Quote:

are we being overly selfish when we want to maintain some of the risk in a wilderness canoe trip?

There size of the group and condition of the group makes a big difference in the answer to this. I do not think it OVERLY selfish if a group of six (in 3 canoes) takes no such device.  Thta size group has plenty of "redundancy" for dealing with issues.

A solo is a much different situation.  For a solo person not to have a mechanism of getting help is way more risky than anything I am willing to deal with.  So my first thought is risky, not selfish.  As to whether or not it is selfish, that also depends on what responsibilities one has to others.