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HISTORY
Canadian canoe is the designation often used for a canoe, just like
pingpong is often used as the nickname for table tennis. This
practice is the result of misinterpretations during the development
of the sport of canoeing, where the kayak was often seen as the
canoe, and an open touring canoe was called 'Canadian canoe' or 'canadian'
then. This naming came from the so called "Canadian style" canoe
from Canada, the then only 'approved' open canoe model by the
American Canoe Association (ACA), as opposed to the Wood & Canvas
canoe from Maine in the United States, that was not recognized by
the ACA until 1934. For the Canoe Associations at the time of around
1880, a canoe was a decked, double-ended boat, propelled with a
double-blade paddle or sailed. The open canoes of that time were
often identified as 'Peterborough' or 'Rice Lake' canoes, from the
locations where early cedar-strip boats were first made, thus
'Canadian' canoes. In America, the canoe lost its qualifying prefix
'Canadian' not long afterwards and canoes were simply called
'canoes' (open or decked). In the United Kingdom and some other
European countries though, people were not aware of these
discrepancies and, also because they saw kayaks as canoes, they kept
calling canoes 'Canadian canoes' — even the decked whitewater
canoes. This has contributed much to the confusion about canoes and
kayaks, also because the byname 'Canadian' is not used consistently
but mainly for touring, whitewater and racing canoes.
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