Most visitor guides treat Antrim County like a scatter plot. Bellaire here, Elk Rapids there, Ellsworth off in the corner, Central Lake somewhere in the middle. If you already live on one of these lakes, you know the map differently. The Chain of Lakes threads through fourteen bodies of water and four downtowns, and the 2026 event calendar has quietly been redesigned to treat that thread as one venue with multiple entrances. Once you see the schedule that way, the late-summer weekends stop competing with each other and start stacking.
Here is what changed, and how a resident who already owns a paddleboard, a bar tab at Short's, and a favorite dock might rework August and September around it.
For a decade, the Paddle Antrim Festival was a Thursday-through-Saturday commitment. If you had a job, you paddled Saturday only and skipped the pre-parties. That is no longer the tradeoff.
Registration is officially open for the 11th Annual Paddle Antrim Festival, returning September 18–20, 2026. The organization moved the primary paddling days to Saturday and Sunday, and the reason is explicit: the new format allows more participants to experience the beauty of the water trail without taking time off work.
What that means practically for a Central Lake or Bellaire homeowner:
The route itself is not new. The 2026 festival includes the Ellsworth-to-Central Lake Relaxed Paddle at 7 miles and roughly 3.5 hours, and the Ellsworth-to-Bellaire Challenge Paddle at 15 miles, with a 27-mile expedition available for the truly committed. What is new is that a full local family can now watch the whole thing without anyone burning vacation days.
One 2026-only detail worth knowing before you launch your own boat that weekend: Paddle Antrim is working with the Antrim Conservation District's mobile boat wash station, and all watercraft will be cleaned and inspected on Friday and Saturday morning to protect the Chain of Lakes from invasive species. If you have a kayak that has been in another lake this summer, the wash station is a friendly stop, not a checkpoint to avoid.
The reason the Paddle Antrim schedule works as a resident calendar, not just a race, is that each of the four host towns anchors a different kind of afternoon. It is worth mapping which town you actually want to be in on which day.
| Town | What it anchors | The specific spot |
|---|---|---|
| Ellsworth | Friday kickoff, quiet-water launches | The Expo and Kick-off Party |
| Central Lake | Mid-paddle stretch stop | Thurston Park at 7854 Bradford St, lunch pickup for registered paddlers |
| Bellaire | Saturday finish, live music | Short's Beer Garden Block Party at 118 N Bridge St, 2:00–5:00 pm |
| Elk Rapids | Sunday finish, closing party | The Final Bash, 2:00–7:00 pm, at Short's Pull Barn on Industrial Park |
The Chain of Lakes Water Trail is not a marketing phrase invented for the festival. It is the only Pure Michigan-designated water trail in Northern Michigan. Living on it means the September weekend has a designed structure most residents never take full advantage of.
Before the paddle weekend takes over your September, Elk Rapids stacks a bigger day than usual on the first Friday of August.
The 2026 Elk Rapids Arts & Crafts Show falls on August 7. If you live on the peninsula side of the county, this is the sidewalk-shopping day you plan the rest of the weekend around. It is also, coincidentally, a summer live-music evening at Short's Pull Barn just north of the village on US 31.
The Pull Barn is not a listing on a tourism site. It is the barn behind Short's production facility that turns into a family-friendly amphitheater on summer nights. The brewery hosts family-friendly, free shows all summer at the Elk Rapids Pull Barn and in the Bellaire Beer Garden across from the Pub. The July 2026 schedule already includes acts like Keith Scott, who brings acoustic classics, rock, folk, and country, and The Headwaters Band, with a mix of original songs, classic covers, and improvisational jams. The August lineup follows the same pattern.
For an Antrim County resident, the practical read is that August 7 does not need to be a day trip. Arts and Crafts Show in the morning, dinner along River Street, live music at the Pull Barn until dusk, all within Elk Rapids. That is a weekend Bellaire and Central Lake residents can also plug into with a forty-minute drive.
Short's Bellaire Pub is a summer venue in a way that is easy to underestimate if you have not lived here through a full season. They host live music every Friday and Saturday night and occasionally on Thursday and Sunday nights for most of the year. Shows can be held up to 6 or 7 nights a week during the summer months.
The pub itself has origin-story details that matter if you are trying to explain the county to a guest without sounding like a brochure. Joe Short opened the Short's Brewing Pub in 2004 in Bellaire, and Short quickly made a name for himself producing fearlessly creative brews that drew folks from far and wide. The Elk Rapids production facility opened in 2009, a second year-round tap room was added in 2021, and today Short's is Michigan's largest independent craft brewery, known for products like Local's Light, Huma Lupa Licious, and Soft Parade.
What locals do with that information is simple. On the summer weekends when you have out-of-town family, you route them through the Bellaire Beer Garden across from the Pub for the free show, then drive them the 40 minutes to Torch Lake through the Alden side. On the weekends you do not, you go to the Pull Barn in Elk Rapids because the sunsets are better and the crowd is smaller.
There is a piece of forward-looking news that changes how residents should think about the next eighteen months in Bellaire.
The brewery's third location, "Port Short's," is slated to open in 2027 in Traverse City.
Nothing about the Bellaire Pub is going away. The Traverse City opening does mean, though, that the summer of 2026 is the last high season in which the closest tap room to Grand Traverse Bay is still a drive up M-88 rather than a stroll down Front Street. If part of what you like about Antrim County is that the good beer is in your county, this is the season to lean into that fact, not the next one.
Paired with that, the Chain of Lakes stays exactly what it has always been. The Ellsworth-to-Central Lake stretch runs 7 miles through four small lakes to the first checkpoint, a stopping point to stretch. Bellaire to Dockside Restaurant's Beach is a 9-mile paddle. Torch Lake is still Michigan's longest inland lake. The water does not need a rebrand.
If you strip the tourist-facing language out of the county's summer calendar, what is left is a fairly small number of decisions. Whether to paddle one day of Paddle Antrim or two. Whether to spend August 7 in Elk Rapids or wait for the block party in Bellaire six weeks later. Whether to bring guests to the Pub or the Pull Barn. Whether to stop at Dockside on Torch Lake by boat or by car.
Those decisions get easier when you see the schedule as one connected weekend spread across four downtowns, rather than four separate towns competing for your Saturday. That is the shift the 2026 calendar is quietly asking residents to make.
If your late-summer thinking has turned toward whether the lake house you own, the cottage you inherited, or the property down the road you have been watching for years is finally the right piece to sell, buy, or reposition, Molly Buttleman is happy to talk it through in the same plain language used above. Inquire Now to start a private conversation about your Antrim County property.
Molly is Michigan native and has called the Grand Traverse and Leelanau County region home for more than 30 years. Understanding the demands of today's buyers and sellers has allowed her to be a top producing agent when it comes to Antrim, Grand Traverse, and Leelanau County real estate year after year. As a relationship building person, she enjoys developing loyal friends and customers. As a Real Estate Professional, she builds those same lasting relationships with both Buyers and Sellers. Service is Molly's top priority.
Molly is known for listening and problem-solving, often putting her own real-life buying, selling, and renovating experience to use for her clients. Her construction industry connections also give her clients an extra sense of trust, especially if they are looking to add value to a property with a remodel.
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