Probably if you saw me paddling, even today, you might say I have never learned!   ;D  I got my introduction to canoeing as a college coed in 1966 on the Red Cedar River in East Lansing, in the bow of an aluminum canoe with Spartan1 in the stern.  And I was pretty awful at it!  He was a patient teacher, and I learned to just paddle, first one side and then the other.  Pretty basic stuff.

My first canoe trip was in 1971 and it was not an easy trip.  We did the Namakan River loop, starting out at Crane Lake, and we didn't take a tow boat.  Paddled the Loon River, did the portages, paddled on Crane Lake, Sand Point Lake, LLC, etc.  It was a bit of a baptism of fire for a green newbie and I learned to paddle on a lake, but to this day I have never mastered real bow strokes on something like a winding creek.  I can often hear Spartan1 "sigh" in the stern of the canoe when I screw up on creek maneuvers, so I know I don't do that stuff right.

When we have done rapids, which has been rarely, as he pointed out, I tend to just grab the sides of the canoe and pray!  I am not much help.  But Lady Rapids on the Namakan was a real thrill for me, both times that we ran it.  I am not a brave person by nature, and whitewater canoeing is not my "thing", but that one does stick out as a fond memory.  ::)