Dugouts on Postage Stamps

Many nations have issued postage stamps featuring dugout canoes. There's a whole page of them here.

Hjortspring Boat an Expanded Dugout

Some time ago, comments to my post about the Oceanic "five-part canoe" led to further posts about the Bronze Age boat found in Denmark known as the Hjortspring or Als boat. Basing my posts mainly on Bjorn Landstrom's illustration and description, I stated that Hjortspring was not much like the 5-part dugout of Oceania. Some months later, reader Edwin added a comment to the contrary to my original post about the Oceanic canoe.

Having subsequently read Basil Greenhill's Archaeology of the Boat (discussed here), I found a good detailed illustration of Hjortspring's bow (shown above) which validates Edwin's comments. The bottom is indeed dugout-based, and the ends (labeled "stem piece" here) are quite like the crotch-pieces of Oceanic canoes in function (if you discount the unusual horn-like structures outboard of the crotches, that may be related to an earlier skin-boat ancestor). Where they differ is in the planks. In the Oceanic canoe, the first set of strakes equals the height of the crotches, and occasionally a wash-strake is added to raise the sides. In Hjortspring, the first and second planks together equal the height of the crotch-piece. As is often the case in the five-part canoe, Hjortspring was sewn together.

Paddle Blog

I've lately been reading the blog Paddle Making (and other canoe stuff) by Murat. It makes good reading and great viewing.

Murat, a Toronto-based blogger, makes lovely paddles that sometimes transcend mere functionality and experiment with indigenous and/or historic designs and patterns, often interpreting those influences in modern and creative ways. What's different and refreshing is that many of these "art" paddles are not like the hokey, tacky paddles with paintings of wolves or trout on the blades. I've never seen anyone actually use one of those "illustrated" paddles, and if I did, I'd probably think the less of him. I mean, if you're out in the wilderness, why the hell do you need a picture of wildlife on your paddle? But if I saw someone using one of Murat's creations, I'd only admire it, the same way I might admire a nicely-made bark canoe actually being used.

Murat doesn't confine himself to his own paddles, or to paddles at all, in his blog. He recently did a series of posts on the restoration of an old canvas canoe-pack, and he discusses other topics of interest to canoeists of a traditional or historical bent.

I'm experimenting with a new Amazon Associates feature that makes it easy to insert product links into the body of a blog post. Feel free to comment if you think the Amazon link is intrusive, not a problem, or whatever. Thanks.

Finally, this new Amazon feature seems to have made Blogger's spellchecker disappear. Until I find it again, please forgive typos. Thansk!