I returned about a week ago from a BW trip and had the opportunity to try out some gear I had never used before.

The first was a Sanborn bent shaft paddle, which was fantastic to use.  I saw it at The Canoeist, a new canoe store in Two Harbors MN, and thought it would be a good gift for my little brother for his graduation from college and for his first real trip into the BW.  The paddle is beautiful, made from western red and white cedar.  It is amazingly lightweight.  It does not look particularly durable (no issues on the trip however), but the blade is covered with a layer of fiberglass and has a resin tip.  Here is a link to the website:   (You need to Login or Register

The second piece of new equipment we used was a Wenonah Minnesota IV canoe.  Within our family we have a fleet of canoes, so I felt a little guilty renting a canoe, but our group had an odd number, so my dad, brother and I decided to all go in the same canoe.  We all are tall, so we didn't want to try and cram ourselves into a tandem.  We were going in heavy, so we decided to go with the 23' Minnesota IV instead of 3-seater, most of which seemed to just eat up the space of a tandem canoe with an extra seat.  Here are my impressions of the canoe (most of which are not a surprise from just looking at the canoe):

-The canoe does not want to turn.  It quickly earned the nickname Oglebay Norton after the 1000' ore boat that plies the Great Lakes.  Once the canoe starts to drift off course, it is difficult to correct it.  Turning around to retrieve a snagged lure is a major operation.  We had one difficult crossing in wind and waves, and it did not inspire confidence.  The stability was not great and the previously mentioned difficulty with tracking made it a bit of a tense crossing.

-The seat placement is not particularly good.  The front seat has very minimal leg room.  This seat is really only suitable for kids or very small adults.  My 6'6" brother lasted one lake crammed into this seat before we removed it and used the space for storing gear.  He spent the remainder of the trip paddling one seat back, which doesn't have very good paddle access to the water.

-Portaging the canoe was not bad at all.  It only weighed about 62 lbs.  The length made it susceptible to winds while portaging, it was hard to maneuver around trees, and the bow and stern banged on the ground on steep hills, but what would you expect with 23' of canoe.

Overall, the canoe did its job and was preferable to cramming the three of us into a tandem, but if I had to do it again I would try the Bell Northshore, or perhaps try the three person Souris River Quetico 18.5 or the Wenonah Seneca, which appear to have more stability and room for gear than other 3 person canoes.