March 8, 2009. Western Head, N.S. Paddles.

Dan Peacock makes paddles. Of course he has a day job too, working for Eastlink, the communications company, but in his spare time, he makes paddles. He makes beautiful paddles. When we first went to see the paddles, he was asking us lots of questions about what we expect to be doing with the paddles, such as "will you be canoeing down or up rivers? or will you take full day trips with the canoe?". We of course have no idea what we are going to do with these paddles. We just knew that we commissioned a most wonderful canoe and now we must have paddles. So we hedged and asked many many questions. We asked about the different woods and how he made the handles and the type of glue. And then we began to choose the paddles. He makes these paddles from scratch, specifically for us, so he wants to be sure we will be satisfied with our paddles. We were very careful with out choices. We selected six paddles in all, two shot paddles for the children and two with thin blades and two with wider blades. When we had finally completed out task and paid him a deposit, he complimented us on our choice of paddles, both for their function as well as their beauty. Finally, we confessed to Dan. Both Ken and I were making our choices of the paddles on the basis of how pretty the paddles looked, rather than their function. For instance, we have paddles made of maple with mahogany and we have paddles made of birch and walnut. His wife understood and laughed. Dan just looked puzzled and probably thinks we are slightly daft.

This year of 2009 has been designated in their family as 'The Year the Wife Canoes'. Dan is an expert and his wife Dorothy likes to canoe but does not go out for weeks at a time with the rivers and lakes with just the canoe and some supplies. Dan is determined to be sure that his wife is competent too. They have two children, who both canoe, especially the ten year old boy who is intellectually challenged. Their daughter is in love with horses. This year, Dan hopes to canoe in all the lakes of Nova Scotia, all 223 of them, and he expects to teach his wife. She just laughs and rolls her eyes. I do not know why it pleases me so much to find this level of competence in this little house on a country road. Dan makes these most wonderful paddles, just from a piece of a wood. He is so pleased with his product and is always trying new ideas. It is very impressive to me and I love to see these good folks in action. When you come to the cottage her, you will now have several choices of paddles when you go out for a canoe ride. Of course, every paddle is beautiful, because we chose them well. We picked up all paddles today
and you will find them stored in our garage.