In recent years there have been a slew of beautiful, ‘artisan’ tools brought to market, from shovels to axes and now Norquay brings some truly gorgeous canoe paddles to us. The hand-painted cherry wood paddles would look as good on your wall as they would slipping into a cool river’s waters. Norquay Co. is a Canadian company, and each paddle is turned from a single piece of cherry, then painted by hand with a graphic band of color at the blade, chevrons and stripes in blue jay, dandelion, forest green and ember, and finished so it can actually be used. Most of them never touch water. They hang in entryways and cabins as a kind of portable Canadiana, which is exactly what the artisan-tool revival of the early 2010s was about, taking an object that had become disposable and making it worth keeping. Via Uncrate:
We have a long-standing weakness for this kind of object. See the Contact Voyaging Company’s canoe paddles, which are almost too beautiful to use, the monocoque paddle canoe, and our love letter to Canada. Our own small collection of well-made things lives in the Moss and Fog Shop.
