Dedicated
to
Michigan's
Huron River

Click Here for Canoe Livery Information

The Huron River may be the best canoeing river in southeastern Michigan.

The trip from Island Lake south to Strawberry Lake is a rather slow, but peaceful paddle.

From Strawberry Lake south to the Portage Lake Dam you'll be traversing a number of lakes with fairly slow moving river in-between. From the Dam south to Dexter is a combination of shallow river, some light rapids, a few slow moving sections. Dexter to Barton Pond includes a fun little set of rapids at Delhi, fairly slow for the most part.

From Barton Pond through Ypsilanti's Ford and Belleville lakes you have a series of dams and ponds..

My favorite canoeing section is from the Portage Lake Dam to Delhi, a very nice 3 or 4 hour trip.

Midwest Scouting has a great web page on the Potawatomi Canoe Trail (from the Halfmoon chain to Portage Lake, from there you could continue down to Ann Arbor and beyond). This route can be a bit tricky sometimes, very narrow from Highland lake to Portage, often having to maneuver around, over, through fallen trees. Plan some extra time.

Huron River, just upstream from Baseline Lake

Canoeing the Huron River? These "tips" are well worth reading first. They might even save your life!

Huron River Canoe Livery Information

Ann Arbor

Huron/Clinton Metroparks canoeing information is as follows:

Delhi Park - Canoe trips, which start at either Hudson Mills or Dexter-Huron Metroparks and finish at Delhi Metropark, can be arranged from the canoe rental in Delhi Metropark. Deposit required.

The canoe livery is open weekends in April, September and October, weather and river conditions permitting, and open daily (except Wednesdays) May 1st through Labor Day. Reservations required weekends and holidays.

Contact Canoe Rental Building, phone (734) 769-8686 or Hudson Mills Park Office for more information.

Skip's Huron River Canoe Livery (734)769-8686 -Between Dexter and Ann Arbor (Skip's doesn't have a web page, but some info is listed on the Delhi Metropark Page)

Gallup Park Canoe Livery (Ann Arbor) (734) 662-9319.

There's a nice article about the Gallup Park Canoe Livery in EMU's Echo

Argo Canoe Livery (734) 668-7411- Ann Arbor

Heavner Canoe Livery , 2775 Garden Road, Milford, Michigan 48381, Phone: (248) 685-2379

Village Canoe Rental, Milford

Hell Creek Ranch Located, of course, in Hell (just southwest of Pinckney) offers canoe trips on the 'other' chain of lakes (Halfmoon chain, a branch of the Huron).

Proud Lake (State Park) Recreation Area rents canoes.

Jan. 15th, Huron River at Bell Road.   And you were at home thinking it was too cold to kayak!

From the Ann Arbor News (April 28, 2004)
Picture-perfect paddling The prettiest view of spring starts at the Huron River Tuesday, 27, 2004 BY ANNE RUETER News Staff Reporter Green-

gold willow fronds, nesting mallards, still only a few buzzing insects - this time of year, the Huron River beams a special message: Get in a boat. From Our Advertiser Courtney Fiolek and Alfredo Diaz got the message when they came to Gallup Park to take a walk on a recent Saturday, when temperatures reached the 70s. They hadn't known it was opening day for boat rentals. Soon, though, they were in a canoe, spotting nesting birds as they paddled down to Geddes Dam and back. They think they'll be back soon to try one of the livery's new kayaks.

Area boat liveries are ready for all takers, or soon will be, whether you can escape for just an hour or an afternoon. Gallup Park's livery is open, with canoes, kayaks, row boats and paddleboats for rent by the hour and for longer trips. The city of Ann Arbor's other livery at Argo Park opens Saturday. A few miles upstream at Delhi Metropark, Skip's Huron River Canoe Livery will open soon, offering popular trips down the river's scenic rural sections upstream. Staff at Ann Arbor's two city boat liveries expect an unusual season. Busy Gallup Park, already the hub for paddling around Geddes Pond, will also be the place to sign up for longer package canoe trips starting further up the Huron.

Argo Park, the usual spot to sign up, is undergoing changes. Gallup is in extra demand too, because expanded day camps this summer will lure record numbers of kids into boats. At Argo Park, staff will still rent you a kayak or canoe on weekends - even though the old, sagging livery building has been hauled away. They'll be handing boaters paddles out the end door of temporary quarters in a construction trailer as plans proceed to build a small new livery and make other improvements in the park later this summer and fall.

Getting campers out on the water at Gallup and watching a new shore line path and picnic shelter take shape at Argo are just a couple of this summer's rewards for Cheryl Saam, the energetic facility supervisor for the two liveries. Smelling the coffee Saam buzzes with ideas for the longer-range future, too. At Gallup, she dreams of finding a vendor to sell fresh coffee, teas and pastries out of the livery's sunny dining room. She and staff have already enhanced the room's ambiance with a vintage wooden canoe from the city's fleet, suspended from the ceiling overhead. A waterside cafe with real java might well be a hit with park users. But it would likely require a vendor ready to assume the financial risk, given today's constrained city finances, says Saam. To cut costs, the parks department stopped serving hot dogs and other snacks at Gallup and most other city park facilities several years ago, so now soda and snack vending machines offer the only food service. "I'd like to get tables and chairs outside - I've got a whole list of ideas," Saam said. The ideas flow even though, as Saam admits, "You have to really watch your budget. It's very, very tight."

As a result of cost-cutting in the past few years, the two city liveries now open two weeks later than they used to. Also, the city no longer staffs the Argo livery for boat rentals on week days. (Canoeists can, however, book package canoe trips weekdays as well as weekends - two hours from Argo to Gallup, four hours from Delhi Metropark to Argo and six hours from Dexter Metropark to Argo - but need to register at the Gallup livery.) Saam has found private funding sources to help keep popular activities going at the canoe liveries. Feeling that monthly summer concerts at Gallup should remain free, she got local banks to sponsor them. The first "Reveling in the River" concert this season will be June 26 at 7 p.m. The Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation funded a proposal to keep field-trip boating fees affordable for youth groups such as Ozone House and W.J. Maxey Boys Training School. Saam has been able to buy the liveries' fleet of 25 kayaks using funds from the parks' repair and restoration millage.

Expanded day camp - Previously Gallup had hosted one two-week session of day camp for half-days. In her first season on the job last summer, Saam expanded the day camp to seven weeks of all-day sessions. Every one filled up. So she decided to expand the program further this year. "We have this wonderful resource, the Huron River," Saam says. Except for a swimming pool, Gallup Park has all the ingredients for a great outdoor day camp experience, she says. There's hiking in adjacent Furstenberg Park, a prime nature area; fishing for plentiful bluegill, sunfish, bass and the occasional bullhead; boating in canoes, kayaks, pedalboats and rowboats. Kids get a chance to go out on the small islands to build forts, and enjoy a cookout at one of the picnic shelters.

On a recent sunny day at a spring break camp session at Gallup, Tom Appleman, a University of Michigan environmental policy major, was showing kids how to cast - "and how to be patient, which isn't always easy," he said. Campers put their catches in a big aquarium to study them, then release them at the end of the day. "They opened another box of worms," one camper solemnly told her friend, who was about to paddle off in a canoe. Campers learn fishing basics: baiting a hook, casting, reeling in. But the first step didn't sit well with these two. The day before, they said in hushed tones, they had slipped some worms back into the earth.

Argo gets a makeover - Across town at Argo Park, parks staff will start renting canoes, rowboats and kayaks on weekends starting Saturday - even though the old livery building, sagging toward the river, had to be demolished last year. Staff will operate out of a construction trailer this season. Meanwhile, plans proceed for an estimated $200,000 revamp of the park. Improvements include: A small new canoe livery building with a porch, tucked closer to the dam end of the park A picnic shelter Three new docks A path beside a restored shoreline. The existing restroom building will get spruced up to match the pleasant, low-profile look park planner Amy Kuras envisions for the park. Through community meetings, residents have had considerable input on the design. Located on Longshore Drive in northeast Ann Arbor, Argo Park, like Gallup, sits on a scenic impoundment along the Huron River. But Argo, a small patch of land for active uses with an adjacent wooded nature area along Argo Pond, is a far cry from Gallup's hustle and bustle, and most people want to keep it that way. The improvements aren't likely to change the low-key ambiance of this park, flanked by quiet neighborhood streets where newcomers have a hard time finding it. The place has a rich history as a hot recreational spot, though. In the 1920s, city residents knew Argo as the city's first municipal swimming beach. Boat liveries on Argo Pond go back even further.

(if you own, or are aware of, a canoe livery on the Huron that we don't have listed, please let us know via this feedback form!)
Two Kayaks on a foggy, fall morning - Baseline Lake

The Huron River looking upstream from the Bridge at Delhi Park, between Dexter and Ann Arbor. Click on the photo for a higher resolution look!