Dick Helfrich

Veltie and Prince Dick Helfrich

Veltie Pruitt invented the light drift boat in 1926. In 1928, after making several boats, he partnered with Prince Helfrich, made him a boat, and the two men set off on a decade of adventure on the wild rapid rivers of Oregon and Idaho. They boated the McKenzie, Upper Rogue, Lower Rogue, Crooked, Metolius, Deschutes, John Day, Smith, Willamette, Middle Fork of the Salmon, and other rivers including sections now flooded by man-made dams. Their courageous explorations were celebrated in film and news stories and became lore along the McKenzie River. In this book their journals, news interviews, films, notes and other materials are drawn into a pictorial account of each separate river trip by Veltie's grandson Paul Kingery, with Shelly Pruitt and Dick Helfrich.