Not so long ago, someone commented on my blog and asked me to re-post a short essay I wrote about canoing here; As they were polite, I’m duly obliging, here it is James.

Canoeing.

You talk to people
about canoeing, at least people already heavily involved in whitewater
and they tend to do one of three things: assume you mean kayaking,
realise that you’re talking about whitewater canoeing and assume that
you’re obviously some sort of god (nothing could be further from the
truth) or take a very negative stance.

Of these, the first I can do nothing about; it’s all the fault of
the man that wrote “1000 miles in the Rob Roy canoe” just over 100
years ago now, It’s the second and third which aim to address.

There is some sort of assumption that whitewater canoeing is somehow
harder than kayaking, to my mind it isn’t, just different coming to a
canoe from a kayak makes the canoe seem difficult merely because it
doesn’t respond as you expect. Equally coming back to a kayak after
several months of paddling a canoe exclusively can feel equally
frustrating, being a c1 paddler is independent of the majority of
factors that dictate technical ability. A significant portion of your
ability to run harder whitewater is in confidence, understanding the
water and quick decision-making than your ability to actually paddle
your chosen craft making it somewhat craft independent, assuming you’ve
taken the time to round off your basic skills in the particular craft
you elect to paddle their capabilities are essentially equal.

That addresses both stances to some extent, the latter requires some
elaboration however; as the camp which is negative has a number of
subdivisions: the “I don’t see the point” brigade, the people who are
unaware of the capabilities of C1 and consider it inferior, and the
people who object to you being at all different because it doesn’t fit
their worldview.

To try and address the above camps;
I don’t entirely know that I
can prove a point to whitewater canoeing over whitewater kayaking to
the people that don’t see the point, I can only say that they would
also struggle to justify the point of whitewater kayaking to someone
who didn’t see the point of that beyond the fact that it’s enjoyable to
them.
The people who are unaware of the capabilities of a canoe often overlap
with the people who object because it’s different making a little
harder to address, what I will say is that in the hands of someone with
the right level of technical ability a canoe is capable of practically
everything a kayak is (with the exception of making some of the tougher
attainments and other moves requiring a constant application of power
in a given direction, it is often worth noting that a fit C1 paddler
will still be able to make moves that unfit kayakers cannot). The
notable difference being that for every canoeist at a given skill level
there will be many more kayakers, when you start to look at the
bleeding edge of whitewater paddling there aren’t many paddlers at all,
making people like Louie, Dooley, Paul Danks, James Weir, Stephan
Pastch and Brian Miller seem particularly exceptional. It isn’t that a
given canoe is incapable of everything that an equivalent kayak is,
simply that there are far fewer paddlers skilful enough to make the
boat perform that well.

The people who object simply because it’s different I have little
time whether it’s because they genuinely can’t cope with seeing a
slightly taller one bladed figure, out of some sort of misguided
machismo making them feel the need to preserve a perception that what
they’re doing is the best, or some other altogether less predictable
reason I’m not particularly bothered, just remember no one is asking
for your opinion on what they should paddle or how.