PADDLE HARD

It’s time for a switch: Hup! The family synonymous with feeding the AuSable River Canoe Marathon takes over Paddle Hard Brewing, the five-year-old brewpub credited with breathing new life into Grayling’s downtown.

- KANDACE CHAPPLE

The Swanders. It’s a name synonymous with “feeding.” That used to mean one thing, but now it means another. Let me back up. Grayling is home to the AuSable River Canoe Marathon that takes place every summer. This 120-mile race involves canoe teams launching at dusk on the last Saturday in July and paddling through the night. Their trip involves six portages, many in the dark of the night, before arriving at the finish in Oscoda by 2 or 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon. But they can’t get there without their “feeders.”

Feeders are the quick, nimble (a.k.a. too-slow-to-say-no) friends and family who are charged with rushing ahead of their teams down the river, then wading into the water every 2–3 hours to provide fresh food and drink.

I don’t mean to oversimplify the role of the feeder. It’s dark. There are 100 black boats (you know which one is yours, right?). You’re in cold, fresh Michigan water up to your thighs, holding a tall drinker bottle in one hand and a red-lidded plastic container of gel, fruit and food in the other. You stand and wait in the water, shivering, hearing the call of HUP! from the paddlers, losing track of how many boats have passed by and arguing with your co-feeders over the count and when your team is coming … or not.

When they do arrive, you drop the feed into their laps as they fly by. You only have a moment and timing is everything. You stand still, call their boat number and let them come to you. One misstep in a dark river and you swim; but even worse, you miss their feed.

Feeders can’t run late, can’t get sick and can’t turn up lost. The paddlers, however, have the luxury of doing all those things, and usually will at one point or another as the night unfolds.

Feeders are the control; teams are the variable. It’s a terrifying, thrilling job.