Traverse, Northern Michigan’s – July 2019

Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine | JUL ’19 47

“Of course I’ve heard of a canoe
marathon!” said no one, ever.
This is my life. I am deep in the
underworld of canoe racing. Few people
have heard of it, fewer have done what
I do each July—wade into the AuSable
River in the dead of the night to drop
food and drink into a canoe splitting
through the water in a chase for the
finish some 120 miles away.
The setup is this: The two-man
canoes enter the water at 9 p.m. on a
Saturday night. They paddle all night
nonstop into Sunday afternoon for 15
to 16 hours from Grayling to Oscoda,
Michigan.
“Feeders” do this: We meet our team
every two hours along the way and
do a feed. This means handing them
a jug with a long tube that they can
drink from while they paddle, along
with a container of food (fruit, energy
gel, sandwich) that they tuck inside
their canoe.
These feeds take place in the river,
thigh to waist (or in crisis, neck-) deep,

in the middle of the night. This includes

a lot of reaching down to make sure

the thing wrapping around our legs is a

weed and not a snake. There’s also mass

confusion. There are, after all, dozens

of other feeders standing in the river,

in the dark, wondering which team

is theirs, this black boat or that black

boat in a stream of 70-plus boats in

the black night.

Added joys include wet, slick clay

riverbanks, drop-offs and crowds cheer-

ing so loudly that you can’t hear your

boat call for you or you for them.

So here’s the exact scene: Me, standing

in a river in shorts, old tennies, freezing,

heart pounding, holding a precious,

life-giving grocery sack from Tom’s.

Yes, Tom’s. They are racing in $4,000

canoes but the secret to success lies

in the cradle of a free plastic grocery

bag from Tom's. Their precious fruit,

Hammer gel and Advil swing above

the unforgiving course of the river, a

hair-width of plastic away from instant

loss should I lose my footing or the

seam of the bag give way.

In my other hand is the drinker.

Again, the advances in canoe technol-

ogy pale in the face of an 89-cent plastic

1.5-liter water bottle from Walgreen’s

and a couple pennies worth of 1/4 inch

tubing from Ace for a long “straw.”

With our goods in hand, we feeders

stand and wait. Early in the night, we

are in the river plenty early, worried

we’ll miss our team. The count begins.

They were 15th at last sight, but that

doesn’t mean they won't show up in

30th position or, worse, 10th, taking

us by surprise. The entire thing is a

gamble. Anything can happen. And

all they ask is that we be ready for it,

their shining moment or their sloshing

comeback.

This means we have a good one-

second gap as the boat whisks by to

ask one question and one alone, the

war cry of feeders everywhere: “What

do you need?”

There’s no room for niceties or cheer-

ing, we are finely tuned machines of 4

Yep, they call the

AuSable River Canoe

Marathon the world's

toughest spectator race.

Head to the riverbanks in

the wee hours of the night

to witness a symbiotic

relationship between

diehard paddlers and

their feeders.

TEXT BY KANDACE CHAPPLE

PHOTO BY JEFF CAVERLY

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