Ken Streater

Just north of Mongolia and Kazakhstan, the Katun River (pictured above) in southern Siberia meanders and rages for hundreds of miles through endless alpine wilderness. Deep in Soviet canyons on the Katun in 1987, Ken Streater and a dozen other river guides ran an exploratory expedition to determine if this rapid-filled waterway was suitable for the first-ever youth team-building rafting trip with Russian and American teenagers.

Between hair-raising helicopter flights through stormy, towering mountain passes to reach the launch point, going ashore and discovering an isolated hamlet named “Reindeer Herding Village,” encountering its startled but welcoming residents, and ten remarkable days of whitewater and wonder, we found the Katun to be the perfect location to realize the vision. The cultural exchange program was launched, aptly called Project RAFT (Russians and Americans for Teamwork). At a time when communism and the nuclear arms race were very much in force, the resulting youth team-building trips and other citizen diplomacy adventures contributed to improved relationships between the two countries and fostered a more open Soviet culture. This small but important contribution proved helpful in reducing political tensions and the threat of nuclear war, while also playing a role in melting the Iron Curtain.

Decades later, beyond the impact of these and many other previous efforts–and until no longer needed–we must do what is required to fix what culturally ails us by creating positive change in our communities and the world.