What "is" a Canoe?

[Glenn MacGrady]

Given that we're a site dedicated to canoes, you'd think it's obvious what canoes "are". That's true for the most part, but there's ambiguity at the margins. For example:

Why is this a 24 foot square back boat a (Nor-West) "canoe" instead of a "power boat"?



Why are this Perception Gyramax and Kruger Sea Wind "canoes" instead of "kayaks"?





Why are this Hawaiian voyager "canoe" and Pacific Northwest Indian "canoe" not called "sailboats"?





The Wooden CANOE Heritage Association also seems a bit ambiguous on this definitional matter, as they have separate forums for Adirondack Guideboats and for Miscellaneous Small Craft, and have classifieds ads for wooden guideboats and kayaks.

Whatever . . . can someone define what a canoe actually "IS"? Will Noah Webster help?

 

[Benson Gray]

The definition at the link below seems to work.

1. "any of various slender, open boats, tapering to a point at both ends, propelled by paddles or sometimes sails and traditionally formed of light framework covered with bark, skins, or canvas, or formed from a dug-out or burned-out log or logs, and now usually made of aluminum, fiberglass, etc.
2. any of various small, primitive light boats."

The WCHA adopted Adirondack Guideboats and Miscellaneous Small Craft because they are similar and didn't have a forum of their own. The sailboats known as International Class Canoes and Chesapeake Bay log canoes don't look like traditional canoes either. The definition above is broad enough that almost any small craft can be considered a canoe. This seems to fall in the category of 'I know it when I see it.'

Benson

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/canoe

 

[yellowcanoe]

and open to so much interpretation worthy of a campfire discussion. Sorry the combo of weather and a local watershed protection association meeting precluded our attendance at Assembly.

 

[yknpdlr]

This brings to mind the phrase "I know it when I see it", a colloquial expression by which a speaker attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly defined parameters. First made famous by a Supreme Court Justice in the case of obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio.

For me personally, a canoe is propelled and maneuvered by use of a single blade paddle, not withstanding certain smaller (but not all) within the "pack canoe" class such as the smallest of the Hornbecks, that because of its unique seating configuration is generally easier to propel using a double "kayak paddle" instead of a single canoe paddle, at the expense of fine control maneuverability. Even a guideboat uses a single blade "sneak paddle" when operated in tandem sport mode.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Even a guideboat uses a single blade "sneak paddle" when operated in tandem sport mode.

That's interesting. I've never been in a guideboat nor probably ever seen one paddled in tandem sport mode. What is the paddler doing vs. the rower? What are their differential propulsion tasks?

 

[Black_Fly]

So does that mean we can post kayak pictures if we call them canoes?

 

[yknpdlr]

That's interesting. I've never been in a guideboat nor probably ever seen one paddled in tandem sport mode. What is the paddler doing vs. the rower? What are their differential propulsion tasks?

In guideboat terminology, the "sport" was the client who hired the professional guide. The guide, facing rearward, used a set of double oars to propel the guideboat, while the sport used a single blade paddle (the sneak) while sitting facing forward in the stern to assist with forward motion, possibly helping with steering as well, and if experienced enough, used the paddle to silently "sneak" the boat up on game without the noise making and flashing of the oars.

 

[yellowcanoe]

So does that mean we can post kayak pictures if we call them canoes?

Do you want a squadron of canoeists to jump on your back?
How is rehab going? Look at Pete Blancs recent antique video and ...are they canoes or kayaks?

A blast from the past

Here is a video covering the very early days of whitewater slalom and downriver racing in the US. The footage is shot on the Nantahala River and showcases some very old school kayaks, canoes, C1s and paddling gear.

www.canoetripping.net

 

[yellowcanoe]

In guideboat terminology, the "sport" was the client who hired the professional guide. The guide, facing rearward, used a set of double oars to propel the guideboat, while the sport used a single blade paddle sitting facing forward in the stern to assist with forward motion, possibly helping with steering as well, and if experienced enough, used the paddle to silently "sneak" the boat up on game without the noise making and flashing of the oars.

I would at my age like to be the "sport"

 

[Black_Fly]

YC - No back jumping. Not rehabbing yet. Procedure yesterday. My L3 is now full of fresh concrete. My goal is to be flipping canoes by mid-September. Might even sneak in a non-portage trip to BW when the leaves change...maybe. Hope you are well and thanks for asking.

 

[memaquay]

For me, it stops being a canoe when propelled by a double blade. I know that is curmudgeonly and cantankerous, and full of all kinds of logical holes, but someone has to be that guy. For me, I guess the canoe is defined by the act of canoeing. So canoes that look like kayaks can be canoes when single sticked. Canoes that are canoes become kayaks when double bladed.

I recently joined a facebook group called "Solo Canoeist". It's got 22,000 members, and many of them are double bladers. It seems to be the way of the future, and I fear single stick skills will fall to the wayside.

I know some of you will wonder how I can make such a harsh judgement when I am often motoring around in freighter canoes. Well, those freighter are often paddled, canoe style as well, when not under motorized propulsion. The 17 footer paddles quite nicely, the 20 footer is more of a struggle, but it still paddles with two folks who know how to use single sticks.

 

[yknpdlr]

For me, it stops being a canoe when propelled by a double blade.

i paddle a 10.5' Hornbeck with a double blade due to the low bottom seat configuration. I concede to that because it is my true "pack" canoe that I carry far off trail to remote Adirondack ponds. I also have a Placidboat Rapidfire that is sold as a pack canoe meant to be paddled with a double blade. I paddle my Rapidfire canoe 99.9% of the time using a single blade canoe paddle by paddling on the same side an indefinite number of strokes without switching sides rather than hit and switch as I do in a C2 or larger when team racing.

I have raced my Rapidifre boat in the Adirondack 90 mile race a few times. The race rules require and restrict that boat class (solo-recreational) to only use a double blade kayak paddle, so I concede in that race case also. True enough, the double blade is faster than the single for racing, but in doing so I give up the maneuver control charateristic of a canoe I enjoy with a single blade. I recently took possession of a new Swift Cruiser with a custom high mounted seat better positioned for single blade paddling. I am considering ordering a smaller PB Shadow with a high custom mounted seat as well.

 

[MyKneesHurt]

I will admit that I tried a double blade this summer. It squelched through the water with exactly the same cringing, lushing slurps as a large dog licking his privates in the middle of the night. The boat became capable of two settings: going forward in a straight line; or sitting still. A quarter-mile was enough to tell me a 2-blade wasn't for me.
As to what a canoe is, I delight in the semantic argument but sneer at the practical argument. it can't just be 'single-paddle-propelled open boat', because then an umiak is a canoe, and a poled birch-bark boat ceases to be one. A curragh or a bullboat would be a canoe, and they are emphatically not. I'm relatively young, but full of curmudgeonly cantanker, and I don't even like decked canoes. I do think of Adney's 'kayak-form' canoes of the Northwest river systems, and I'm happy to throw words like "kay-oe" around. Thinking about it, I don't even say "dugout canoe", but simply "dugout"; and I would never in life have guessed those two full-decked boats pictured in the OP are canoes, not kayaks.

 

[lowangle al]

I don't think it matters how you propel the boat. If you sit on the floor and the boat is covered with a deck it's a kayak. If it's covered with a deck and you kneel or sit on an elevated seat it's a canoe.

In the case of the freighters I think they are constructed like a canoe and the length to width ratio makes them more narrow than a row boat or dingy.

I had been thinking about "what makes it a canoe" recently when the Polynesian sailing canoe the Hokulea made the news when it started on its record breaking 40,000 mile tour of the Pacific. At the time I just thought that if the people that make and use the boat call it a canoe, that's good enough for me, but after reading the definition that Benson posted it would fall into the dug out category. Even though it has two hulls, they are both long a narrow and canoe like..

I also think that if other small canoe like craft are known by another name, like an Adk. guide boat or an umiak, they should stick with that and not be lumped together with canoes.

 

[Foxyotter]

All I know is that I know canoe porn when I see it. You all can stroke it, paddle it, motor it, strap it, tie it or what ever floats your canoe. To each their own.

 

[JohnSand]

If using a double paddle makes my canoes kayaks, do I now own twice as many? I like that, but my wife won't!

 

[Rippy]

For me, it stops being a canoe when propelled by a double blade. I know that is curmudgeonly and cantankerous, and full of all kinds of logical holes, but someone has to be that guy. For me, I guess the canoe is defined by the act of canoeing. So canoes that look like kayaks can be canoes when single sticked. Canoes that are canoes become kayaks when double bladed.

I recently joined a facebook group called "Solo Canoeist". It's got 22,000 members, and many of them are double bladers. It seems to be the way of the future, and I fear single stick skills will fall to the wayside.

I know some of you will wonder how I can make such a harsh judgement when I am often motoring around in freighter canoes. Well, those freighter are often paddled, canoe style as well, when not under motorized propulsion. The 17 footer paddles quite nicely, the 20 footer is more of a struggle, but it still paddles with two folks who know how to use single sticks.

Hey Mem,,,,fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. Some of us gotta be
curmudgeonly. Unless I'm pushed into a corner I'm a live and let live curmudgeon. In my little world there are things that might look like a canoe to the average Joe that don't pass the muster. I'm speaking of those things that are pointy on both ends but were designed first and foremost to be stacked one inside another for shipping. Found in box stores they typically weigh 95 lbs and are 15' long and 38" wide with plastic seats with cup holders molded in.

PS in my little world when shopping for a new canoe, tandem canoes have portage yokes. No yoke = wanna be canoe. Exception would be a classic WC canoe for cottage use.

 

[paddler123]

According to Wiktionary, the word "canoe" is a Caribbean word and originally applied to dugout canoes.

Adopted in 16th century from Spanish canoa, from Taíno *kanowa (“dugout canoe”) (compare Arawak kanoa (“canoe”), Wayuu anuwa, anua (“boat, canoe”)), from Proto-Arawak *kanawa.

 

[tketcham]

For me, I guess the canoe is defined by the act of canoeing.

That's my take on it. A canoeist is a paddler using a single blade paddle and a kayaker is a paddler using a double blade paddle, regardless of the craft they're in. I owned a decked sea canoe that for all practical purposes was a sea kayak with an oversized cockpit opening. I always paddled it with a bent shaft paddle and could easily keep up with sea kayakers on long trips on the Columbia River. I tried using a double blade paddle (and thus my canoe became a kayak) but I didn't like the paddling dynamics of the double blade over the course of a day. I found it more relaxing to use the sit-and-switch technique.

As an aside, I find it interesting that years ago a single blade paddle was known as a canoe paddle and a double blade paddle was known as a kayak paddle. Pack "canoes" seem to have pushed us into the single/double paradigm.

 

[kbobb]

Olympic competition (kneeling, flat water sprint, or whitewater slalom) defines a canoe as being propelled by a single blade paddle and kayak propelled by a double blade paddle.
If you plan to compete this distinction is important. For me there are more important things to worry about. Since I am not in the olympics I can paddle my canoe with both single and double blades and I have a lot of fun with both. I know its a canoe cause it says so right on the side - Mad River CANOE. Hemlock CANOE. ooops - my Minn 2 just says Wenonah, so I'm not sure what kind of boat that is