quiet afternoon on the river with Leslie and Lincoln to chat and connect with them as friends.  Over the years we have come to accept the fact that Lincoln is not one to complicate things with conversation while Leslie cares for her friends and infuses every encounter with warmth and attention.

When I first mentioned the idea of a matched pair of custom-fitted bird’s-eye maple paddles for Sarah and Jason’s wedding, Leslie’s eyes welled up and she gave me a big hug.  Lincoln seemed a little deflated.

“They don’t even have a canoe.  Maybe the paddles can stay here until they get one.”

Leslie glared at him and made it clear that she was sure they would be getting a canoe soon.  I left that conversation alone and returned home to draw up my ideas for the paddles.  I wanted to carve traditional paddles for them.  That meant that the blades would be narrow.  Since this would be a matched pair of paddles for a husband a wife, I referred to a few books for ideas.  What I came up with for Jason was an otter-tail shape for the blade that was 4½” wide.  Sarah’s has a sleeker shape fashioned on lines shown in the book Canoe Paddles: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own by Graham Warren and David Gidmark.  Her paddle blade is 4” wide.

To determine the shaft length for each paddle, I had them each hold a 4’ piece of dowelling as though it was a paddle.  The natural placement of their hands gave me an idea of the shaft length.  When they held the dowel over their head, their arms formed right-angles at the elbows.  Jason’s paddle has a 30½” shaft and a total length of 62½”.  Meanwhile, Sarah’s paddle has a 24” shaft and a total length of 55”.  When Sarah and Jason stand up, the paddles fit nicely from the ground to the base of their chin.  In most canoes, the shaft length will correspond to the distance from the water-line to their chin.

Christy and I walked the block from our house to Leslie and Lincoln’s backyard where the wedding reception was being held.  Christy had wrapped a big gold bow around the paddles.  As we walked into the garden, Jason turned and saw the paddles.

“No Way!  You didn’t carve them in two days!”

Sarah and Jason are a matched pair at their wedding on May 16, 2009. They were delighted with their matched pair of custom-carved bird's-eye maple paddles.

I could still feel the vibrations from the random-orbital sander tingling in my hands.  It was non-stop work to have them ready on time, but here they were – all sanded, stained and oiled.  I polished the wood down to a satin finish with 600-grit sandpaper.  Sarah ran her hands over the paddle.  For a moment I thought it would be nice to be that paddle for a while.

Sarah looked at Jason with a sly wink as she continued to caress the paddle, “I think I might just have to sleep with this paddle tonight.”

Check out Kettle River Canoes at http://www.canoeshop.ca