Contact / About Us

I have a love for kayaking and I made my hobby of making traditional Greenland Paddles into a small part-time business.  I learned about wood working back in the old days when Chicago public schools offered woodshop for the boys and home economic for the girls. I have always been a hands-on kind of guy, laying my own wood floors, finishing my own basement, and now crafting my own unique custom traditional Greenland Kayak Paddles. 

I grew up in the city of Chicago learning how to swim in grade school during the summers at the local high school’s and park district’s pool.  I participated all four years on the swim team when I got to high school and that was the beginning of my love of the water.  Then in college at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale I enrolled in a sailing class, went fishing after class, and just enjoyed the beautiful outdoors that Southern Illinois offered.  Yet my introduction to kayaking came much later in life while traveling from Burbank California back to Chicago when I purchased a kayaking magazine at the airport.  Immediately, I took up the challenge and enrolled at the University of Chicago over the winter and took some kayaking classes coordinated by a local kayaking club.  The rest as they say is history. Today I attend at least one symposium regularly and I am on the board of directors for the Chicago Area Sea Kayakers Association. I am also a member of the West Coast Michigan Kayakers Association, and I participate in a local kayak Meet-Up.  

I have been an avid boater for many years hence the nick name “Captain Mike” but unlike my boat, kayaking enables me to go place I could never venture. What takes me 15 minutes to travel in my boat now takes me 2 hours in my kayak but it is a different kind of ride; it is like being on a whole new waterway.  Although I love riding on my boat, boating is more about the destination whereas kayaking is all about the journey.  When I am kayaking I feel like an explorer discovering a new land.  I see birds, turtles, interesting plants I never bothered to look at while speeding in my boat.  When I drive in my car I now pay attention to the many streams I pass over wondering where they lead. My motto still stands, “I would rather be lost at sea, than found at home”, yet I can now imagine myself being lost in a kayak.

I thank you for coming to this website and hope that you share in a passion and love for the sport of kayaking as I do.  If you have any questions regarding my products, please contact me.  I can respond quicker sometimes via email rather than by telephone so if I do not answer the phone, please leave a message and I will call you back as soon as possible.

Call me at (708) 752-3556 or email at: michael@greenlandpaddle.info.