Our family trip is in a little less than a month, so I've been making preparations.  This year, I bought a couple of paddles (Grey Owl), one to better fit my son's height, and one because I'm basically retiring paddles that I bought near Algonquin Park in the late 1980's, I believe 1987 or 1988.  That's actually why I'm writing this (stay tuned - there is a question at the end).  Those two paddles are nearing the end of their useful life.  Last year I had to repair splits in the blades of both, and I noticed tonight there's a new one started on one of them.  Still, thirty years - that's outstanding service!  

My wife still likes to use them, but for me, they are heavy, very large-bladed beaver blades with narrow shafts, and during the past few years they've worked on my elbow pretty hard.  The grey owl paddle is much more narrow, the shaft is thicker, and the paddle weighs next to nothing.  Much better on the 53 year old elbow. 

So, tonight I was oiling the paddles. (I prefer paddles from solid wood with an oil finish, generally I use Fornsby's Tung Oil, low gloss).  I saw the fleet down there and thought a photo was in order. 
 

The two on the left are the big cherry paddles I bought around 1987.  They are a pretty good match dimensionally, the second one in is just turned to the side a little.  In the middle is the grey owl (cherry chieftan, it came with a coating of boiled linseed oil, it just felt kind of dry to me, so I tung-oiled it).  The dark one, 4th from the left I found on a lake after a storm about 25 years ago but was rarely used until last year.  Super-light, but the tip was chopped all to death so I cut about an inch off the blade this year.  It is dark because when I first got it, I wood-stained it....whatever.  I put wood hardener on the tip as well years ago because it was pretty soft.  The one on the far right is a very pretty one that I think I got at a garage sale from a neighbor a few years ago. 

The great paddle debate is always what to put on the wood.  I don't like polyurethane, they always end up with bubbles or bumps around the handle or the bottom of the shaft and it makes me nuts, plus they stick to my hand and get blistery.  The grey owl I got for my son is poly-coated, it has a plasticized tip on it and is laminated, so it kind of had to be poly-coated (it is not pictured).  I prefer the Tung-oil because it works in so well and just feels so smooth on the hand.     

Now onto my question (at last!).  I purchased the two big cherry paddles from a gent near Kearney.  We were returning home from a trip where we accessed at Magnetawan or Rain, and he made paddles at his home.  I knew of him because I had seen the place the prior year or somebody mentioned it.  I paid $35 each for those paddles, and I think $10 more for a little rack to hang them from.  He wasn't a young man at the time, but hey I was 22 so everybody looked old to me.  Anyway, here's a close up of his mark. 

I am wondering if anybody knows anything about him.  There was nothing mass-produced or automated about the build of his paddles, they were very much hand-made, and obviously well-made.  You don't get three decades out of very many things, and if it weren't for my elbow I'd continue using them.  As it is, I'm thinking about how to wall-hang them in our family room when my wife does tire of using them (she doesn't know about that idea so don't say anything, I'll need to ease into that conversation.....and then I'll have to do some whining and pouting....)