Drewfus wrote on May 29^th, 2012 at 5:08pm:

Azalea, I have the same set up on my chevy suburban. The ropes when not in use tuck into the frame inside the engine compartment. I built a rack last year to help hold two canoes on the roof more securely. It has blocks on the outer edges to prevent the canoes from shimmying off the roof rack bars. Then two ratcheting straps go over the canoe/s and have bow tie down (mentioned above) and rear tiedown to the trailer hitch. My first solo experience started off with massive tie down problems. It seemed no matter how tight I tied everything, the canoe was still dancing on the roof. Cross winds were blowing 20-30 from Ely to Int'l Falls. I had to stop every 30 minutes or so and re-tie. Most of my problem was not knowing how to properly secure the canoe to the roof. That experience taught me a lot.

I had the exact same thing happen on my first solo trip.  Frankly, I figure I was lucky that nothing bad happened...just a very long and very tedious drive that raised my blood pressure immensely.