A canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over.
In its human-powered form, the canoe is propelled by the use of paddles, usually by two people. Paddlers face in the direction of travel, either seated on supports in the hull, or kneeling directly upon the hull. Paddling can be contrasted with rowing, where the rowers usually face away from the direction of travel and use mounted oars (though a wide canoe can be fitted with oarlocks and rowed). Paddles may be single-bladed or double-bladed.
The oldest recovered canoe in the world is the canoe of Pesse. According to C14 dating analysis it was constructed somewhere between 8200 and 7600 BC. This canoe is exhibited in the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands.
Sailing canoes are propelled by means of a variety of sailing rigs. Common classes of modern sailing canoes include the 5 m² and the International 10 m² Sailing canoes. The latter is otherwise known as the International Canoe, and is one of the fastest and oldest competitively sailed boat classes in the western world. The log canoe of the Chesapeake Bay is in the modern sense not a canoe at all, though it evolved through the enlargement of dugout canoes.
The actual word we know today as "canoe" originated from the word Keenu meaning "dugout". Another story is that the word canoe comes from the word "canoa", which is said to originally come from the native people in the Caribbean via Columbus to Europe. These dugout canoes, essentially large tree trunks that were shaped and hollowed, were used by the Cribs to travel between islands.
Canoeing began to meet the simple needs of transportation across and along waterways. Canoeing was the primary mode of long-distance transportation at one time throughout much of North, the Amazon Basin, and Polynesia, among other locations. As a method of transportation, canoes have generally been replaced by motorized boats, airplanes, railroads and roads with increasing industrialization, although they remain popular as recreational or sporting watercraft.
The origin of canoeing as a recreation and sport is often attributed to Scottish explorer John Macgregor (1825–1892), who was introduced to canoes on a camping trip in Canada and the USA in 1858. On his return to the United Kingdom, he constructed his own canoes and used them on waterways in various parts of Britain, Europe and the Middle East. Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe" and founded the Royal Canoe Club in 1866.
