It's early spring in Norway. The light is returning as always. That really is quite an energy boost. This year have had early warm temperatures and relatively little snow, so it feels very warm and summery all of a sudden. The interest in kayaking is growing around the country as the skis are stowed away for the season.
Rumors have it that Brooks paddle gear is no longer existing. That is just not true.We've had a great cooporation with Brooks paddle gear since 2006 - nearly 20 years. The company has changed, but they still fathfully deliver high quality, hand made paddle gear. This year we recieved a large preseason order, consisting of Tuiliks, sprayskirts, akulisaq, avataq, pogies, hatch covers and other similar very specialized products from Vancoucer, Canada where it is made.
If you hear people say that Brooks is out of business, please share this information!
The quality speaks for itself, but last year I had a visitor who bought one of the first tuilik I sold back in 2007. The color was originally black, but light grey was more my impression now. Because this guy had not only been rolling, but also paddling thousands of kilometers with his Brooks tuilik over the past 17 years. And surprisingly with a so used garnment, it was still perfectly waterproof and appeared used, but in good condition after 17 years of wear, sun and saltwater!
So, if you consider buying the best quality tuilik this year, please make contact - we have them - all shapes and sizes. And please share this information to those who say that Brooks is out of business :
In 1959, Inuit hunter, Emanuel Kornielsen of Illorsuit, Greenland made a qajaq of wood and sealskin for Scottish anthropology student Ken Taylor. The qajaq was taken to Scotland, where its performance and construction was studied. The scantlings (hull form lines) of Emanuel’s qajaq were transposed into plywood, and later fiberglass, in 1972, as the Valley Anas Acuta. The Anas Acuta is still in production, and it is the granddaddy of ‘modern’ sea kayaks.
Building kayaks is my passion and my full-time occupation. This year, I'll do some volunteer work in the US, doing a kayak build class at Delmarwa Paddler's retreat. As part of this job, we'll be building a replica of the above mentioned qajaq for the QajaqUSA organization. We'll have volunteer students build the kayak, and when finished, it will be in use as part of the qajaqusa fleet so that more people can learn about Inuit qajaq traditions.
Part of the challenge of this project is on one hand we want to get the replica as accurate as possible. On the other, our builders will be fairly new to qajaq building and we have limited time. Today I tried to work around some of those challenges by crafting end pieces for the kayak. These are ready-made, and true to the original. We will "just" need to peg and lash the gunwales to the end pieces, and it will give us a very good starting point, shaping the rest of the qajaq true to the shape and size of the original. If you know the Anas Acuta, you may recognize some of the shape in the picture above.
I could not resist making moose antler end knobs for the qajaq also.
