The genus name is derived from Greek aithuia, an unidentified seabird mentioned by authors, including Hesychius and Aristotle.

[2] The species name valisineria comes from the wild celery Vallisneria americana, whose winter buds and rhizomes are the canvasback's preferred food during the nonbreeding period.

[2] The duck's common name is based on early European inhabitants of North America's assertion that its back was a canvas-like color.

[4] In other languages it is just a white-backed duck; for example in French, morillon à dos blanc, or Spanish, pato lomo blanco.

The drake's sides, back, and belly are white with fine vermiculation resembling the weave of a canvas, which gave rise to the bird's common name.

[3] It prefers to nest over water on permanent prairie marshes surrounded by emergent vegetation, such as cattails and bulrushes, which provide protective cover.

Brackish estuarine bays and marshes with abundant submergent vegetation and invertebrates are ideal wintering habitat for canvasbacks.

[11] The canvasback feeds mainly by diving, sometimes dabbling, mostly eating seeds, buds, leaves, tubers, roots, snails, and insect larvae.

[3] Besides its namesake, wild celery, the canvasback shows a preference for the tubers of sago pondweed, which can make up 100% of its diet at times.

[13] In the early 1950s it was estimated that there were 225,000 canvasbacks wintering in the Chesapeake Bay; this represented one-half of the entire North American population.

[14] Edith Wharton refers to canvasback with blackcurrant sauce as an especially luxurious dinner served in New York City in the 1870s.

[10] Many species of ducks, including the canvasback, are highly migratory, but are effectively conserved by protecting the places where they nest, even though they may be hunted away from their breeding grounds.