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Pub & Sporting News / volume 10 number 2, February 2008 Fairbanks Spring Hysteria: The Great Tanana Raft Classic There we were, sitting in the bar of the Switzerland (now the Castle) Restaurant on Airport Road. It was the March after the great summer Fairbanks flood of 1967. What were we going to do once this summer finally arrived? We were Merritt and Carla Helfferich, Eric Forrer, and Janice Duncan (St John). It was 1968. We were considering the possibilities of fun things to do after the snow melted and the ice went out, which time was way too slow to arrive. We were shortly joined at the bar by George Cresswell, a graduate student at the Geophysical Institute, and wife Diana who had come to the Switzerland after attending a wedding reception (not theirs). Eric talked about his planned trip this summer down the Tanana and Yukon rivers to Nome in the new boat he built, the Seaducer. After additional drinks and more discussion about river trips George mentioned that he and Neal Brown had built a raft and floated the Tanana from Fairbanks to Nenana the previous July. It was about eighty miles more or less to Nenana, and George said that it went well, but then it would have because both he and Neal were very skilled, perceptive, clever, and experienced river navigators. And he and Neal were considering doing it again this next summer. Merritt said to George, “Say, I’d like to do that! Could I go with you?” George replied, “Oh, I don’t think so, you really aren’t experienced, don’t have the nautical skills, don’t have the judgment, and it would be too dangerous for you to go.” “What?… What are you talking about?” said Merritt. George replied, “It’s obvious to me that you would drown, or worse run the raft onto a sweeper or a log jam and screw up the whole trip.” “What!” (Merritt was a master of articulation at this point.) “The hell you say! You’re telling me I can’t do this! Well, then… If you take this stupid attitude I’ll build my own raft and go down the river too…and what’s more I’ll beat you to Nenana!” The challenge was quickly accepted. Eric Forrer also challenged George and his challenge was accepted. “Let’s drink to that!” And we did. Several times. “Say, who else will want to race? Maybe a couple of people would go. What about calling it the Fairbanks to Nenana Raft Race?” Many unsuitable and some unprintable race names were offered. Finally, Merritt suggested that since every sort of competition in Fairbanks was called a “classic” we should call it “The Great Tanana Raft Classic.” And the race was named. Later the six friends conjured up a rough framework of rules and qualifications. George and Neal had used four 55-gallon oil drums for flotation for their raft. And as a result of the flood there were loose unclaimed barrels everywhere in the floodplain (it is sadly true that some, but not most, of the barrels used were actually hooked up to people’s houses). So the rules evolved: “Four 55-gallon drums minimum flotation; minimum of two crew; life preservers for each crew member required; no motor propulsion, and AT YOUR OWN RISK! Adults only, May 25th with a start at 6:00AM at the Chena Pump Road landing, and a Le Mans start!” “Wait a minute,” someone said, “How can you have a Le Mans start with a raft race?” George replied, “Have the rafts in the water, held by the crew members. The rafts will line the riverbank in start positions we draw from a hat beforehand. The captains will be lined up back from the bank about fifty yards or so. The gun goes off, captains race to their rafts, captains fall in water, race starts, and suitable chaos ensues!” “Say, wouldn’t it be great if we got ten or twenty rafts?” In the next weeks we erected a poster in the International Bar and Hotel (The Big I).
After a week we took the sign down. There were too many applicants. On May 12th we had registration and a pre-race briefing on the river and its hazards, performed by a skilled riverboat man at the landing. The registrants were a mixed and sometimes a sorry-looking lot. We had arranged with the city of Nenana to salvage unwanted rafts, with the Riverboat Association to provide rescue services, and with the Ft. Wainwright medics to provide medical assistance. The Daily News-Miner, Jessens Weekly, the radio stations, and word of mouth had alerted the community that spring must have arrived and the madness was observable.
The evening of May 24th the rafts, barrels, and parts of rafts began to arrive on the bank of the Tanana. Construction went on all night long. There was a lot of intoxicating drink consumed. By 6 AM there were sixty-three rafts along the bank. It was beyond our wildest dreams. It was a grand sight, and huge numbers of Fairbanksans got out of bed at 4 to 5 AM on a Saturday just to see the rafts, the crazy people, and the start of the Classic. At 6:33 AM George fired off both barrels of a shotgun, which sent the semi-alert fifty-five captains (others were still building their rafts) running to a bizarre collection of river craft manned by some 200-odd crew members. There followed the anticipated chaos: rescue of captains from the Tanana, crew left behind, furious paddling, dangerous poling, tricky oar work, and sails broken out: parachutes, plastic sheets, curtains, and beach umbrellas. Rafts had outhouses, tape players, TVs, sleeping bags, outriggers, roofs, dinghies, barbeque grills, beer coolers galore, obscene signs, sponsor logos, and other things too numerous to mention. After several minutes of inspired maneuvering, most participants, described by the papers as “Geophysical scientists, hippies, seasoned boatmen, and ordinary adventurers,” slacked off the frantic rowing to survey the scene around them. One shore-bound observer likened it to the harbor at Hong Kong. Others said it looked like ancient invasion fleets. There were many hazards; the “Hot Slough” where the river flowed at an unusual speed and sweepers lined the bank had the most. Some rafts turned over on logjams, others lost their crew into the water as sweepers (trees on the eroding bank that had fallen into the river with the trunk floating) scraped the decks. One of the riverboats saved a man who absent-mindedly walked off his raft. One raft with eleven people on it lost their whole crew into the water and the raft as well because it was carrying too many captains (11) and not enough crew (0). Other rafts just came apart due to improper welds, poor wood construction, inability to navigate, or leaky barrels. Some rafts went up dead-end sloughs and may still be there. In the end, the race was won by Clements-Domonkos-Jones-Straub in the sleek “PT66 Ice Worm” in 10 hours 15 minutes. Others arrived at midnight, 2 AM, and 2:10 AM. Cresswell/Brown beat Helfferich and Forrer to Nenana (drat!) and were insufferable for part of a day. Raft number 80 (maybe there were more than sixty-three; there were a lot of people and parts of rafts on the bank when we left) turned up on the river the next day still some ten miles from Nenana, refusing all help and vowing “Nenana or Sink!” The next year there were 160 rafts in the Classic, the following year there were 280, and in 1971, the last year, there were well over 450 rafts. The last year we decided that people were trying too hard to win and ruled that the eleventh raft to arrive would be the winner! Imagine the scene at the finish line! The race was a magnificent example of end-of-winter enthusiasm, inventiveness, and good humor that attracted racers from all over the state, from Hawaii, and brought the national media to Fairbanks. For more on the raft race and the reunion planned for August 10, 2008,
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