For ten years, the Paddle Antrim Festival paddled on Friday. This year it didn't. The festival that has defined the second weekend after Labor Day on the Chain of Lakes Water Trail for a decade moved its main paddling days to Saturday and Sunday, turned Friday into a skills-and-expo day with no boats in the water, and gave every checkpoint along the route its own finish line instead of one at the end. None of that happened in a vacuum. It happened the same year two of the trail's access points finished long-running construction projects, and the timing tells you more about how this stretch of Antrim County actually gets used than any tourism copy will.
Two Projects Finished Right Before the Festival Did Not
Start with Central Lake. In early August, the Village of Central Lake and Paddle Antrim announced the completion of Phase 1 improvements at Thurston Park, on the east side of the park along Intermediate Lake. The project added a universal kayak and canoe launch, an ADA-compliant pathway connecting the parking area to the launch, accessible parking, and a kayak storage rack. It was funded through the Michigan DNR Trust Fund and ARPA money awarded to the village, engineered by Gourdie-Fraser and built by Sommer Solutions. Paddle Antrim's fundraising for Phases 2 and 3, which will add accessible picnic areas and restroom upgrades, is still open.
A month later, Grass River Natural Area finished something bigger. On September 11, the nature preserve marked the end of a nearly decade-long, $3 million boardwalk reconstruction with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The project added more than 1.25 miles of level, raised wooden boardwalk through the preserve's wetlands, replacing whatever came before it with something a wheelchair, a stroller, or an unsteady knee can actually use.
Neither of these is a paddling event. Both are the reason the paddling event changed.
Richardi Park Is Doing Double Duty
Here's the connection that doesn't show up in a festival press release. Richardi Park, right in downtown Bellaire, has long been the put-in locals use to reach Grass River Natural Area by water, a short paddle up the Grass River from town. It's also one of the checkpoints on the Paddle Antrim route, the place where Saturday's Ellsworth-to-Bellaire leg comes ashore. So the same public launch that festival paddlers use to end their first day is the same launch a Bellaire resident would use on an ordinary Tuesday to go see the boardwalk that just got rebuilt. When Grass River's access improved, it improved for both audiences at once, and the timing put the finished product on display right as festival traffic rolled through town.
Thurston Park works the same way, just one town over. It's the pavilion where Saturday's route begins, the same spot Central Lake residents now use as their own accessible put-in on Intermediate Lake. A construction project aimed at year-round residents and a festival checkpoint used one weekend a year turned out to be the same forty feet of shoreline.
Why Friday Stopped Being a Paddling Day
Paddle Antrim's own explanation for the schedule change centers on who actually shows up. Executive director Deana Jerdee said the shift to a weekend format and one-day options at every distance lets more people join "whether they are looking for a calm, scenic 7-mile paddle or a 42-mile two-day expedition." Moving primary paddling off a Friday, historically a workday for most of the people driving up from downstate, opens the event to people who couldn't take a day off to paddle but can give up a Saturday.
That only works, though, if the checkpoints along the route can handle more people getting on and off the water at more points, which is exactly what two finished accessibility projects and a route built around Thurston Park and Richardi Park now allow. The festival didn't just move its schedule. It moved onto infrastructure that wasn't fully built the last time the format changed.
The new distance menu shows the range this creates:
- Ellsworth to Central Lake, Relaxed Paddle: 7 miles, about 3.5 hours
- Ellsworth to Bellaire, Challenge Paddle: 15 miles, about 6.5 hours
- Bellaire to Dockside, Morning Paddle: 9 miles, about 4.5 hours
- Bellaire to Torch River, Challenge Paddle: 17 miles, about 7 hours
- Bellaire to Elk Rapids, Advanced Expedition: 27 miles, about 9 hours
- Two-day combinations ranging from 16 to 42 miles across both days
A first-timer can do the 7-mile Saturday leg from Ellsworth to Central Lake, stop, and still get a finish line. Under the old one-finish-line format, that same paddler was just someone who didn't complete the course.
The Actual Weekend, If You're Going
| Day | What's Happening | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Friday, Sept. 18 | Skills and safety classes at noon, kickoff party and expo at 2 p.m. | Ellsworth River Park, in partnership with the Village of Ellsworth and the East Jordan Chamber of Commerce |
| Saturday, Sept. 19 | Paddling Day 1, Ellsworth to Bellaire | Launch from Ellsworth, checkpoint at Central Lake's Thurston Park, finish at Richardi Park |
| Saturday evening | Block party with live music and food, hosted by Short's Brewing Company | Short's Beer Garden, Bellaire |
| Sunday, Sept. 20 | Paddling Day 2, Bellaire to Elk Rapids or Dockside | Finish at Rotary Park, Elk Rapids |
| Sunday evening | Closing Final Bash, hosted by Short's Brewing Company | Short's Pull Barn, Elk Rapids |
New this year, the Antrim Conservation District is running a mobile boat wash station at the launches on Friday and Saturday mornings, cleaning and inspecting every craft before it touches the water. It's a small addition, but on a water trail that connects a dozen lakes across four counties, an invasive species riding in on one boat becomes everyone's problem fast.
Main Street Is Moving on the Same Timeline
The water trail isn't the only thing getting worked on. Twenty minutes south in Mancelona, the village is holding a ribbon-cutting and walking tour of the State Street business district on Friday, September 25, the week after the paddling festival wraps. The Mancelona Chamber has recently welcomed new members including Makers Hollow and Varsity Stream Media, while Forbidden Therapy Tattoo, at 110 W. State Street, marked its third year in business this year. None of that is tied to the water trail directly, but it lands in the same September, in the same county, as part of the same pattern: money and effort going into public spaces that were serviceable but not finished, finishing at roughly the same time.
Antrim County isn't remaking itself overnight. What's happening is narrower and more useful to know if you're already here: the launches got better, the boardwalk got finished, and the one event built to showcase all of it changed its oldest rule to match. If you've paddled Richardi Park to Grass River before and found the boardwalk rough going, or skipped Thurston Park because the shoreline wasn't worth the trouble, this is the year that changes.
Whatever leg of the water trail you end up on this weekend, or whichever Main Street you wander through the week after, it's worth knowing why it looks the way it does right now. Pat O'Brien has spent more than two decades getting to know every put-in and pavilion between Bellaire and Elk Rapids, and we're glad to see the trail finally catching up to how people here actually use it.
