
Dozens of kayaks, canoes, tubes and rafts could be seen floating down the Huron River from Argo to Gallup on a recent Sunday afternoon.
Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com
Colin Smith, the city's parks and recreation manager, said the Argo Canoe Livery saw a roughly 50 percent increase in trips this July compared with last July.

A four-person raft makes its way down the end of the Argo Cascades on a recent Sunday afternoon. There were 135 rafts rented from the Argo Canoe Livery during July.
Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com
Cheryl Saam, facility supervisor for the canoe liveries, said for the month of July there were 3,617 kayaks, 584 canoes and 135 rafts rented for the 3.7-mile Argo-to-Gallup river trip. There were another 946 kayaks and 170 canoes rented for the 5.7-mile Barton-to-Gallup river trip.
The city also rented out 818 tubes for trips down the Argo Cascades in July, plus another 45 kayaks and 28 canoes for the 7.1-mile Delhi-to-Argo river trip.
The city completed the Argo Cascades project on the Huron River in May 2012 with the $1.17 million reconstruction of the bypass channel around Argo Dam in the old millrace.
The city removed a cumbersome portage and transformed the channel into a series of nine drops and pools for people in tubes, rafts, canoes and kayaks.
Other new features in the area include a wider and paved Border-to-Border Trail section and pedestrian bridges. Smith said the city is seeing a lot of new activity in the area, including companies having team-building exercises out on the river.
"All sorts of people are out on the river doing things we wouldn't have necessarily seen a number of years ago," he said. "North Face had kind of a company training out at Argo and they were using the standup paddle boards, so there's just a lot of different stuff you can do."
For more information, visit the canoe liveries website.
Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529. You also can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's email newsletters.