It takes one to know one...
A world-class paddler should know a world-class paddle when he makes one. Judging from the looks, feel, and performance of Don Meany's paddles, he knows his paddles.
Meany of Atikokan, Ontario, has been making paddles for a living since August 1990, but has been making them as a labor of love since 1966.
Calling a Meany paddle a "paddle" is like saying Whistler's famous painting was "a guy's picture of his mom." Meany originals are just that and they are lovely to look at, equally lovely to use.
Don Meany was one of a six-man team that paddled 3,280 miles across Canada in 1967 as part of Canada's Centennial celebration. The team also took a 25-foot canoe down the St. Lawrence River to New York City to promote the Centennial. He once carried six bags of flour totaling 642 pounds for 60 feet in a local weightlifting contest.
He won and got to keep the flour.
He is built like a middleweight Rocky Marciano and gives emphasis to the boxing comparison by short jabs and body movements as he demonstrates his paddling technique. If he did box, he could go 15 rounds with a grizzly bear and win an easy decision.
It takes a strong paddle to withstand the punishment a powerful paddler can give it and Meany's paddles are just that. They are feather light bent-shaft paddles, made of eastern cedar and black ash, ranging in price from $75 to $120 (a kayak paddle is $150).
Meany's XY Company (named for the famed Canadian fur trading outfit founded by Alexander MacKenzie in 1798) is one room of a building also housing a bait shop. It is a cottage industry without even the scope of a cottage--but it's enough for now.
Let the word get out on Meany's lovely paddles, though, and the demand quickly would outstrip Meany's determined efforts to keep up. XY also makes breadboards, small souvenir paddles, filet boards, and three-legged wooden stools. The market, so far, is southern Ontario and the Winnipeg area.
Atikokan is the gateway to the vast lake canoeing area that includes the Quetico Provincial Park and the White Otter Wilderness. Atikokan rested on iron mining until the mines closed a decade ago. Its wood industry is depressed. The town is hurting for business. Tourism is the one constant, but compared to Ely in Minnesota, Atikokan is unknown. There is only one highway to Atikokan, Highway 11, and it doesn't even go into town--a two-mile spur leads you to the little town.
Meany's potential is vast, given exposure, but the idea of success is intimidating. "Ah, geez, you know, I don't want to get too big," he says, his powerful hands gripping a paddle shaft as if it were a potential devil. He is torn between wanting to build every paddle himself (he has no help) and the need to make a living. Meany shapes paddle shafts with a mammoth planer rescued from a local lumber mill by his father, and adapted to put a taper on the shafts.
There is an insert at the bend to give great strength. "Look at this!" Meany exclaims (he exclaims everything with buoyant enthusiasm) as he leans on the paddle with the blade on the floor. The paddle flexes and you expect to hear a sharp crack as it breaks. It doesn't.
"It won't break," he says. Joints are splined with ash for strength and the splines are set with epoxy. The finished paddle is hand-dipped in urethane treated with chemicals to prevent sunlight deterioration.
Meany makes four canoe paddle styles, a kayak paddle, and a boat paddle for those unfortunates whose motor quits far from the dock. Canoe paddle lengths are 48 inches to 52 inches, with eight-inch-wide blades on all but one, a banjo-shaped 12-inch-wide paddle for shallow water.
Meany is putting a recurve in his bent-shaft paddle blades which gives them a cup shape. "Kayakers have used blades like that for a long time," he says. "But I don't know of anyone who's doing it with canoe paddles."
The recurve idea was serendipity--Meany had a paddle leaning against a wall and it warped into the shape he was looking for. He took a look and gave the Canadian bush equivalent of "Eureka!" " I said, 'goddam, that's it!'" he explains.
The paddles are feather light and fit like a custom-made glove. The grip shapes to the hand and the wrist of the shaft is as slender as a ballerina's ankle--and as strong. The cupped blade enters the water soundlessly and lifts at the end of the stroke the same way. Meany chose cedar for the paddles because of its light weight (black ash is a standard canoe paddle wood, but weighs more). The bent-shaft paddle weighs about a pound and a half. There are far lighter paddles, of course. One space-age material paddle weighs in at a half-pound, but it is as ugly as a bucket of hellgrammites. Don Meany's paddles are beautiful in or out of the water.
Meany Original Paddle Costs
Canadian dollar prices are: standard canoe paddle $75; bent-shaft paddle $90; bent-shaft banjo paddle $100; and the top of the line bent-shaft, recurved blade paddle $120. Kayak paddles are $150.
Depending on the exchange rate, the American dollar cost to United States paddlers usually is 10-20 percent less.
For information on XY paddles, write Don Meany, XY Company, Box 249, Atikokan, Ontario, Canada P0T 1C0, phone 807-597-4445.
Copyright (c) 1996 Joel Vance. All rights reserved.