Note: The independent festival described in this story continues to this day. The survival of a free event is not miraculous, but actually comes down to committed work. A guy named Tim Johnson organizes everything and puts up the money, and many volunteers pitch in. Here is Tim’s fundraiser for the 2021 festival.
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand questions. Here we have a river, milky-blue from glacial runoff, raging through a narrowing gorge. Rapids hint at massive underwater boulders, one of which we can actually see. This is not a river to fall into. None of this matters to the three people travelling down it via wacky inflatables, only one of whom is actually astride the vessel. There is one bystander, who is wearing a whitewater helmet but lacks any equipment to help if something goes wrong. We can’t see facial expressions in the photo, but I’d bet they’re all laughing.
What is happening here? What adrenaline-fueled cocktail of nature and nurture has created such heroics? What government allows its citizens to throw themselves onto class-2 rapids in ten-dollar blow-up turtles from Walmart? How is this not a drunk dare between friends but actually a decades-old tradition drawing hundreds of strangers?
The answer to each question is the same: Alaska. Welcome to the Sixmile Whitewater and Bluegrass Festival, which happens every year in America’s biggest, wildest state.
Alaska. Land of good odds, but odd goods. Settled over 15,000 years ago by the first people to cross the Bering land bridge from Asia, then brutally grabbed and exploited by Russian traders in the 1700’s. They held Alaska until the Tsar decided to sell it to the US in 1867. Fresh off the Civil War, the US forked over two cents per acre, which rises to the princely sum of 37 cents if we convert it to today’s money.
Massive resource rushes, for gold in the 1890’s and oil in the 1960’s, proved that the land still had much to plunder. For the more aesthetically inclined, Alaska also has natural wonders beyond belief and supports real hunting and gathering into the modern day. The long, dark winters and shocking cost of living keep most people out, but three quarters of a million hardy souls stick around. They wile away the darkness by drinking and apparently auctioning off dates with strapping lumberjacks. It doesn’t hurt that everyone gets over $1,500 of oil money annually just for living there.
So, we have a state full of folks cooped up every winter and then released into nature’s majesty under the midnight sun every summer. The people rightly want to enjoy the nature and do it with the extra iota of craziness that comes from living in the dark for the previous four months. They also have cash to burn on wild frivolities. This potent mixture has produced the Talkeetna moose-dropping festival, the Mount Marathon Race, the Arctic Man Race, and many more. The lesser-known Sixmile Festival, however, may have best preserved the absolutely free spirit of an Alaskan summer blowout.
I made it to Anchorage, Alaska in the summer of 2015 as an intern with the Inuit Circumpolar Council. I spent my free time mostly alone, in awe of the place. Mother moose wandered through my neighborhood with their calves. Ptarmigan raised babies in the mountains above town. Neighbors traded fresh-caught salmon, and immense stands of fireweed lined the sidewalks. Denali was a bus ride away. This was enough for me, but when some acquaintances invited me to a festival, I jumped at the chance for some human interaction. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Everything in Alaska not on one of the state’s four major roads is remote. The Sixmile creek, site of the festival, is halfway down a paved track that dead-ends at a village called Hope. We rolled south from Anchorage through the pristine land of glacial rivers, rocky slopes, green summer forests, and cold seas.
Part 1: The Whitewater
My three companions, whose names I have forgotten, managed to find the unmarked dirt pullout that was the festival site. There were a few dozen cars, a small stage, and almost no people. We eventually found a group who told us that the main excitement and crowds were at the whitewater races a few miles upriver. My crew wanted to stay, so I ditched them and started running up the road to the races.
After a few minutes, the most glorious dirtbag van I have ever seen stopped to give me a lift. The whole hood was so rusted that corners of the engine were visible. I had to yank hard to wedge the door open a foot, grinding metal directly on metal. The van had no back seats, but was full instead with a wonderful cornucopia of junk, a friendly dog, and a catatonic woman. The driver and passenger were husband and wife: a jacked, shirtless, six-and-a-half-foot man with a beard two feet long and a wild gleam in his eye, and a woman with a stunning array of tattoos up both arms and her neck. I never understood their relationship with the passed-out rider. We passed a single rubber boot lying by the side of the highway and screeched to a halt so that I could collect it and throw it in the back. It was a right boot. I hope they eventually found a left one to match it.
We pulled in too late to catch the kayak race, which others said was a highly competitive white-knuckle affair down a mile stretch of the creek’s canyon. We made it for the inflatable race, though. Dozens of brave souls piled onto inner tubes, blow-up sea life of all kinds, sex dolls, a swan of terrifying proportions, and more than I could pick out in the overall fracas. Most of the riders immediately fell off their unseaworthy ships, but there was no stopping or turning back in the whitewater. They just held on for dear life. I couldn’t tell how the race ended, or who won, but it didn’t seem to matter.
After more daredevils jumped off a bridge into the fast-moving water, everyone packed up and started heading back to the festival venue. Once again, I only made it partway back before a car picked me up. It was time to party.
Part 2: The Bluegrass
The Sixmile festival is free and unadvertised. It runs off donations, volunteers, and the word of mouth. The venue is a flat bit of valley between the road and the river, with steep mountains hanging above on both sides. There is some area of grass and dirt for people to dance and watch the music, but most of the area is full of tough brushy plants. We pitched our tents directly on bushes. The preferred strategy seems to be drinking enough to pass out without noticing the discomfort.
The opening bands started up, playing a kind of raw lively bluegrass that seemed perfect for the setting. Six years later I still distinctly remember the Shoot Dangs, who played so hard that they sounded half punk rock. Everyone was getting into it. Hard liquor was freely available and someone had started cooking mass quantities of hot dogs over a roaring fire. There were more than enough for the 100-200 people in the crowd. An acrobat started showing some moves in silks hung from a high branch. The representation from families with little kids and older people was impressive, and the atmosphere was deeply friendly.
The music paused at some point to allow for a Viking-style commemoration. A kayaker, well known to the core of whitewater enthusiasts who set up the festival, had died that year on big water in South America. One of his friends made a stirring speech and it was easy to imagine the camaraderie that exists between those who put their life on the line together. They put some of his personal effects- a paddle, a photo- onto a handmade wooden raft, set it alight, and floated it off down the river. The whitewater soon snuffed the fire and immersed the raft. The music started back up.
Rowdiness increased after the memorial. The main event of the night, Blackwater Railroad Company, had the crowd in a dancing frenzy with their swinging tunes about Alaska. Couples came together and young guys wrestled in the dirt. I took advantage of one wrestling session to steal a beer from a tough-looking crew who might have been off from the salmon boats. Blackwater finished to great shouts of praise, and the festival was over for another year. I picked my way back to my tent, stumbling between groups finishing their bottles among the brush, and reflected on the strangest and greatest night of my Alaskan summer.
The way home
The next morning was gray and drizzly, so we tossed our sodden gear into the drunk and nosed out through the Festival site. It would have been hard to tell that a big crowd had been there the night before, as tents barely poked out of their brushy hollows. We picked up a fish cannery worker who was also headed back to Anchorage, and she regaled us with tales of the 16-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week grind that had been her summer. She had made enough money to live on for months. Many benefit from Alaska’s natural bounty, but they have to work for it.
The rain picked up as we slept along the shores of the Turnagain Arm to Anchorage, just soaking in the wonders of the land. Conversation dropped off and we rode with only the quiet patter of the rain. The only words we spoke were when Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams crackled in over the radio, and everyone in the car hummed the lyrics: When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know…