Mad Raft revelers ticketed by State Parks after race
- Chilkat Valley News
- 7 days ago
- 6 min read
By Rashah McChesney
Chilkat Valley News
A few hundred spectators crowded into Chilkoot Lake State Recreation Site on the Fourth of July to watch a rafting race down the Chilkoot River that has become a staple of the community’s celebration of the holiday. But some are now facing tickets and fines from state parks staff who said the event was dangerously crowded and left parts of the river full of trash.
State Park Ranger Jacques Turcotte said he wrote fewer than 10 tickets related to the event. Some, like “Little Jack” Smith, got a $50 ticket which also has a $20 surcharge for parking illegally on the road that runs alongside the river.
“I pulled over for a second to watch my kid,” Smith said.
Smith said he’s been going to the race as long as he can remember – he was born in 1980 – and he was surprised by the citation.
“There was a no-parking sign. It’s not like I didn’t break the law,” he said. “They’ve never done anything about it [before].”
Others, like Michael and Melissa Ganey, got warnings the day of the race.
“We weren’t cited for anything,” Melissa Ganey wrote in an email. “We did get a verbal warning as my kids [and] I jumped in the back of Michael’s truck so we could follow the boats along as we drove slowly down the road.”
She said she saw Turcotte stop at other vehicles along the road and get photos of vehicles and license plates.
“It was pretty unfortunate as this event has happened for a [very] long time and is a great event bringing a lot of community together,” she wrote. “Really put a damper on it.”
The Race
It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact year the Mad Raft Race started, but many recall 1968 as the first year of the event. The rules have changed through the years, but appear to have consistently included that racers must be on homemade rafts, many choosing to float down the river on giant blocks of styrofoam. Depending on the year, racers also had to be wearing helmets and PFDs and people under 16 had to have a signed parental waiver.
Multi-year winner Kevin Shove recalls that the borough used to sponsor it but pulled out due to the cost of insurance.
“You had to wear helmets, there was a prize. We did trophies – I still have one,” he said. “When the borough dropped it, they wanted to stop the race.”
But Shove said people who ran it didn’t want to stop – and his understanding is that anyone can paddle down a public river at any time on whatever kind of craft they want and as long as it wasn’t organized, no one person would have to take on the liability.
“So we were just a bunch of guys after – I can’t remember what year – but we decided ‘ok, we’re just a bunch of guys going down the river,’” he said.
In at least one year, a state park ranger diverted it because the water was too high. In 1994, organizer Erwin Hertz brought the race back after it was cancelled for two years due to high water. At that time, the rules stated that rafts had to be homemade, racers had to wear crash helmets and wet suits or life preservers, they had to go around the weir and anyone under 16 years old had to have a waiver signed by a parent.Shove, who got his start rafting down the river with Hertz, said he raced for so long that people came to him to coordinate.
“I was like, I’m just a guy doing it too,” he said. “But then I would start the race … and I would tell somebody from the crowd ‘hey, say on your mark, get set, go.’”
Shove said that’s how the race ran for years, including a year during the pandemic in which he was on the only boat in the river because no one else showed up. But then the chamber started promoting it.
“Which I love.. But they put it on the [flier] and I was like, oh it’s going to get dicey if somebody, you know, gets hurt. The liability of it all,” he said. “That’s why you’ve got to say, ‘hey, we’re paddling down the river – you can go if you want, but if you don’t and you’re a little scared, don’t go.’”
This year, Shove said some people came in and helped to coordinate, including one who was asking people to sign waivers.
“I was like, are you insuring this? You’re signing a waiver here, which won’t stand up in court. I mean, a good lawyer will eat that up,” he said.
There were even cash prizes offered to racers, which Shove said is a relatively new practice.
“We didn’t do prizes for years, it was just bragging rights,” he said.
While many involved in the event said there have not been formal organizers for years, the Haines Chamber of Commerce has been promoting the raft race for the last two years.Ranger Turcotte said Wednesday that he planned to cite the chamber for its involvement with the race.
Chamber Board President Travis Kukull said outside of conversations around people wearing PFDs and limiting styrofoam pollution, there were not a lot of coordinating discussions.
“The chamber’s main job … is to advertise for local businesses and events,” he said. “Just because we’re advertising for a local event does not mean we’re the ones organizing it.”
Kukull said in his opinion State Park staff needs to issue a warning.
“Issuing a struggling nonprofit a financial burden or a ticket won’t do anything besides cause that nonprofit that does things for the community – basically out of its own good will at this point – more struggle. I think that better communication can happen in the future and someone needs to take up the mantle of organizing the event.”
State Parks involvement
In recent years, there has not been coordination with State Parks, which manages most of the land around where the race takes place. State Parks acting superintendent for the Southeast Region, Brad Garasky, said he has been in his position since 2018 and in the intervening seven years state parks has not had any involvement with the race.
“Nobody has ever reached out regarding a permit for this event. It has never been an authorized event and State Parks has had no formal conversations regarding this event,” he said.
Garasky said part of the reason for that lack of coordination is that the department has struggled to retain staff.
“There hasn’t been a full-time enforcement presence up there for state parks in a few years,” he said. “If something like this was occurring, it was occurring under the radar.”
Garasky said ideally someone organizing the event would apply for a permit – as it allows state parks staff to consider all of the ways that an event could impact the general public and the environment.
“That’s really the whole gist behind the permitting process,” he said. “To work out there without damaging the resources and keep it for generations to come.”
He also said that just applying for a permit doesn’t necessarily mean any potential organizer of a future Mad Raft Race will get one.
“It needs to go through the process and get authorized or denied. A portion of that [decision-making] is the historic behavior of the event. Does the event cause lots of violations and problems and do the spectators abide by the rules and regulations that are in place?” he said. “That is all behavior that could potentially affect a decision on whether the activity would be approved in the future. If everyone wants to play by the rules and be respectful it has a higher chance of being approved.”
Longtime racer Shove remembers that there have been park rangers in past years who have taken issue with the event, but he’s consistently told them that it’s unorganized and can’t be regulated. Still, he said he understood why State Parks staff would be upset by the event this year.
“They should have informed [the park ranger],” Shove said.
Ranger Turcotte said he didn’t know about the event until the day it happened and when he showed up he was surprised to see so many people crowded onto the road, in many cases blocking access to parts of the park.
And, he said, when everyone left, there were parts of people’s boats left behind on the weir where salmon had just begun running up the river.
“There was a right way to do this event that wouldn’t have been dangerous for people and left trash in the river,” he said.
Turcotte said the point of the tickets was to remind people that there are rules that need to be followed to preserve the area for everyone’s use.
But it’s not clear that the tickets are going to spark a sea change in the way people participate in the raft race. Smith, who got the parking ticket, said he’s likely to park in the same spot again under the right circumstances.
“If my kid is paddling down the way, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get pictures of him,” he said.
• Editor’s note: Chilkat Valley News editor Rashah McChesney was also cited for passing in a no-pass zone during the race. This story was orignally published by the Chilkat Valley News.
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