One of them seem to be a child model as the blade-area is very small and the shaft is shorter than on the other. What confuses me though is that the grip and shaft is way too big for a child.
The other seems to be an ordinary beaver tail.
From what I can tell they are both made with a pine core and laminated spruce on the grip and blade with a worn out varnish finish. I guess the material choice was just because pine and spruce are easy to come by here and it's easier to find long knot-free pieces of pine than spruce.
Since I can't find any sign on either of them they're hard to identify. But there hasn't been a lot of commercial paddles made in Sweden so I made some research. I assumed they are made commercially as the lamination on one of the grips is quite advanced for an amateur without proper tools.
In Swedens digital museum I found photos of very similar paddles made by ABC-fabrikerna which made sports and outdoor gear between 1909 and 1982. The grip lamination seems to be the same as on one of the paddles I got. The spine has the same sharp edge as mine and the grip shape and overall "feel" matches well too.
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| Close up of the grips. I used the lamination on the small one to identify the paddles. |
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| The spine is very sharp on the big paddle. Some of the paddles from ABC-fabrikerna seem to have been made this way. |
Hopefully I get a chance to visit that museum in summer when I work with kayak rental nearby.
One of the paddles had an interesting detail on top of the grip. I'm speculating in if it could either be a rest from a lathe if the shaft was turned, or a hole where a metal piece have been stuck in for balancing the paddle. It looks like a drilled hole with a wooden plug. The other paddle has something similar but smaller.
If you know anything about these paddles please let me know!
While researching these paddles I got some insight into Swedish canoe history. I find it really interesting to see how the skills of canoe building have spread and it gives me a sort of stronger feeling of connection to the Swedish canoe history. As we are not many who build and paddle wooden canoes here anymore.
The man who introduced and started building open canoes in Sweden was Harry Macfie. Who spent over 20 years in Canada as a gold washer, trapper and mining engineer. While there he learned the art of building wood canvas canoes.
He came back to Sweden and 1927 he started building wooden canvas canoes in his workshop at home. His canoes soon became famous as real works of art.
1938 the production was taken over by Mårten Gedda after Macfie sold the rights to ABC-fabrikerna.
ABC-fabrikerna produced hundreds of canvas canoes a year for many years. So when you do find an old Swedish canvas canoe it is almost always a Gedda or in rare cases a Macfie.
Today I only know of 2 people who make and sell canvas canoes. One is my old teacher Bo Weslien who mainly makes his own model called Lom, which is an amazing solo model with maneuverability unlike anything else I paddled. And the other is Magnus Carlson who also works as an outdoor teacher but builds canoes in his free time, mainly Prospectors.
Ove Larsson, another teacher (what's with teachers building canoes?) builds canoes with his 9th grade students and holds weekly canoe and kayak building courses.
