Gearlab Outdoors | Interview with the Kayaking Champion Maligiaq Padilla

This is an excellent example of how material culture and technology improves through “cultural appropriation”.  Taiwanese founder of Gearlab Chung-Shih collaborated with Maligiaq to produce carbon fiber Greenland paddles that are superior to the original. Check out the carbon fiber norsaq!

"National Kayaking champion Maligiaq Padilla came to Taiwan and met with Gearlab’s founder Chung-Shih. Before the meeting, Maligiaq heard that there’s a group of people who use Greenland paddle in such small island far from Greenland and that inspired him to find out more about it. During his visit, we got to know more about the history of Greenland paddling and the wisdom in it. Gearlab certainly extracts the best part and combines with modern technology. That is how our paddles are born, with humanity and technology."