Portland’s paddleboard witches: the October tradition that vanished

Ginny Kauffman started Portland’s Stand Up Paddleboard Witch Paddle in 2017 as a small Halloween-season idea inspired by a similar event in California. It quickly turned into a wildly popular annual October tradition, drawing hundreds of costumed witches (plus the occasional wizard, kid or dog) launching from Willamette Park and paddling a roughly six-mile out-and-back toward Tom McCall Waterfront Park near the Hawthorne Bridge.

By 2021, it hit its biggest turnout yet, even with blustery wind pushing hats around and sending many paddlers close to shore. Along with the spectacle, the event also became a donation drive, collecting new socks, shirts and underwear for Our House of Portland and coats for Sunshine Division.

Kauffman eventually called it off, saying the crowd had outgrown what she could safely run as an informal, volunteer event — especially with too many people showing up without basic safety gear like PFDs and leashes, and with the Coast Guard raising concerns. As of 2026, the large, organized Witch Paddle hasn’t returned, and there are no plans for it to come back.