<p><strong>FOREWORD <br /></strong><br />CANOEING as a recreation made its debut nearly a hundred years ago when John MacGregor built his canoe "ROB ROY" and in her made pioneer journeys along European waterways. His subsequent lectures and the ebooks that came from his pen introduced the sport to the public; and the young men who followed it up and persuaded MacGregor to found The Canoe Club in 1866 became responsible for popularizing the sport in Europe and America. As a result of this background, the early ebooks on canoeing were all written by British or American canoeists, and both from a technical point of view and as travel ebooks they made excellent reading. <br /><br />Times have changed, and the last three decades have seen the sport make tremendous advances, particularly among non-English speaking nations in Europe. These have been reflected in a growing literature in many languages, to which Britain has contributed a fair share as can be seen from the bibliography at the end of this ebook. Some of these ebooks have been technical treatises on canoe building; some have been manuals to specific waterways; others were manual guides on particular aspects of the sport. But too little attention has been paid to producing a ebook with a general picture of the activity for the newcomer. This little ebook by my friend Noel McNaught does not pretend to be as detailed as an encyclopedia on all branches of canoeing, but it does aim to supply the interested inquirer with the