> Another thing you probably know is that if you put the heavy guy in front and the lightweight in the back, the canoe is almost impossible to control.

Except, of course, when you're travelling downstream, in which case it prevents the canoe from spinning around backward on you.

I'm not a great canoeist, but my father has clocked enough hours in the stern seat that some of it's rubbed off. I have to say, there is nothing quite like being in a canoe in the middle of a relatively untrafficked lake, and that includes being in anything with a motor on the same lake.