Canoeing and Kayaking

• History
• New World Exploration
• Interest by the General Public
• Rise of Recreational Racing
• Nature of the Sports
• Flatwater
• Slalom
• Wildwater
• Marathon
• Canoe polo
• Canoe sailing
• Dragon Boat Racing
• Competition at the Top
• Governing Body
• The Future

Canoeing and kayaking are sports that have a variety of disciplines. Canoeing, in which participants sit or kneel on seats and use single-bladed paddles, is often called “Canadian canoeing” because of Canada’s early promotion of international racing. Kayaking, in which participants use double-bladed paddles, is known as kanusport in some countries and is one of the fastestgrowing activities globally.

History

Canoes and kayaks still show the traditional lines of a Greenland Inuit kayak or Aleutian umiak, a Maori (relating to a Polynesian people native to New Zealand) dugout, or a Native American birch-bark canoe because the designs that allowed paddlers to handle challenging conditions more than five thousand years ago are still relevant today. The traditional lines bring a sense of tradition to paddle sports, appreciated by many modern paddlers regardless of whether they are racing in sleek, modern craft or touring inland waterways in more stable designs.
The peoples of indigenous cultures in North America, Greenland, Scandinavia, and the former Soviet Union used canoes and kayaks. Builders stretched the skins of seal, walrus, or caribou around wooden frames and fastened them with sinew, baleen (a substance found in plates that hang from the upper jaws of baleen whales), bones, or antlers. Later, the presence of metal tools and toggles in North American boat construction indicated contact with European explorers. Ingenious crafters, the Inuit peoples used local materials to develop a variety of functional designs for different conditions, each of which could handle different types of water and activities.
Kayaks (from the Inuit word qayak) were traditionally used to hunt sea animals, including large mammals such as walruses and whales. The kayaks were relatively small, often ranging from 3.6 meters to 4.8 meters, which made them highly maneuverable for chasing prey. Because only men hunted in these societies, the kayak has been associated primarily with men until recent history.
The Inuit umiak (canoe) was a large, undecked skin boat of 7.6 meters to 12.1 meters used to carry large groups of people and heavy loads of cargo. Sometimes also used for hunting, it could be paddled, rowed, or sailed long distances. In Greenland the umiak came to be defined as the women’s boat because women used them when they handled the transport of communities of people to new settlements. The umiak is believed to be the oldest working boat. Rock paintings in Norway from 4000 BCE show illustrations of what some archaeologists conclude to be open skin boats, although this conclusion is controversial. Some experts believe that the elk figureheads etched onto these boats were a link between land and sea and provided a means for humans to entire the lower spirit world. Similar seaworthy craft are also believed to have aided Asian peoples in their migration to the New World.

New World Exploration

When European explorers arrived in the New World during the 1600s, the original dugout or hollowed-out log of native peoples had given way to the birch-bark canoe used by woodland Native Americans. These lighter, more versatile craft enabled explorers to navigate the thousands of miles of inland lakes and rivers, portaging (carrying overland) over land divides to reach new watersheds. As early as the 1700s traders or voyagers penetrated the Canadian wilderness by canoe to send furs back out for shipment to Europe.
Meanwhile, when European explorers reached Polynesia in the 1600s, they discovered that the indigenous fishermen’s skill with dugout canoes and outrigger canoes had allowed them to travel treacherous southern seas for thousands of years. These canoes, built with tools of stone, bone, and coral, were seaworthy enough to complete voyages of more than 3,200 kilometers and to settle Oceania (lands of the central and southern Pacific) in an area of 16 million square kilometers. Double-hull construction created a catamaran-style canoe capable of traveling faster by wind than the English navigator James Cook’s ships.
By the mid-1850s canoeing and kayaking were no longer predominantly a means of subsistence, exploration, or commerce.The earliest recreational paddling was probably races by indigenous people, but the development of canoeing as a more formal activity began around 1850 in the Peterborough region of Ontario, Canada. Craftsmen began to develop plank-style canoes that, by the end of the century, led to an explosion in building boats at more affordable prices, an explosion welcomed by the general public, especially in Great Britain. Then the English barrister John MacGregor brought an oak “canoe” home to Europe from Canada. It was propelled by sail and had a double-bladed paddle similar to the one that kayakers use today. Mac- Gregor recorded his exploits in 1866 in the popular A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe on the Rivers and Lakes of Europe, which fueled an amazing rise in canoe travel for pleasure on both continents.Two years later he toured the eastern Mediterranean, including the Red Sea and the Nile River, to publish Rob Roy on the Jordan.

Interest by the General Public

The popularity of canoeing as an egalitarian (relating to a belief in equality) activity during the late 1800s came at a time when the public interest in recreation in general, including bicycling, was rising. Increasingly industrialized nations could produce sporting goods more cheaply, and Victorian attitudes that treated recreation as a frivolous activity were changing. A change in work weeks created more leisure time, and the rise of tourism around the globe prompted a surge in the poor man’s yacht—a canoe. Guiding “sports” on notable fishing streams in North America and Europe became a cottage industry and encouraged the construction of specialized guide boats. The canoe became a popular vehicle for cruising, camping, and courting, and canoeing was considered an acceptable activity for women.
Colleges in the United States, including such women’s schools as Smith and Wellesley, added canoeing as healthful activity for its students. Not only did general publications such as Outing feature gentlemanly wilderness excursions by canoe, but also women’s periodicals such as Cosmopolitan began to laud the healthenhancing virtues of canoeing. No longer a wilderness endeavor, canoeing expanded in popularity when canoe liveries began renting boats in urban parks by the 1890s.The establishment of local canoe clubs in North America and Europe continued to promote canoeing after the turn of the century, but despite the popularity of races and regattas, no women appeared in American Canoe Association (ACA) race results from that period. Racing was still considered a gentleman’s province, although women were actively involved in the social and recreational activities of the clubs. Not until 1944 did women became full voting members of the national association.

Rise of Recreational Racing

Scholars generally believe that canoe races and regattas predate recorded history and figured prominently in the rituals of ancient cultures.Thanks to John MacGregor modern racing emerged in Great Britain with royal approval in the 1870s, and the military used canoe racing for training throughout the British empire. The American Canoe Association formed in 1880 as an international organization and awarded three honorary memberships to important non-American men such as John MacGregor and Worrington Baden-Powell, the brother of the Boy Scout founder, Robert Baden-Powell. Many ACA members preferred canoe sailing races in decked boats, which looked more like kayaks, rather than the open Canadian canoe.War canoes created a new class of racing in which teams of twenty people or more propelled a large boat, and boys and girls at summer camps quickly embraced this team event. Outrigger canoe racing, initially for men, began in the Hawaiian islands and quickly grew more competitive.
By the turn of the twentieth century racers experimented with the high kneel position of modern “sprint” canoeing for greater leverage against the paddle, and the greater speed made the high kneel the favorite racing position for flatwater despite its instability. After World War I canoeing and kayaking expanded so greatly that the era has been called their “golden age.” Men first competed in sprint canoeing and kayaking as demonstration sports in the Olympics in 1924 in Paris and as full medal events in 1936 in Berlin.The onset of World War II stalled the expansion of international racing, but later manufacturers converted the war technologies of aluminum and fiberglass to create a wealth of new canoe and kayak designs.The post–World War II popularity of whitewater paddling in western and eastern Europe and former Soviet bloc countries contributed to the 1972 entry of slalom racing at the Munich Olympics, but it has appeared in only four subsequent Olympics because of the expense of creating artificial whitewater facilities.
The International Canoe Federation (ICF), the international governing body for paddle sports, recently approved canoe water polo for men and women as an international event. In this event two teams of kayakers in highly maneuverable boats attempt to score goals by passing a ball. National governing bodies within each country develop training and racing opportunities for athletes, often in conjunction with local clubs and private schools that have traditionally supported the development of canoe and kayak racing.


However, other forms of racing continue to emerge, often as non-Olympic events. Marathon racing in kayaks and open canoes tests paddlers on 8-kilometer to multiday courses. Whitewater freestyle or rodeo competitions require paddlers to execute technically difficult moves on holes and waves. Flatwater freestyle is sometimes called “canoe ballet.” In it competitors create a dance choreography set to music. Dragon boat racing, similar to war canoe racing, involves teams of twenty-two people.The colorful nature of competition is a reflection of canoeing’s and kayaking’s enduring popularity among a variety of nations and cultures.

Nature of the Sports

Many variations of canoeing and kayaking have emerged to offer many opportunities to paddle. Some variations have been accepted as Olympic sports, and many countries have local, regional, or national championships that allow many levels of competition.The International Canoe Federation recognizes the following six disciplines.

FLATWATER

In flatwater sprint racing athletes compete head to head on calm bodies of water in 500- and 1,000-meter distances. The events require speed, strength, and endurance. In the Olympics, women’s events were added at London in 1948. However, women compete only in kayaking, not in canoeing, in single, double, and fourwoman kayaks in 500-meter races. The four-woman kayak event was added in 1984.
Olypmic sprint races begin with qualifying heats, and the eight fastest qualifiers advance directly to the semifinals.The rest compete in a second-chance round known as a “repechage” (French for “fishing again”), and the four fastest boats advance to the semifinals. The top six semifinalists take part in the final, whereas the other six take part in a petit-final to determine seventh through twelfth places. Soviet and German women dominated in the early years, whereas more recently a variety of nations has been represented at the winner’s podium.

SLALOM

In the slalom single kayakers negotiate a course of twenty-five hanging poles called “gates” over stretches of whitewater rapids 300 to 600 meters long. Kayakers attempt to negotiate as quickly as possible the gates in designated upstream-facing or downstream-facing positions. Kayakers try to complete the course without accruing penalties from touching gates (two seconds) or missing gates (fifty seconds). Only men compete in the canoe classes, kneeling in decked boats that resemble kayaks. C-1 (singles) and C-2 (doubles) races are challenging because each canoeist uses only one blade.
The challenge is to be fast and clean through the gates in frothy whitewater, creating an exciting spectator sport. Paddlers take two runs down the course, and both runs are added together for the final score.Women paddle the same whitewater stretch as men in kayaking classes, although the gates may be placed differently. Development of a slalom site can be difficult and expensive if a natural whitewater site is unavailable. However, the sport has spread beyond hosts in mountainous countries known for their steep rivers to urban hosts that have invested in artificial whitewater parks. Slalom is an intermittent demonstration sport in the Olympics.

WILDWATER

Wildwater racing is downriver sprinting in either kayaks or decked canoes through whitewater. One of the smallest disciplines, wildwater racing requires that paddlers find the fastest current and negotiate challenging obstacles on a sharply descending river in a race against the clock. The first world championship in France in 1959 featured long races of fifty minutes or more, and the trend through the years has been to shorten distances to enhance spectator interest and reduce the expense of managing long river courses. In 1988 the ICF created two racing classes: classic and sprint. The classic race distances are 4 to 6 kilometers, and the sprint race distances are 500 to 1,000 meters. Men’s classes include K-1, C-1, and C-2; women race in K-1; mixed teams (man-woman) compete in C-2.Wildwater racing is currently a non-Olympic event.

MARATHON

Canoeing over long flatwater distances is known as “marathon racing” and has enjoyed popularity in Europe with the Kronberg race in Denmark, the Devises in Great Britain, the Sella Descent in Spain, the Liffey Descent in Ireland, and the Tour du Gudena in Denmark. More than twenty national federations sponsored national championships by 1976, and they proposed to the ICF that marathon racing become a sanctioned event, initially for K-1 and K-2 men.With international interest in marathon racing continuing to build, the ICF finally approved the first world championship in 1988 with trophies for K-I and K-2 men, K-1 and K-2 women, and C-1 and C-2 men. Interest surged in the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa, and now marathon racing exists on all seven continents. It is currently a non-Olympic event.

CANOE POLO

Europeans began kayaking and throwing balls to each other during the 1930s, but international canoe polo rules did not resolve national differences in play until 1990. The game is played in an area that is 30 by 20 meters with goals of 1 by 1.5 meters that hang 2 meters above the water. Playing time is two ten-minute periods. The game begins with each team on its goal line and the ball in the center of the playing field. Every player tries to get to the ball, which can be moved by throwing or hitting it with a paddle. Players are not allowed to keep possession of the ball longer than five seconds, which creates fast turnovers. Players are allowed to attack and push over the opponent in possession of the ball. The first world championship—a biennial event—was held in Great Britain in 1994. Japan introduced the first junior world championship in 2004 as part of the ICF’s plan to expand the base of support for canoe polo. Canoe polo competition is not yet an Olympic sport, but there are world and continental championships.

CANOE SAILING

With roots in Polynesian exploration, canoe sailing emerged as a racing discipline in Great Britain through John MacGregor’s efforts in 1866 to establish the Canoe Club, which later became the Royal Club.Within twenty years the New York Canoe Club had established an international sailing cup, and U.S. participants had experimented with sliding seats and hiking boards to sit outside the canoe to control the rudder and sails,much to the disdain of British sailors who did not allow such practices. Scandinavians and Germans created entirely different specifications before World War II, and the ICF was challenged to establish hull, sail, and rigging designs acceptable to many countries for the first world championship in 1961. Canoe sailing is currently a non-Olympic sport.

Dragon Boat Racing

A dragon boat resembles the classic Chinese vision of a dragon: At the bow are an oxen’s head, deer antlers, and the mane of a horse; the body has the scales of a python; a hawk’s claws are represented by canoeists with single-bladed paddles; and at the stern are the fins and tail of a fish. Usually twenty paddlers propel the large dragon boat with a drummer and helmsman.They often race head to head with another boat over various distances where strength and endurance must be married with team unity and spirit to paddle well to the rhythm of the drum. The ancient Chinese originally used the dragon boat in religious events and later in honor of a beloved patriotic poet. Dragon boat races were a symbol of patriotism long before a 1976 festival in Hong Kong began a new era of modern competition. Now more than 20 million Chinese compete in dragon boat racing, which has spread to western and eastern Europe, where fifty thousand people compete. Dragon boat racing is not yet an Olympic sport, but it organizes world and continental championships.

Competition at the Top

Sprint canoeing and kayaking racers compete each year in world championships as well as in the summer Olympic Games every four years in: kayak singles (K-1), kayak tandem (K-2), kayak fours (K-4), and Canadian singles (C-1), Canadian tandem (C-2), and Canadian fours (C-4). The Olympic performance of Germany’s athletes was important to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and Germany had a top-three medalist in eight of the ten canoeing and kayaking events in the 1936 Olympics. Other strong contenders in the early years were Austria, France, Sweden, Canada, and Czechoslovakia. Women were allowed to compete in 500-meter sprints in the Olympics in London in 1948, and in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, the Soviet Union made the medals list.
In 1972 slalom racing entered the Munich Olympics as a demonstration sport but had made only its third appearance during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, because many host countries cannot offer a whitewater venue.
Australia’s Danielle Woodward won a silver medal in slalom racing at the Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992. Then the 2000 Olympics in Sydney further inspired Australia to build a multimillion-dollar slalom course, the only facility of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. This course has enhanced the training of canoeists and kayakers in the surrounding countries and made them a more dominant force in competition.

Governing Body

The ICF, formed in 1924, has governed international canoe and kayak racing since World War II and has 117 national associations as members. Europe leads the way with forty-three associations, Asia has twenty-nine, the United States has twenty-four, Africa has fifteen, and Oceania has six.The ICF is located in Madrid, Spain.
The ICF formed to provide a link between national associations, to organize international competitions in three flatwater events (kayak racing, Canadian canoe racing, and canoe sailing), to promote foreign touring through river guides and tourism materials, and to share educational materials about the disciplines. Now millions of people are involved in a variety of competitive events globally.

The Future
Whereas at one time paddling appealed to only people who also hiked and backpacked, paddling has a much broader appeal today, and women in particular often see it as a way to gain outdoor skills. In Europe and mountainous countries such as New Zealand, kayaking was once the province of competitors and hard-core adventurers who could handle the rigors of steep, alpine rivers. However, more recreational paddlers are discovering the joys of learning to negotiate whitewater. River kayaks are shorter and highly maneuverable boats, and new paddlers require instruction to paddle them safely in swift water. Whitewater schools have joined paddling clubs as important developmental programs for recreational paddlers as well as would-be racers.
An analysis of canoeing and kayaking participants reveals some trends. In the United States the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association Internationale (SGMAI) tracked explosive growth in kayaking between 1998 and 2001 to 4.7 million people, a 34.3 percent increase. That increase makes kayaking one of the top three fastest-growing activities behind artificial wall climbing and snowboarding. More than half of the participants— 2.5 million—are women.The average age of participants is thirty-one years, and they participate an average of seven days each year. Canoeing declined slightly in participation during the same period, but canoeists still outnumber kayakers with 12 million participants. Of that total, 5.9 million are women who average twenty-six years of age. The 6.1 million men who canoe average thirty years of age. About half of those who canoe also fish, and the average number of days in which they canoe is six. The most active age group for either activity is children from twelve to seventeen years of age. Surprisingly, members of the next most active group of kayakers are ages forty-five to fiftyfour, and in canoeing members of the next most active group are ages thirty-five to forty-four.
Most people paddle on vacations, at summer camps, and on adventure travel excursions. Sea kayaking is experiencing a surge in growth internationally as the result of a general growing interest in adventure travel. The longer, sleeker sea kayaks are easy to paddle and stable and thus offer a secure and rewarding introduction to an outdoor experience. They also allow people to explore such beautiful and exotic locations as sea caves in Thailand, the rocky shores around Great Britain and Norway, the dolphin-filled bays and straits of New Zealand, and the island chains within the United States’ Great Lakes.
People who fear being enclosed in a kayak can try siton- top kayaks, which seem like modified surfboards and have their origins in surfing cultures along the Pacific Ocean.These kayaks look like the bottom half of a kayak with a seat and foot supports that allow paddlers to control the kayak. Canoes continue to be a sensible option for families, and the larger size of canoes allows people a greater opportunity for wilderness travel for extended periods of time.
The ICF moved sharply away from its original promotion of paddling tourism, but the public has continued to be attracted to the wealth of opportunities internationally and fascinated by the many designs of canoes and kayaks.