As my dear wife (the horseback rider) would say, a side dismount is ALWAYS preferable to the alternative.
And folks do NOT drag your canoe up onto the shore. Respect it and lift it. If you cannot lift it get help or a lighter canoe.
Of course if you're into abusing canoes disregard all of this.

With all due respect to Megan and Edgar, this just ain't right IMO and yes, it would be foolish for the stern paddler to get out first if this looks normal to anyone.

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OK - let me elaborate a bit. I've never beached my canoe ever and if a bow paddler ever jumped out and god forbid pulled it up further ... with me screaming for them to stop ... it would only happen once.

When I come in for a landing it's at a mid to pretty good clip and ideally at maybe about a 30 - 40 degree or so angle. If there's a bow paddler they aren't doing anything other than being paddle ready watching for anything I didn't see that might cause a problem.

2, 3 feet from shore (depending on speed) I'll turn the canoe sideways rather hard. That stops the canoe's forward progress and the backwash lets it slide a bit sideways, ending up next to and parallel to shore. During the turn you can easily feather the paddle so either the canoe stops or you stick out your foot onto some convenient rock or whatever and stop it that way.

Solo, I grab some stuff and a painter and get out. Tandem I'll do the same and move the canoe to the best spot so bow can grab stuff and get out. That's my normal landing.

My goal is the canoe never touches anything but water and no climbing/crawling (gunnel walking??) is required. A gently sloping sandy beach? Well, I'll shift my weight to the outside and will even get my feet wet it I have to and I'll freely admit that's where a "ramming speed" Hawaii Five-0 style would look much better.

Reeds are a special case.

Speed angle and distance would be the main variables if anyone can decipher my description enough to try something new. If it helps, I should add my paddle really wasn't made for hitting anything but water either.

I'm with Son_of _Red

Sorry to disagree with those who support this rule, but I've found this doesn't work well for me.  I was taught differently as a boy scout, and continued that teaching when I taught the same merit badge many years later.

When beaching a canoe, I try to have the bowman climb out first as I steady the canoe with a paddle on the bottom, with the shaft against the side of the canoe.  Then, after he steadies the bow after pulling the canoe further onto the beach, I either climb over the packs, or amidships when empty; or, I step out into the shallow water.  Not a graceful sight, but it has worked.

Similarly, when launching, I've found the sternman enters first, and can control the craft as well as steady it when the bowman shoves off into the shallow water before climbing in. 

Safe journeys.

I've never heard that rule.  One possibility is that the canoe is then facing into the lake and ready to go; but it doesn't make sense on portages where you would be heading stern first.

starwatcher

I thought that sounded like a lot like something I'd say.

DOH! I'm sorry, why don't you people say just say yo, dude, that freaken link goes to your hard drive you moron! I fixed the link to the (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) that has been wrong since like forever. Thanks again I_C. Doing it is a lot easier than typing the how and why and I appreciate your credible voice.

Hey, try it sometime. If it works for you, great. If not, ummmm, you must be doing it wrong somehow.

IC of course is right. The balence part makes sense also. We did hit a couple of spots where it was hard to land parallel close to shore because of rocks, trees, or shoreline features. I guess I could have tried walking to the front of the boat also, but spinning around sometimes seemed easier.

Some lakes closer to home are surrounded by reeds and have steep shorelines, requiring a solo boater to walk to/from the bow or stern to find something to stand on when exiting/entering.

I believe that was my "rule" which I came up with after paddling with MagicPaddler one day.  I kept forgetting about him in back, being mostly a solo paddler, and would hop out upon landing without keeping any weight on the front of the canoe, nearly dumping him every time when the bow came up and the rear got tippy.  We were in an unloaded canoe.  I think it does pertain to loaded canoes too, because if your front paddler is light and the stern is around 200 pounds it still drops the rear of the canoe when the bowman gets out and immediately becomes much more tippy (IMO).  The stern paddler is sitting much closer to the back end of the canoe than the bow paddler is from the front end of the canoe, compounding the effect of un-weighting the bow first, as opposed to the rear first.  This issue might also be dependent on the kind of canoe used, my experiences have been with the deep keeled Winona Kevlar canoes.
As to it being a "rule", I agree with the rest that it all depends on the situation.  We usually try to land sideways to shore, so each paddler can get out on solid footing, rather than front end first.  This is often easy to do  if you are near a ledge rock of any size, picking an area with enough water to float the boat right up to the edge of the rock.  Sometimes it is not easy to do or is impractical to do it this way.   

I think BrownTrout is right and the rule refers to landing in moving water above a rapids or waterfall.  If the downstream paddler (bow) gets out first the upstream end (stern) could swing out into the current and capsize.