Canoes were quickly adopted by settlers who rapidly learned that two Indians in a canoe could whisk past four Europeans in a longboat. In the next centuries, mountain men and voyagers turned the continent's rivers into highways of commerce during the fur trade's heyday. A designated water trail is packaged to make information about the river quickly accessible to the public. There are maps showing where people can put their water craft in and where they can take them out. The guides mark unique points of interest along the way and places where people can stop for a picnic or to camp.
Trails make arrangements for bathroom facilities and improved public access sites.
While the public owns actual the waterway, the shorelines that control the ability to get in and out of the water are often private. In the old days, you could probably go down to a farm and put in and nobody bothered you. Now the farm is subdivided, there are fences, and the homeowners don't want people traipsing over their property. So more and more, it's difficult to find a place to enter the water. At the same time, user pressure has increased.