For camping, the Discovery Series from Olde Town is great. Awesome capacity and stability. A Kayak style paddle works for many of us, but more for the rear seat. Front seat needs to produce horsepower. Good technique with a traditional canoe paddle in the front seat works best for me.

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Hornbeck makes a nice light boat.

Ultra Light Custom Canoe made in the Adirondack Mountains

Wear a good PFD and some waterproof bags and you will be fine.

I would love to have this 1920's Acme folding!
Acme Folding Boat Miamisburg Ohio

According to the US Coast Guard, canoes and kayaks are not required to have flotation requirements whereas rowboats do. Regardless, I would highly recommend having one with flotation if overturned.

Didn't know that but I would never go out w/o a PFD, especially in the spring when the water is downright cold back east.

Canada's greatest aluminum crimefighter.


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Here's one of my favorite pics of canoeing in the Adirondacks of NY.
Canoes to me are useful and fun on small waters and lakes and are easy to handle with a little instruction and practice. We had a Michicraft aluminum canoe for 30+ years, wide and stable, the kids used to try to flip it and it took effort. Alone on a windy day, navigation is possible using a concrete block or rock in the bow as a counterbalance to hold it down so the wind doesn't catch it like a sail.

I bought one of these last spring.
It comes as a double or a single, built in holders for your poles, flat bottom, and so stable you can stand up in it.
It inflates in about 5 minutes and deflates in about the same.
REI puts them on sale in the spring.

Columbia

If you find yourself alone on a windy lake:
1). Sit in the front facing backwards.
The weight and propulsion will be more in the center.

2). If very very windy, sit in the front.
The tail will catch the wind but you will have solid FWD.

Sweet baby Jesus, it's just a canoe. Everyone who has ever been in a canoe started as a beginner. I've canoed fast rivers and windy lakes. Will you tip over? Probably. That's part of the learning curve. Not the end of the world. You will gain experience.

You know the main difference between a canoe and a Canuck?

A canoe will tip. (Ba-dum-bump!) :D

You're afraid of canoes because they suck. Unstable, wind sensitive, slow, easy to swamp, hard to reenter.

Give me a ocean kayak with a proper rudder. I've launched kayaks in surf big enough to surf board on, paddled 10 miles offshore in big swells, landed through crashing waves, with no fear.

A canoe on a mildly choppy lake scares me to death.

Okay, I may be a wuss.

I'd get something like
http://feathercraft.com/kayaks/wisper-xp/
or better yet
http://feathercraft.com/kayaks/klondike/

When I was 16, buddy and I were out on the lake in a 16 foot fiberglass canoe.
The local spoiled little puke spit our canoe in half .
Hit it going wide open, he had a 16 ft runabout with a 90 horse motor.
The driver was looking behind, laughing at another canoe that he had swamped.
My buddy didn't surface for quite a while, when he did he was bleeding profusely.
The little puke driver got away scott-free. Important local family, and all .....
He killed my little sis's friend, on the lake, the very next year. Horseplay, once again.

Does that help? :)

I'm nervous in them too. I don't mind canoeing on a small river, but I can not imagine myself in a canoe in the middle of a lake on a windy day.

Having sex in a canoe is like drinking bud light.

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Hahaha

That joke is like a 20 year old horse with a limp.

It's so nice to go out and relax, feel the breeze, and just watch the sunset.













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Put it this way...Cliff is the only guy I know who tried to sue the city because they built the sidewalks to close to his azz! :D