i had an older Old Town Tripper that was a great canoe for floating with gear in shallow water. it was a tad heavy but you could put a pack mule in the center of that thing and it still wouldn't take but an inch of the wet stuff to float. the longer wider canoes as mentioned above will be a bit more stable the shorter will be more nimble which is great if you prefer to float swifter water but from what you stated above it sounds as if the more stable platform would suit your needs better. for the record, we had that tripper of mine packed with gear for a 3 day float in late feb one year on one of our ozark streams here in missouri (current river)and had no issues in any of the swift bends. good thing too as it was in the low teens that day. both manufactures are good in my opinion however i am going by what i knew of them in the late 70's and early 80's. i don't know much about the present day stuff.
