I would personally suggest you wait until you have some canoe
experience. For a short, trivial paddle you can pretty much get into an
open canoe and get about and have fun with no experience, but a loaded
wilderness trip around Drumochter isn't trivial. Aside from the safety
aspect, you'll have a much easier time of it and probably a lot more fun
if you get some instruction in open paddling fist: handling a boat
*well* involves quite a bit of skill.

Once you have got some experience you'll find an open boat is a
wonderful tool for carrying loads in the right conditions, with easy
transport of far more stuff than you could ever walk or cycle with.
You'll want a good supply of dry bags, though.


I would second this. Even with some fairly extensive kayak experience it
took a couple of intesive days to become competent in a canadian. Yes, it's
easy to jump in and go, but without decent training, you'll spend a lot of
time either going round in circles, or fighting your partner. So, one
important benefit from a bit of training would be a much more energy
efficient boat - meaning greater and speedier distances (=greater confort
and greater safety). At the very least, you wouldn't want to venture out
without proper capsize training. Though it's not that easy to get one
upside-down, if it does happen the amount of water that a canadian can hold
means you're going to be in trouble unless you know what you are doing.
You'd also be well served by getting some appreciation of how difficult the
wind can be.

One of the things that struck me is how much skill is required to paddle a
canadian. With kayaks, what you have to do is fairly transparent and a great
deal can come naturally (= easy 'pick-up-and-go'). Due to size, weight, and
manning differences, canadians are far less straightforward, and a great
deal more technical, to learn.