Unangan (Aleut) Paddle Orientation Revisited

I already have two posts on how Unangan paddlers held their paddles.  To read them, type paddle orientation into the blogger search box on the upper left side of your screen.
Most recently, I have been having conversations with Rob Macks of Laughing Loon Kayaks and he graciously gave me access to some pictures he took of Unangan paddles when he last visited the Smithsonian Institution. Unfortunately I can't post them without the permission of the Smithsonian so I will resort to photos I have posted before.
I haven't seen any Unangan paddles in person, nor handled them.  Rob has. What he pointed out to me is that the Unangan paddles have looms that are roughly triangular with one of the corners of the triangle lining up with the ridge that runs down the center of one side of the paddle.  The looms are also quite deep, commonly about 1-3/4 inches.  The base of the loom's triangle lines up with the flat side of the blades.  What Rob pointed out is that trying to hold the loom with the ridge of the blades facing backwards is uncomfortable because trying to paddle that way has the ridge digging into your palms.
To test the idea of the uncomfortable loom, I carved a loom section out of a piece of two by four with a dimension of 1-3/4 inch deep and 1-1/4 inch wide and roughly triangular with rounded edges so it became more egg-like than triangular in cross section. 
Well, the loom seems a little more comfortable held as shown in the photo below, but not all that uncomfortable the other way around either.  What might be more of an issue, and I have noticed this with one paddle that I made is that a loom with a 1-3/4 inch by 1-1/4 inch cross section is that a loom with these proportions limits how far you can rotate it in your hands to get the right blade angle for efficient paddling.
I will be making a paddle with a loom that is an accurate replica of the Smithsonian type paddles to test this hypothesis.  The idea is that the triangular loom shape will orient the paddle in a favorable way when held flat side back and an unfavorable way when held ridge side back.  

So here is a photo of an Unangan paddler with his paddle.  He looks like a real paddler and so I would expect that when posing for a picture, he would hold the paddle the way he would hold it for paddling, that is, flat side facing backward. Note that the paddler is holding his paddle where the loom transitions into the blade.

This appears to be where you would be holding that paddle while paddling. If you click on the picture above, you will see that that is where the front paddler is holding his paddle.
None of this is conclusive of course, but I suspect that a lot of the dispute about how Unangan paddlers held their paddles has to do with opinions based on Unangan style paddles that aren't very close replicas of the originals.  How you hold a paddle has a lot to do with what is comfortable for you and that has a lot to do with how the paddle was carved and also with how the blades were carved.  Some fairly subtle variations in construction of both loom and blade can easily bias use of the paddle either ridge or flat side towards the back. And as I noticed with my own Unangan style paddles is that I can use them either flat or ridged side back and both ways work although flat side back typically generates more thrust.
Another thing I noticed while looking at Rob Macks' photos of paddles is that on some of them the ridge on the blade was not sharp but rather about a half inch wide and flat.  This type of paddle looked like the basis for the one with the groove down the spine.
One of the paddles in the Smithsonian was also quite long, 8' 6" according to Rob.  It falls into the category of extra long paddles that Jeffrey Dickrell, historian of Unangan kayaks has reported seeing in some historical photos.
So there you have it.  All in all, I suspect that Unangan paddles varied a bit from place to place and from paddler to paddler.  I also suspect that once Russians pressed Unangan paddlers into hunting sea otters for them, paddle and kayak styles became more homogenized than they were before the arrival of the Russians.

More Unangax^ (Aleut) Paddle Mysteries

Suzawa Ikunori of Japan has shared some pictures of paddles from the Kuril Island of Simushir.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the Aleuts who made these paddles were  probably brought to Simushir by  Russians during the Russian colonial period.
What is unique about these paddles is that the blades have ridges on both faces although the ridge on one face is more distinct than the ridge on the other.  The ridge that is less distinct is on the face of the blade that is normally flat.  
Although it isn't obvious from the photo, Suzawa has pointed out that there is a slight tilt to the axis of the blade in the direction of the more pronounced rib.  That is, the paddle is a bit of a bent shaft paddle. Whether this bend is intentional or a result of use or an accident of storage is not known.  If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see the upward trend of the edge of the blade of the paddle viewed edge on.
In any case, this paddle does nothing to clear up the mystery of how the Aleuts held their paddles.  But I should point out that the loom was egg shaped as in other Aleut paddles.

Aleut Paddle Orientation, Again

I had previously seen this photo of Unangan (Aleut) paddlers in George Dyson's book, Baidarka.  But most recently for the first time, I saw a high resolution version of this photo on David Zimmerly's web site.  And sure enough, the two paddlers whose paddles are showing both are paddling ridged side of the paddle forward.

Same with this group.  They are also both paddling ridge forward.  You can't see the ridge on the back paddle but you can see the elevated part of the loom facing forward.
So, is there a right way and a wrong way to hold an Aleut paddle?  The answer is still no I think, but perhaps we can say that for a cruising stroke, ridge forward and flat side back was the most common orientation. When I paddle with an Aleut paddle, I sometimes switch back and forth between the two orientations because they stress different sets of muscles and I can give one set a rest by switching.