By Brad De Young
Founder, West Michigan Kayaking Club
Michigan Paddling Legends
Serge Corbin — The Man Who Owned the Au Sable
By West Michigan Kayaking Club
Wild Rivers. Rugged Trails. Real Adventure.
There are paddlers who finish the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.
There are paddlers who win it.
And then there was Serge Corbin.
For nearly three decades, the name Serge Corbin became inseparable from one of the most demanding endurance races in North American paddling.
The river was the Au Sable.
The race was 120 miles of nonstop paddling through the night from Grayling to Oscoda.
And Corbin kept coming back.
Again.
And again.
And again.
When the paddles finally stopped, he had won the race 18 times—more individual championships than anyone else in the history of the event. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
But even that number doesn’t fully explain what Corbin accomplished on Michigan’s river.
To understand it, you have to understand the Au Sable.
A River That Doesn’t Care Who You Are
The Au Sable River Canoe Marathon isn’t a leisurely river trip.
It is a race measured in miles that become hours, and hours that become an entire night.
The course runs approximately 120 miles from Grayling to Oscoda, with paddlers racing continuously through darkness, cold, fatigue, tight turns, current, obstacles and countless miles of river.
The race itself dates back to 1947.
Its origins are almost as remarkable as the event it became.
That year, Howard Brubaker and Percy Jocks climbed into a 17-foot Old Town canoe to determine whether the entire route could actually be paddled.
They launched in Grayling.
They paddled through the night.
They battled a thunderstorm.
Their tent collapsed.
They tipped over after hitting a sweeper.
And the experimental trip took 31 hours of paddling.
When they finally reached Oscoda, they had answered the question.
The river could be run.
The Au Sable Marathon was born. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
Nearly four decades later, another paddler would begin leaving his mark on that same river.
His name was Serge Corbin.
The Arrival of a Champion
Corbin came from Saint-Boniface, Quebec, not Michigan.
But over the years, Michigan’s Au Sable became one of the defining stages of his career.
His first Au Sable championship came in 1977, when he paddled with his brother, Claude.
He won again in 1979.
Then came an extraordinary run beginning in the late 1980s.
- 1987.
- 1988.
- 1989.
- 1990.
- 1991.
- 1992.
- 1993.
One championship after another.
Different partners.
Different years.
Different river conditions.
Same relentless result.
The official Au Sable records show Corbin winning with partners including Brett Stockton and Solomon Carrière during that stretch. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
And the most remarkable part?
He wasn’t simply winning occasionally.
He was dominating one of the most difficult endurance races in the world.
A Michigan river had become his proving ground.
The Night of 1994
Then came 1994.
Grayling.
The starting line.
The river ahead.
The darkness waiting downstream.
Corbin entered the race with Solomon Carrière, a powerful paddler from Saskatchewan.
Together they attacked the 120-mile course.
Hour after hour.
Stroke after stroke.
Through the night.
Through the darkness.
Through the bends and obstacles.
Through the exhaustion that eventually catches every paddler.
And when they reached Oscoda, the clock read:
13:58:08
They had broken the 14-hour barrier.
And they had established a course record that would stand for decades. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
For perspective, the race’s official history now lists a faster time—13:54:09, established by Jorden Wakeley and Matt Meersman in 2021 on the current course configuration. But Corbin’s 1994 performance remains one of the defining achievements in the marathon’s history. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
For 27 years, Corbin and Carrière’s 13:58:08 stood as the Au Sable course record. (Paddling Magazine)
Twenty-seven years.
That’s a long time for any record.
Especially in an endurance sport where technology, training, equipment and racing strategy continue to evolve.
Eighteen Times
The numbers surrounding Corbin almost become difficult to comprehend.
18 Au Sable victories.
27 years holding the course record.
And during the period from 1987 through 2003, Corbin won 15 of the 17 Au Sable races he entered. (Michigan Trail Maps)
Think about that.
Seventeen attempts.
Fifteen victories.
On a 120-mile river.
Through the night.
With different partners.
Against generations of elite paddlers.
This wasn’t a brief moment of success.
It was sustained excellence over decades.
The Au Sable Marathon’s Hall of Fame puts it bluntly:
“Serge is the most successful paddler in AuSable River history.” (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
The Quiet Before the Race
There’s another side to Corbin that makes the legend even more interesting.
A 2005 account of watching the Au Sable Marathon described the atmosphere before the race as chaotic.
Music.
Crowds.
Racers being introduced.
Teams moving toward the river.
Excitement everywhere.
And then the writer noticed Corbin.
He described Corbin as completely calm amid the storm.
That image is difficult to forget.
Because the Au Sable is anything but calm.
The river is moving.
The crowd is roaring.
The clock is running.
Competitors are preparing themselves for an all-night battle.
And there is Corbin.
Quiet.
Focused.
Waiting.
Then the paddles hit the water.
More Than the Au Sable
The extraordinary thing about Serge Corbin is that the Au Sable wasn’t his only stage.
He became one of the dominant marathon canoe racers in North America.
He competed in the three races traditionally associated with the Triple Crown of Canoe Racing:
- The General Clinton Canoe Regatta in New York
- The Au Sable River Canoe Marathon in Michigan
- La Classique Internationale de Canots de la Mauricie in Quebec
His career record across those events was extraordinary.
Paddling Magazine described Corbin’s dominance as “Gretzky-esque”, noting that he had won 17 of his first 22 Au Sable attempts discussed in the article and dominated the other major Triple Crown races as well. (Paddling Magazine)
But for Michigan paddlers, the Au Sable remains particularly important.
Because that’s where generations of racers had to measure themselves against him.
The Partners Beside Him
Canoe racing is different from many individual sports.
A C-2 marathon canoe carries two paddlers.
That means Corbin’s story is also a story about partnerships.
Claude Corbin.
Brett Stockton.
Solomon Carrière.
Jeff Kolka.
Each partner brought different strengths.
Each had to synchronize with Corbin for hour after hour.
There is no room for wasted movement in a race like the Au Sable.
One paddler’s rhythm becomes the other paddler’s rhythm.
One person’s mistake becomes both people’s problem.
And yet Corbin repeatedly found combinations capable of winning one of the most demanding races in the sport.
The official championship records document those partnerships across his 18 victories. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
What Makes the Au Sable Different?
The Au Sable isn’t simply 120 miles of straight paddling.
It’s a river that demands constant attention.
Darkness changes everything.
A bend that looks obvious during daylight can become a completely different problem at 2 a.m.
The river keeps moving.
The paddler keeps moving.
There is no convenient stopping point.
No comfortable night’s sleep.
No reset button.
Just the next bend.
The next obstacle.
The next stroke.
Then another.
And another.
And another.
That’s what makes Corbin’s record so remarkable.
He wasn’t racing for an hour.
He wasn’t racing for a few miles.
He was racing through an entire night.
The River’s Greatest Test
Every great river race eventually produces legends.
The Au Sable has produced many.
Ralph Sawyer.
Brett Stockton.
Jeff Kolka.
Lynne Witte.
Al Widing.
Connie Cannon.
Andrew Triebold.
Jorden Wakeley.
And countless others.
But Serge Corbin occupies a different place.
He became the benchmark.
For years, when people talked about winning the Au Sable, they were ultimately talking about beating a standard that Corbin had established.
His name became part of the race’s vocabulary.
The official Hall of Fame inducted him in 2013, recognizing him as the most successful paddler in Au Sable history. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
The Record Finally Falls
Eventually, every record meets the river.
In 2021, Jorden Wakeley and Matt Meersman crossed the finish line in 13:54:09, taking the current course record from Corbin’s 13:58:08. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
Records are supposed to fall.
That’s the nature of sport.
But a record can disappear from the books without disappearing from history.
For 27 years, Corbin’s time stood as the number everyone chasing the Au Sable had to measure against.
And even after the record fell, something remained.
Eighteen victories.
Nobody had taken those away.
The Legend of the Au Sable
There is a temptation when looking at statistics like Corbin’s to reduce a career to numbers.
18 victories.
13:58:08.
15 wins in 17 starts.
27 years holding the course record.
But numbers don’t tell you what the river feels like at three in the morning.
They don’t tell you what it means to keep paddling when your shoulders hurt and your hands are tired.
They don’t tell you what it takes to maintain concentration when you’re exhausted and the river keeps twisting through the darkness.
They don’t tell you what it means to hear the finish-line crowd after hours of silence.
For that, you have to get on the river yourself.
And that’s the real lesson of Serge Corbin.
He didn’t simply beat the Au Sable.
He learned it.
He respected it.
He adapted to it.
And for decades, he returned to test himself against it.
A Quebec Paddler Who Became Part of Michigan History
Serge Corbin may have been born in Quebec.
But the Au Sable made him part of Michigan paddling history.
His story belongs here because Michigan’s rivers have always attracted people willing to test their limits.
Hugh Heward came to Michigan in 1790.
Verlen Kruger spent decades exploring its waterways.
Jim Woodruff studied the routes of those who came before.
Howard Brubaker and Percy Jocks tested whether the Au Sable could even be raced.
And Serge Corbin turned that river into the stage for one of the greatest careers in marathon canoe racing.
Different generations.
Different boats.
Different reasons for paddling.
But the same fundamental attraction:
A river that challenges you to keep going.
The River Remembers
Today, paddlers still gather at Grayling.
They still launch onto the Au Sable.
They still race through the night.
They still chase the clock.
And somewhere in the history of that race is the name Serge Corbin.
Eighteen times, he reached Oscoda first.
For 27 years, his 1994 time stood at the top of the record book.
And for generations of paddlers, he represented what was possible when extraordinary endurance met an extraordinary river.
The record eventually fell.
The river kept flowing.
The race kept going.
And the legend remained.
Serge Corbin didn’t just win the Au Sable.
He became part of the river’s story.
Michigan Paddling Legends
Serge Corbin
18-Time Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Champion
1994 Course Record Holder — 13:58:08
Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Hall of Fame — Class of 2013
His home was Quebec.
But one of his greatest sporting legacies was written across 120 miles of Michigan river, in darkness, one paddle stroke at a time.
West Michigan Kayaking Club
At West Michigan Kayaking Club, we believe Michigan’s rivers are more than waterways.
They are history.
They are challenge.
They are adventure.
And sometimes, they are the place where ordinary paddlers discover just how far they can go.
We explore Michigan by kayak, canoe and SUP, with adventures ranging from local river trips to long-distance expeditions, wilderness paddling, camping and multi-day journeys.
Because some of the best stories in Michigan aren’t found on a road.
They’re found on the river.
Wild Rivers. Rugged Trails. Real Adventure.
West Michigan Kayaking Club
westmichigankayakingclub.online
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