I'll add my overall impressions from the research....

Whitewater canoes can be designed to specialize in whitewater canoeing, i.e. maneuverability, protection against swamping, rugged hulls, etc but they may tough for novice to intermediate paddlers to control on flat water and may be slower crossing big lakes.

So, I'm probably NOT looking for a whitewater canoe per se but a reasonably sturdy, versatile flatwater canoe that provides some of the necessary traits to cover whitewater stretches and still paddle the flat and slow current stuff with relative ease.

The Prospector is popular in Canada for that reason but Swift makes a decent version of this and Dagger has a few options. Northwinds apparently is churning out a canoe to compete in this category and you could probably do all right with a royaliex or facsimile with a litter  up-skilling (e.g. whitewater training classes) to be safe out there...

Just my two cents. I'll keep reading. I've got plenty of time on my hands these days...
:o