For a canoe you're sitting relatively high in the water, check out the Coracle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coracle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coracle For

For a canoe you're sitting relatively high in the water, check out the Coracle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coracle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coracle For bonus points, its also known to have been in common use in the British Isles. They could have just been using this as a basic rudder?