Packlite,

People who paddle in places like Minn and Ontario have perfected light paddling because of the amount of portages they encounter each day when traveling. They bring backpacking equipment plus an axe, fishing gear and maybe a larger tent. They cook on wood fires, use a lot of dehydrated food augmented with fish, berries, and other local foods in season.

For rivers in the West, we tend to bring folding chairs, coolers, and all kinds of stuff because we have few portages and can usually line around bad spots.