Last summer I bought a new Bell Northstar Blackgold which is the most elegant, perfect tandem canoe I’ve ever paddled.  However, unnoticed by me until I got her on the water,  the outfitter from whom I bought her installed the kneeling thwart at the bow facing the stern instead of the stern facing the bow.  I know what you’re thinking – that’s where it’s supposed to go stupid!  In a traditionally designed canoe that would be true but the Northstar is an asymmetrical design and therefore, when soloed, must be paddled facing the bow.  The guy that set up the canoe was a real jerk, one of those guys who believes he knows everything and when I later  pointed out his error he basically said I didn’t know what I was talking about – that it wasn’t an asymmetrical design and he didn’t intend to change it.  Even when I told him to go onto Bell’s website where there is a clear picture of the Northstar with a kneeling thwart installed (facing the bow), he refused.  Anyway by that time the damage was done.  I called the owner of the place where I purchased it and he apologized profusely and said he’d make it right.  He invited me to bring the canoe back next summer before my next big trip and he’d exchange my canoe for a new one set up properly at the factory.  Very decent!  But you can probably guess the problem.  Bell has ceased production and there are no new canoes available.  So what should I do?  The owner still wants to make things right.  I could just switch the kneeling thwart and the stern thwart around but then I’d have a bunch of holes in the gunwales of the $3000 canoe that I plan to paddle for the rest of my life.  Maybe I’m just being picky (and, as things turned out, I suppose I’m lucky to have a Bell canoe at all) but I’d really like things to be set right.  The owner sincerely wants to know what I’d like him to do but at this point I’m not really sure what to say, short of having him replace the gunwales and re-install the seats and thwarts properly, which seems a bit extreme.  What do you think – do I just have to eat it?