Row for the River – How it started and an excerpt from Tim Palmer’s book on the Stanislaus

In 2024, a group of people began to remember and document the amazing Row for the River event in September 1974 (zoom call image above). Here is the background story about the event and a description from Tim Palmer later:

Jay Power’s notes:  In August 1974 in Sacramento, a handful of Friends of the River‘s Proposition 17 supporters gathered for an informal BBQ at Tom Lovering’s house. The gathering was hastily called and was intended to be a relief from the tedious and time consuming task of gathering and validating signatures on petitions to support Prop 17. Those attending were Tom Lovering, Mark DuBois and Jay Power, possibly David Westphal, Pam Hedges, Don Burns.  Jay and Mark were engaged in a conversation about rivers. Jay, as a geologist, said that he always wanted to follow a river upstream, all the way to where it begins stream flow. Mark, as a river conservationist, stated that he always wanted to follow a river downstream all the way to its terminus in a lake or ocean. As others joined, the conversation evolved the idea of a political trip down the entire Stanislaus River evolved into Row for the River, which came together really fast – within a couple of weeks, the trip notices were out and people signing up!

ROW FOR THE RIVER, from Tim Palmer, Stanislaus – Struggle for a River, pages 100-101:

(Mark) Dubois had always wanted to do a river trip the whole way from Camp Nine to San Francisco. One night in September, five friends  of the river brainstormed (Tom Lovering, Jay Power, Don Burns, Mark and others ) in the Sacramento operation of Friends of the River) and asked, why not a 200-mile voyage to kick off the fall campaign? Roanoke agreed that “Row for the River” would invite publicity, and would raise funds if the paddlers and rowers could persuade sponsors to pay by the mile—a row-a-thon. So they did it. One hundred people started with the frothy canyon run. Then a score of kayakers portaged around the old cement of Melones Dam; past the foundation of New Melones, where construction crews herded fleets of belching diesel machinery rearranging the walls of Iron Canyon; and over Tulloch and Goodwin dams. From there they kayaked through fifty miles of Central Valley farmland; on down the San Joaquin agricultural conduit; through the Delta checkerboard of land and brackish water, and into San Francisco Bay. It took them eight days. Among the twenty were Fred Dennis, who had started etcetera with Dubois; Dave Westphal; and Bruce Simballa. Jennifer Jennings, Robin Magnusson, and Kathy Meyer also paddled to the white foggy city, and would later fill important positions with Friends of the River. Steve Luke made the trip with a cast around a broken leg. Sixty more supporters joined at Tiburon; then the eclectic armada of five rafts, eighty kayaks, canoes, four sailboats, a wind-surfer, a three-masted schooner from the Oceanic Society, and a floating army truck crossed the choppy bay to Aquatic Park. Gracielle Rossi arranged for a fireboat,a marching band, and 1,000 people to herald the voyagers. The river people felt strong and elated and sure that they would win on November 5. If only saving their river had been as easy as traveling it.  (NOTE – some of those listed did not paddle the entire trip).