Wednesday, week 3 of the spring 2026 WBS and we’re into the grind of the paddle making process. During the course we make paddles the hard way on purpose; using only hand tools and improvised ways to hold the blank while we’re working it so as to mimic conditions we’d face in the field if we had to make a replacement on the banks of a remote river. The project takes a lot of time and effort to complete, with the upside being we set our baseline for replication on items a person could easily bring with them or store at a remote camp. Our philosophy is to make the first one the hard way to set the baseline, and in the future add as many power tools and specialized vises as you want. This is important because by doing it this way, you will carry with you the skills and mindset needed to complete the process with minimal gear. If the specialized gear is unavailable or stops working, you could still complete the process with only simple hand tools.
But it can be slow. So as instructors we intersperse the process with small crafts and skills in order to break up the monotony, and food to keep morale up. On this day we baked a bunch of sourdough bread in our outdoor oven and made pork barbecue in the homemade Weber Smokey Joe Mini WSM smoker. And it was good and everyone got a lot done and there were smiles at the end of the day.
