By Brad De Young
Founder, West Michigan Kayaking Club
Michigan Paddling Legends
Lynne Witte — Forty Nights on the Au Sable
By West Michigan Kayaking Club
Wild Rivers. Rugged Trails. Real Adventure.
Forty times.
Think about that number.
Forty times driving to Grayling.
Forty times putting a canoe into the Au Sable River.
Forty times knowing that the sun would disappear before the finish.
Forty times paddling through darkness, fatigue, cold, fog and another bend in the river.
Forty times heading toward Oscoda.
For Lynne Witte, the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon wasn’t something she did once.
Or twice.
Or even for a few good years.
It became a decades-long relationship with one of Michigan’s most demanding rivers.
She began racing the Au Sable in 1980.
Decades later, she was still going.
By 2015, Witte had earned the Triple Iron Paddler Award after completing 40 marathons. She was 61 years old.
And years earlier, in 1993, she had become the first woman to earn the Iron Paddler Award. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
Her story isn’t simply about winning.
It’s about endurance.
Consistency.
Experience.
And the willingness to come back to the river year after year.
The River Doesn’t Get Easier
The Au Sable River Canoe Marathon is approximately 120 miles from Grayling to Oscoda.
The paddlers don’t stop for the night.
They race through it.
The sun goes down.
The river becomes dark.
And the race continues.
The official Iron Paddler program puts the scale of the accomplishment into perspective: completing just 10 Au Sable Marathons represents approximately 1,200 miles, at least 500,000 paddle strokes, and a minimum of 140 hours of racing. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
Witte did four times that basic distance.
Forty races represent approximately:
4,800 miles of Au Sable Marathon racing.
Hundreds of hours on the river.
Millions of paddle strokes.
And countless nights spent moving downstream while most of Michigan was asleep.
That is the number behind the legend.
1980
Witte’s Au Sable story began in 1980.
At the time, the marathon was already a legendary Michigan endurance event.
The race had been established in 1947 after Howard Brubaker and Percy Jocks tested whether a canoe could make the journey from Grayling to Oscoda.
Generations of paddlers had already learned what the river demanded.
Then Witte joined them.
She would eventually become one of the most enduring figures in the race’s history.
The official Hall of Fame records her as having competed in 40 Marathons, with her career stretching from 1980 through at least 2023 in the official historical record. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
Forty years of history on one river.
The First Woman to Earn the Iron
The Iron Paddler Award is one of the great milestones in Au Sable paddling.
It is awarded to paddlers who have completed at least 10 professional-division Au Sable Marathons.
Ten.
Not ten recreational paddles.
Ten 120-mile races.
Ten nights of endurance.
Ten trips from Grayling to Oscoda.
When Witte reached that milestone, she didn’t simply become another name on a list.
In 1993, she became the first woman to earn the Iron Paddler Award. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
That accomplishment placed her in a category occupied by some of the toughest endurance paddlers in the history of the sport.
But Witte wasn’t finished.
Not remotely.
The Record That Tells Another Story
Some paddlers are remembered for winning.
Others are remembered for records.
Witte’s story has a different kind of record.
She kept showing up.
Her official Hall of Fame biography notes that she paddled consecutively beginning in 1980 and competed in 40 Marathons. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
Her career wasn’t defined by one spectacular night.
It was built one year at a time.
One race.
One river.
One more finish.
That’s a different kind of greatness.
1988 — Into the Mixed Division
Witte wasn’t simply participating.
She was racing at an elite level.
In 1988, Witte and her partner finished fourth in the Mixed Division in 15:05:26, a performance that became the division’s record. The official Au Sable Hall of Fame continues to list that mark among her accomplishments. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
Think about what that means.
The race lasts roughly 15 hours for an elite team.
There is no daylight guarantee.
No easy section where the work stops.
And Witte’s 1988 performance became part of the race’s record book.
The Bank Runner
There is another part of Witte’s legacy that doesn’t necessarily appear in a championship list.
She helped other paddlers learn how to survive the Au Sable.
In the late 1980s, future marathoner Dave Foley worked as a bank runner for Witte.
He later wrote that the experience helped him understand just how enormous the marathon was.
He learned about the logistics.
The food.
The drinks.
The nighttime.
The fog.
The equipment.
The sheer amount of river between Grayling and Oscoda.
And Foley specifically credited Witte with providing him a professional boat, encouragement and information as he prepared for his own marathon attempt. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
That detail tells us something important about Witte.
Her legacy wasn’t only about how many times she paddled the river.
She helped teach other people how to paddle it.
Forty
By 2015, Witte had reached a number almost impossible to comprehend.
Forty Au Sable Marathons.
The race recognized the achievement with the Triple Iron Paddler Award.
She was 61 years old.
The first woman to earn Iron.
Then Steel.
Then Triple Iron.
And she kept going. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
This is where her story becomes bigger than canoe racing.
Because eventually, the question isn’t:
How fast can you go?
It’s:
How long can you keep going?
The River Changes
Anyone who spends enough time on a river understands something.
The river you paddled five years ago isn’t exactly the same river you remember.
Water levels change.
Trees fall.
Channels move.
Weather changes.
Your boat changes.
Your partner changes.
And eventually, you change.
That’s what makes Witte’s accomplishment so remarkable.
She didn’t paddle the Au Sable 40 times in the same circumstances.
She paddled it across decades.
Through different generations of equipment.
Different generations of competitors.
Different river conditions.
Different stages of her own life.
And every time she returned, the river demanded that she start over.
A Woman Who Changed the Picture
The history of endurance canoe racing has traditionally been dominated by men.
The Au Sable was no different.
But women like Lynne Witte helped change the picture.
She wasn’t simply a woman who completed the race.
She became one of the race’s most enduring competitors.
She earned the first women’s Iron Paddler distinction.
She established a Mixed Division record.
She completed 40 Marathons.
And she continued to compete alongside generations of paddlers who came after her.
Her career became part of the evidence that endurance paddling wasn’t defined by gender.
It was defined by preparation, determination, teamwork and the willingness to keep moving.
The Numbers Are Almost Absurd
Let’s put Witte’s career into perspective.
40 Au Sable Marathons.
Approximately 4,800 marathon miles.
First woman to earn Iron Paddler.
Triple Iron Paddler at age 61.
Mixed Division record from 1988.
Racing continuously from 1980 into the modern era. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
And remember:
Every one of those races is approximately 120 miles.
Every one requires the paddler to reach Oscoda.
Every one requires surviving the night.
The number forty isn’t just a statistic.
It’s forty separate decisions to go back.
The Au Sable Has Its Legends
The river has produced some extraordinary names.
Serge Corbin.
Ralph Sawyer.
Brett Stockton.
Jeff Kolka.
Al Widing.
Connie Cannon.
Lynne Witte.
Each has a different story.
Some are remembered for championships.
Some for speed.
Some for longevity.
Witte belongs firmly in that last category—but her accomplishments extend far beyond simply accumulating starts.
She competed at an elite level.
She helped other paddlers.
She established records.
And she became a symbol of endurance for generations of women entering the sport.
Still Paddling
Perhaps the most fitting part of the story is that Witte’s relationship with the Au Sable didn’t simply end when she reached 40.
Official race records show her continuing to appear on Au Sable entry lists well beyond that milestone. In 2023, for example, she was listed with Mike Kellogg, with 42 prior starts recorded at that point. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
The 2024 official paddler information lists Witte at age 70 with 43 starts and 41 finishes, dating back to 1980. (AuSable Canoe Marathon)
That’s not a typo.
Forty-three starts.
Forty-one finishes.
And a career that spans more than four decades.
Forty Nights on the Au Sable
There are faster paddlers.
There are champions with more victories.
There are records that are harder to break.
But there are very few stories like Lynne Witte’s.
Because the greatest part of her story isn’t one race.
It’s the accumulation of them.
One summer night after another.
One Grayling start after another.
One dark stretch of river after another.
One Oscoda finish after another.
For more than four decades, she kept returning to the same river.
And the river kept asking the same question:
Are you ready to do it again?
Lynne Witte kept answering:
Yes.
The Legacy
The Au Sable River Canoe Marathon has become one of Michigan’s great paddling traditions because of people like Lynne Witte.
People who don’t simply show up once.
People who build their lives around the river.
People who teach newcomers.
People who compete.
People who endure.
People who return.
Her story is a reminder that extraordinary paddling isn’t always about crossing an ocean or setting a world record.
Sometimes extraordinary means doing something incredibly difficult over and over again.
Forty times.
And then coming back for another.
Michigan Paddling Legends
Lynne Witte
40 Au Sable River Canoe Marathons
First Woman Iron Paddler — 1993
Triple Iron Paddler — 2015
1988 Mixed Division Record — 15:05:26
Au Sable River Canoe Marathon Hall of Fame — Class of 2014
Four decades.
Thousands of miles.
Countless paddle strokes.
Forty nights on the Au Sable.
And a legacy that is still moving downstream.
West Michigan Kayaking Club
At West Michigan Kayaking Club, we believe Michigan’s rivers are more than places to paddle.
They are places where history is made.
From Hugh Heward and Jim Woodruff to Verlen Kruger, Serge Corbin and Lynne Witte, Michigan’s waterways have produced stories of exploration, endurance, competition and adventure.
We believe those stories deserve to be remembered—and experienced.
Our club brings together paddlers interested in kayaking, canoeing, SUP, wilderness exploration, long-distance river trips, camping, hiking and multi-day adventures throughout Michigan and beyond.
Wild Rivers. Rugged Trails. Real Adventure.
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