What is a canoe?
A: A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both
ends and open on top.
How is it propelled?
A: By one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel
and using a single-bladed paddle.
In British English, the term canoe can also refer to
what?
A: A kayak, while canoes are called Canadian or open canoes to distinguish
them from kayaks.
Canoes were developed by whom?
A: Cultures all over the world, including some designed for use with sails
or outriggers.
Until the mid-19th century, the canoe was an important
means of transport for what?
A: Exploration and trade, and in some places is still used as such,
sometimes with the addition of an outboard motor.
Where the canoe played a key role in history, such as
the Northern United States, Canada, and
New Zealand, it remains what?
A: An important theme in popular culture.
Canoes are now widely used for what?
A: Competition and pleasure, such as racing, whitewater, touring and
camping, freestyle and general recreation.
Canoeing has been part of the Olympics since when?
A: 1936.
The intended use of the canoe dictates it’s what?
A: Hull shape, length, and construction material.
Historically, canoes were dugouts or made of bark on a
wood frame, but construction materials evolved to what?
A: Canvas on a wood frame, then to aluminum.
Most modern canoes are made of what?
A: Molded plastic or composites such as fiberglass or those incorporating
kevlar, or graphite.
The word canoe came into English from what?
A: The Spanish/Portuguese word canoa.
They in turn had adopted the word from what?
A: The Arawakan languages of the Caribbean for a dugout canoe, kanawa.
Many peoples made dugout canoes, by carving out what?
A: A single piece of wood; either a whole trunk, or a slab of trunk from
particularly large trees.
Constructed between 8200 and 7600 BC, and found in the
Netherlands, the Pesse canoe may be what?
A: The oldest known canoe.
Excavations in Denmark reveal the use of dugouts and
paddles during what period?
A: The Ertebølle period, (c. 5300–3950 BC).
One of the oldest canoes in the world is the Dufuna
canoe found where?
A: In Nigeria.
It is the oldest boat to be discovered in Africa, and
the third oldest known where?
A: Worldwide.
Where is the Dufuna canoe currently located?
A: In Damaturu, the Yobe State capital.
Canoes have also played a vital role in the
colonization of the Pre-Columbian Caribbean as they represented the only
possibility of what?
A: Reaching the Caribbean Islands from mainland
South America.
Around 3500 BC ancient Amerindian groups colonized the
first Caribbean Islands using what?
A: Single-hulled canoes.
Some archaeologists doubt that oceanic transportation
would have been possible without the use of what?
A: sails, as winds and currents would have carried the canoes off course.
No historical sources mention Caribbean canoes with
what?
A: Sails.
Native American groups of the north Pacific coast made
dugout canoes in a number of styles for different purposes from what?
A: Western red-cedar or yellow-cedar depending on availability.
Different styles were required for ocean-going vessels
versus what?
A: River boats, and for whale-hunting versus seal-hunting versus
salmon-fishing.
The Kootenai of British Columbia province made
sturgeon-nosed canoes from pine bark, designed to be stable in what?
A: Windy conditions on Kootenay Lake.
Australian Aboriginal people made canoes from what?
A: Hollowed out tree trunks, as well as from tree bark.