short canoes were used a lot by trappers too, definately people of our kind of height and size. Rushton seems to have sold quite a number of the short Nessmuk models, point is that beside someone that lives in the forest by himself and that at that point he knows how to build his own canoe, even at that time there werent too many ready to go canoeing by themselves, but while the trend lasted he did sell shorties.

I dont know where the concern for tippiness comes from there are short canoes like some Old Town canoes that are even used for fishing, and they arent built for sitting on the bottom either but provided of a regular seat. Its much more a matter of beam and bottom shape rather than lenght.
Beside kneeling on the bottom its the traditional way a canoe should be paddled, it just need to get used to.

: Morris is very much into re-creation of traditional boats. Retreaval and
: recovery kayaks are special purpose boats and I doubt Morris was
: suggesting they had any general value for recreational paddling. These
: boats are small specific purpose creations that were used in small venues
: where portability and manueverabilty were paramount. And hey were sized to
: fit Native people who were tiny in comparison to us.
: If you go into the catalog of a broadbased canoe builder like J. Henry
: Rushton you'll see he only went below 12 feet on specific request. These
: boats were prized because they were exceedingly light but never became
: popular as general purpose boats. Rushton had the advantage of being able
: to produce any hull shape that was required to get around the inevitable
: tippiness.
: As paddle boats get smaller their payloads go down drastically and they can
: get very tippy if you don't design carefully. So, there is more to it than
: building to a set of reduced dimensions. And, even if they are not overly
: tippy you always have to sit on the bottom kayak style which is not
: everyone's cup of tea.
: In Duckwork's Magazine there is a 4 part series by a guy who built a 7½'
: canoe. To me it looks to be of very high quality but, a complete waste of
: time. A paddler would have to be a wirewalker to enjoy it.