PADDLER 12
Words: Ben Wilde. Photos: Ben Wilde, Shelley Richmond, Tony Lucas & Amanda Travis
“ One of the best experiences of my life, I can’ t believe how much we’ ve achieved.”- a participant from our June 2025 boat-building course.
PADDLER 12
CONNECTING PEOPLE WITH
CRAFT
ARCHIPELAGO FOLKSCHOOL
Words: Ben Wilde. Photos: Ben Wilde, Shelley Richmond, Tony Lucas & Amanda Travis
“ One of the best experiences of my life, I can’ t believe how much we’ ve achieved.”- a participant from our June 2025 boat-building course.
It’ s a sunny day on the Isle of Mull, and we’ re on the last day of our last course of 2025. In the Archipelago Folkschool workshop, four brand new wooden canoes and kayaks are getting their final touches before we finish for the day. The open doors look out over our 10-acre croft to Loch Scridain and, in the distance, we can see Ben More, the only Munro on Mull. Tomorrow, our participants, who started the week as novice woodworkers, will load up their new boats and go home; I’ ll be left with a quiet workshop and quite a pile of wood shavings.
THE BOATS
Our courses run from Saturday to Saturday throughout the summer. Participants can choose between three boats: a 15’ 6” Peterborough canoe, a 17’ Prospector canoe or the 17’ Shrike sea kayak. We’ ve chosen these boats to be something that a complete novice can confidently build in just a week, without compromising on the quality of the result. They are light, practical and robust. The shrike is an exceptional sea kayak styled on Greenland boats: tippy at first, but responsive and incredibly capable once a paddler is used to it. The smaller Peterborough canoe is beautiful and an excellent choice for solo adventures or gentle days with two people. At the same time, the larger Prospector is a real workhorse, able to take multiple adults with plenty of gear for a multi-night expedition.
THE COURSE
On the first day of the course, we start with a safety talk and a pile of precut plywood planks, and by the second hour, everyone is busy drilling, glueing and assembling. We build in the stitch and glue style, so our boats are first‘ sewn’ together with cable ties, backed up with masking tape and strategically placed superglue. Once the rough shape is in place, we use epoxy resin to glue the boat together and remove the cable ties. After a day of fibreglass and epoxy work, everyone has something boat-shaped. Then the real woodworking skills begin: we pull out traditional tools like block planes and spoke shaves, and we shape
The workshop. Photo: Shelley Richmond