Found bars locally for 50 percent off from a dealer liquidating Thule and moving to Malone...so "only" $25 per bar instead of $50...and managed to cut myself on the unfinished ends.
Somehow felt good about the $75 gunnel brackets since all gunnel brackets seem to cost $75.
I agree that Thule and Yakima are pricey as an all-new retail rack purpose. But we have two sets of Thule racks going on 20 years old that have hauled canoes for many thousands of miles, locally and cross-county at highway speeds. Kept tightened and tuned up I have a great deal of confidence in those racks.
I managed to find shorter bars used/cheap for my son’s Corolla, and a set of used towers from a different seller. Folks seem to hold on to their longer crossbars or having no problem selling them to paddling friends. The CR-V and Tacoma both have 78 inch bars so the vehicles can carry two canoes, and those have moved from vehicle to vehicle over the years (re-used the towers once as well)
Thule Load stops pop up used from time to time. $35 on Ebay for a 4-set
https://www.ebay.com/i/302393625971?chn=ps&dispItem=1
(If I did Ebay I buy-now those and chuck the hard to remove Yakimas in the box of spare roof rack parts)
I prefer those to gunwale brackets, even though the gunwales are not sitting on the foot of an L. For one thing the stops are all metal and unlikely to fold over a la the Yakima plastic.
For another the / | shape works well on canoes with lots of shouldered tumblehome. On a slab sided canoe a vertical stop works fine, but on a boat with shouldered tumblehome a vertical stop ends up being this |(, with the stop presses against a small point of the hull below the gunwales.
The angled side of the load stop allows me to put the stops on \(, with a better connection against the gunwales and hull.
I just contact cement a thin strip of exercise flooring minicel onto the /| parts of the stops for some cushion.