Craft Your Own Wooden Paddle

Saturday-Monday, May 25, 26, & 27, 2024
9:00 AM - 12:00 PM each day

Tuition: $108  Materials: $100

Spend a weekend crafting a handmade laminated paddle for your next canoeing adventure! Whether you’re out for a day trip or two weeks, every paddler deserves a paddle they can trust and be proud of.  Over the course of three sessions, learn and complete each step of the paddle building process. Students will learn to make a straight-shaft paddle primarily using basswood, ash, and cedar from a local lumber mil

On Day One, students will choose their paddle shape and design. Blades will be glued together. 

Day Two will encompass shaping of the paddle, largely using hand tools. On Day Three, students will finish shaping and sanding their paddles and receive detailed instructions for varnishing their paddles at home.

About the Instructors: Amos Kolodji and Ryan Stewart: 

Amos Kolodji has been a canoe and winter guide in Northern Minnesota for the past couple years. From these trips a love for making tools was born. Those tools have included paddles bowls knives and yes spoons. Anything that could be used in the woods. Also since these trips were primarily youth trips he has enjoyed sharing the skills he has learned with others. He has previously taught spoon carving and paddle making classes for the UMD Outdoor Program. 

Ryan Stewart worked for the Voyageur Outward Bound school for 10 years, leading canoe trips in the Boundary Waters. During graduate school at UMD he found a lot of joy in spending time at the Duluth Makerspace dabbling in different woodworking projects. He took a paddle making class from the founder of the Duluth Folk School, Tim Bates, and has been an amateur paddle-maker ever since.