Greenland Paddles > History > General
Differing opinions on the evolution of the Greenland paddle
The current designs of paddle have evolved gradually, resulting in an increasingly efficient paddling style over the centuries.Opinion differs greatly on the origin of the Greenland paddle, as these exerts from other authors demonstrate
This paddle is the result of thousands of years of ocean paddling
by Adam Bolonsky, author of the blog Sea Kayaking Dot Net
No one knows how old the Greenland paddle is, but it is unlikely to be the thousands of years that are sometimes claimed. The ancestors of today's Greenlanders, known as the Thule culture, moved east from Alaska and northern Canada only about a thousand years ago, about the same time that Eric the Red was settling southwest Greenland. Since a different style of paddle with a longer loom and much shorter, leaf-shaped blades was used until recently by many Inuit west of Greenland, the Greenland paddle may have evolved after the Thule Inuit reached Greenland
by Chuck Holst Making a West Greenland Paddle
In the arctic, Inuits created kayaks - or qajaqs - for the practical purposes of hunting and surviving in their extreme environment. Kayaks leveled the playing field between Greenlanders and their marine mammal neighbors and allowed hunters to move rapidly in pursuit of their ever-moving quarry. In the arctic, before the modern era, if one couldn't hunt down seals or whales, one's family could easily starve. By the same measure, if a paddler could not roll his kayak after tipping over, he could drown or freeze in minutes. Kayaks also allowed Inuit culture to explode throughout Greenland during the Thule period, starting in the 11th century A.D. Within 150 years, these hunters had colonized much of the island by boat, expertly living off the land and the water.
by Rudy Brueggemann Greenland: The Last Great Place
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