Across the country, revelers are dressing in costumes and gliding across bodies of water on stand-up paddleboards to ring in the spooky season

||| FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE |||

Carving jack-o’-lanterns, watching scary movies, touring haunted houses and trick-or-treating have long been beloved Halloween traditions. However, in recent years, a new spooky ritual has also taken hold: witch paddles.

This month, revelers across the nation are dressing up as witches and warlocks. But rather than straddling brooms and pretending to fly through the air, they’re climbing onto stand-up paddleboards and floating across bodies of water.

Dressed in their costumes—which often include pointy hats and billowing robes—the paddling witches and warlocks become striking silhouettes on the horizon.

“Four hundred people dressed as witches launching at the same time is wild to see,” said Anna Marie Madai, who co-founded a witch paddle in Colorado, to the New York Times’ Remy Tumin last year.

Events take place on bays, reservoirs, rivers, lakes and harbors in Colorado, California, Michigan, Florida and beyond. Witch paddles have even gained an international foothold, with gatherings in the United Arab Emirates, British Columbia and more.

Though witches have long been associated with evil, these costume-wearing paddlers are anything but.

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