Make Your Own Canoe Pole

Our recommendation is to use MSR 2X6-12 feet long; available from any truss factory or roofing company.

• Rip the 2×6 in square blanks; therefore, each board will make 3 poles.
• From square cut blanks, using a table saw, cut the corners off with the end resultof three (3) 12 foot long octagons.
• From each end of the pole, mark each foot of the pole blanks (circumscribe the pole at each foot starting the measurement from the end of the pole).
• Clamp a blank in a bench vice.
• Using a hand plane, take one of the octagon edges off in the first foot with 6-9 plane strokes.
• Do the same with the seven (7) remaining edges in the first foot by successively rotating and clamping the pole. Be sure to count your strokes as this is how you keep the pole straight while tapering it.
• When you’re finished with the 1st foot of the pole, the section should be round.
• Move to the next foot and do the same, but continue each plane stroke to the end of the pole.
• Repeat the process for 5 feet, then reverse the blank and repeat the process from the other end of the pole (another 5 feet).
• Finally, simply take the edges off the centre part of the pole (marked with X’s) so that it is round.

You should now have a 12 foot double-tapered pole.

If you wish to use it without shoes, simply sand smooth, treat with Thompson’s Water Seal or some other preferred wood treatment.

Store vertically until you are ready to try poling!

Stand tall with a big stick and keep the open side up!

Shoeing a Pole

Recommendation: Use a pipe and a lag bolt.

The simplest & least expensive pipe is to use a shower curtain rod, cutting pipe lengths to 1-2 inches to be fixed to end of the tapered pole.

• Mark a circle on the end of your pole about 2.5 inches from the end.
• Saw into the pole all the way around then peel or rasp off enough wood so that the pipe will slide on the end of the pole as a collar.
• Apply epoxy resin to the pole end.
• Slide on the collar; then dimple the pipe in the middle using a hammer and nail set or spike; 3 – 4 dimples around the middle should be enough to hold the pipe in place while the epoxy dries.
• After the epoxy has dried, drill into the end of the pole with a bit that is about 1/16 smaller than the lag bolt you are using (3/8 lag bolts seem to work well). Make sure to go as deep as you plan to insert the lag bolt.
• Coat the bolt with epoxy, screw it into the hole and let dry.
• Cut the head off the bolt, leaving 1.5 – 2 inches sticking out from the collar and pole end.
• Repeat on the other end.

Your pole is shod!

Stand tall – open side up!

Maine Setting Pole

With land-owner permission, select a straight, standing black spruce of 3 – 5 inches (convert to metric) at the butt and 13 – 15 feet of usable trunk. A Maine setting pole has a single taper where the larger butt end makes contact with the waterway bottom.

Such a pole can be effective for upstream travel but less effective for downstream travel.

• Either girdle and allow to die on the stump (which promotes natural drying) or cut immediately and stand to dry peel with a draw knife, spud or crooked knife.
• Straighten and smooth with a plane while maintaining basic tree trunk taper.
• Apply a shoe on the butt end by using a pipe and spike (as a double tapered pole) or buy and install a commercially made setting pole shoe.
• Coat the pole with wood preservative.

Prepared by: Kevin Silliker