Taigan's Fritz Orr Talks to Town & Country: ABOVE BOARD
June 2011- In Fritz Orr’s handcrafted wooden paddles, American nostalgia meets American craftsmanship.
Let’s start with the obvious. Yes, his name is Orr. And, yes, he designs canoe paddles.
Fritz Orr, a former member of the U.S. Canoe and Kayak team, grew up around the lakes of rural North Carolina. His family owned and operated several summer camps, including Camp Merrie-Woode in the Cashiers Highlands. “I always loved boats and would fiddle with them at camp,” Orr says. But it wasn’t until he started racing in the late 1970s and ’80s that he began to make his own wood paddles. The reason was simple: Popular paddle designs at the time used carbon fiber, an incredibly light but extremely stiff material that strained Orr’s shoulders.
For design inspiration, he looked to the past. “People have been using wooden paddles for 5,000 years,” Orr says. “When Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean, the 100-foot canoe and paddle was the primary mode of transportation for North and South America. It’s hard to let go of that history. Plus, I love the idea of using something I sculpted myself.”
After experimenting with different techniques, Orr began to design for his friends, fellow racers, and amateur hobbyists. Today the 54-year-old handcrafts 15 to 20 paddles a month and manages every step of their design and creation, from choosing the wood (he prefers musical instrument-grade black walnut, aspen, bird’s-eye maple, mahogany, purpleheart, and ebony, which have better tone, texture, and pattern than other woods) to approving the designs that are inlaid in or laminated onto the hand-turned blades.
“I don’t just buy three kinds of wood and produce 2,000 paddles,” he says. “Each one is different.” It’s not surprising, then, that although all Fritz Orr paddles are built to balance on two fingers and be used in water, the fastest-growing market for them is customers nostalgic for their summer camp days. They buy Orr’s paddles not to use but to display over their fireplaces.
Not that Orr minds. “I’m an artist,” he says. “I am humbled by the canoe. I am inspired by it daily.” As are his many collectors. From $337; 4-to-6-week lead time, custom orders available; taigan.com WHITNEY ROBINSON
