The first recorded use of the word “canoe” dates back to 1555, in Richard Eden’s translation of Decades of the New World, a chronicle of Spain’s great voyages of discovery. Readers were introduced to canaos, small boats made from a single hollowed-out tree. The multi-talented Eden became a translator after earlier careers in banking and alchemy, and by making a wide range of European travel diaries accessible to an English speaking audience he helped to fuel the spirit of adventure that would soon send Walter Raleigh and Francis Drake on their voyages.
In the centuries that followed, reports of canoes in the English language referred to practical, working use of these small craft in the West Indies or North and South America. Canoeing only became a recreational pastime in the early 19th century, and it took another century for it to emerge as a sport.
Britain’s most famous canoeist may well be John Darwin, a Hartlepool businessman who paddled out to sea in March 2002 and was presumed dead until he was found five years later still living with his wife under a false name. He had faked his own death in a canoeing accident to escape debt and allow his wife to make a fraudulent insurance claim. We doubt that Richard Eden would have approved.
