| The History of Canoeing |
At the peninsula of Yucatan (Central America), in Chichen Itzá,
another representation of canoes appears in a thousand hundred
fifty year-old BC mural, and at the ruins of Tikal, in the heart
of Guatemala, there are bones of 700 BC with engravings that represent
canoes.
In the Caribbean coasts, when Christopher Columbus arrived to
the American Continent, the Indigenous approached to the three
Colon's ships, with boats made from a single piece. A big trunk
of tree was hollowed with fire, and the tips were sharpened for
a better water cutting.
These canoes were continued building and using until the present
time. 
In the literary field Christopher
Columbus is the one who, through his writings, introduces the
word "canoe"(Indian canoe) in Europe, and Garcilaso
de La Vega was the one that defined the concept like a craft without
cover. On the other hand the English adopted the word canoe for
defining this type of crafts in general.
The natives of the costs and rivers of Africa used from remote
times the same technique of canoes building used by the American
Indigenous.
The real origin of the canoe was in the eastern coast of Canada,
for this reason is now generally called as "Canadian Canoe".
Used by the primitive people of Canada to travel large distances
with their goods, or to carry the mail, taking advantage in some
cases for the kindness of the waters and on the other hand, overcoming
the aggressiveness of rapids and currents. 
The 'Native Indians' of North America used the canoes as their
medium of life, for the transport, hunting, fishing and the war.
In their origins this type of crafts were built with hollow trunks
of trees or skins of animals, previously treated. Later were made
with wood and bones framework, covered with birch-bark skins and
animals leathers. The colonists, leather's hunters and gold searchers,
soon acquired this transport medium for the rivers and lakes of
Canada.
In Britain, primitive crafts were developed in slightly different
way, and called "Coracles". These were made almost round,
with a skin covering over a wattle framework. In Ireland, the
"Curraghs" were the forerunners of much modern canoe
building methods, although the shape is practically the same of
some of the primitive canoes. The British also took the idea of
canoes in America, and started to build some canoes with varnished
wood ribbons, covered with waterproof canvas, for recreational
and touring use.
The current kayak,
descend from the "boat of men" (Ka-i-ak) from the Eskimos.
Built with bones and skins of animals, practically covered in
its entirety and whose maximum sophistication is reached in Greenland.
Fundamentally used to hunt and to fish.
The firsts to know of the Esquimo kayak were the British, who
introduced it to Europe at the end of the IXX century (1890).
In the 1840's decade, the kayaking
started to function as a sport.
The birth of kayaking as we know today, is usually assumed to
date from the kayak originated in 1865 by the Scottish John MacGregor,
a barrister resident in London. He is the most well known universal
traveler in the world of the canoeing. During 1865, MacGregor
was dedicated to travel over the British rivers.
For the next years he undertook numerous trips by lakes and
rivers of the Nordic countries and of Central Europe (France,
Germany and Switzerland); with his Rob Roy's kayak also arrived
to the Red Sea, navigated in the Jordan, in the Suez channel and
in the Nile river. He named it "Rob-Roy", in honor to
the famous "Rob-Roy" of the Scottish clan MacGregor.
He conceived the idea of light boat, just big enough to carry
himself, decked over except for a small hole at the middle of
the boat, in which he sat, and propelled, by a double-bladed paddle
or a small sail.
The kayak "Rob-Roy" has a length of 4 m, a width of
75 cm and its weight is of about 30 Kg. It was built in the traditional
way, from a wood framework, covered with waterproof canvas.
John MacGregor, reached such a prestige that he was invited
to visit Paris in 1867 by Napoleon III, so that he organized a
regatta in the Sena river with reason of the Universal Exhibition.
His book, A Thousand of Miles in the canoe Rob Roy, relates this
singular navigator's adventures.
At the European continent, the first kayaks appeared in 1890,
diffusing in Switzerland and Germany. Used at the beginning for
excursionist purposes, and later for competition too.
The first kayaks built in Europe were made in the same way and
with the same materials used by the Eskimos.
During long time, the "Rob-Roy" was the standard
kayak model.
Due to the main purposes were touring and comfort, the kayaks
were built with detachable frameworks, that allowed them to be
comfortable transported inside a knapsack, and quickly assembled
at the desired place.
Later on, the kayaks were built with more width in the stern than
in the remainder craft, until one day when a German called Heyman,
had the occurrence to say: "Nature is our model", and
then, he started to build kayaks with a fish shape: wide in the
bow, and narrow in the stern. Inclusive they were the fastest
of the moment.
On January 19th, 1924, was founded the I.C.F (International
Canoe Federation) in the face of the necessity for regrouping
the numerous Canoeing Associations that existed at world level,
most dedicated to the Nautical Touring, although some competitions
were performed at local level.
In that moment the International Canoe Federation is recognized
with the name of Internacionale Repräsentantschaft für
Kanusport, and was constituted by Austria, Denmark, Germany and
Sweden.
But previously, toward 1880, a high number of Canadian canoes
had begun the popularity of this sport. In Europe the Association
that was founded in Wroclaw, in 1876, is the one known as the
most veteran.
For the first time, at the Olympic games of Paris in 1924, took
place some Kayak exhibitions with 11 canoeists, but it is not
until 1936, at the Olympic games of Berlin, when for the first
time this sport acquires the Olympic category. At the exhibitions
of 1924, the Germans with their "fish-kayaks" competed
and were overcome by the new tetrahedral kayaks designed and paddled
by the Swedes.
On 1936, for the Olympiad of Berlin, was created the regulations that established the official kayak dimensions that currently rules.
Another great innovations were made by the Austrians, who introduced in these Olympic Games the kayaks built from "bark", with smooth surfaces and uniform finish of considerable advantages, because the smooth surface reduces to a minimum the water resistance, and makes easy the advance of the kayak.
Someday near the end of the 1930's decade, William Fronde, a British naval designer, discovered that the kayaks were faster if they were longer. Then, everybody began to build kayaks more and more long, because at that time, the competition kayaks were of free measures and shapes.
Little by little, these crafts were changing up to the nowadays-
sophisticated competition kayaks and canoes.
Currently, according to the competition regulations of the I.C.F,
it can be used any kind of material for the kayak building, but
the total weight, shape and water contact-surface of the kayak
must be the specified by the rules.
The possibility to use any building material has been exploited
to a maximum by the kayak builders, using treated woods, metals,
plastics and fibers, that makes the kayaks more light with improved
resistance and long-standing. Currently, the noblest wood, worked
meetly, has taken to the construction of canoes and kayaks extremely
slight and, more recently, the carbon and kevlar fibers, have
added a superior resistance to these crafts.
After the Second World War, kayaking has become extremely popular;
at first possible because it provided a cheap way of getting afloat
and navigate, when supplies were short. The general boating boom
of the 1950's benefited it.
The popularity of "Slalom" as a spectacle did much to
show kayaking to the public, and to educate them on this technique,
largely through the television media at the first instance.
