Is raphael.js paper a real canvas?

I was researching what graphics to use for a project, and Raphael.js came to be a top contender. However, when reading the sample code and documentation, it shows that Raphael creates a canvas (via the paper variable on the homepage), and then you add stuff to it. Two months later, a passerby comes by and ask some question about our project, and I explained that we didn't use Raphael (instead we chose static SVG and D3) because Raphael used canvas's, and our project would have been greatly disadvantaged by using canvas's. So you Raphael expert's out there, is the canvas in Raphael an actual html canvas or not? and where can you link to it, so that you/and or I can send a pull request to explain that better upfront.