Keelboats Return to Disney River
Speaking of transportation at Disneyland, the Mike Fink Keelboats will return to the river in Frontierland on Saturday, following a three-year hiatus.
Park officials will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony and park guests can witness a race between rival frontiersmen Davy Crockett and Mike Fink shortly after the park opens at 8 a.m.
Walt Disney brought Crockett’s Bertha Mae and Fink’s Gullywhumper to the park in December 1955 as a wave of Crockett mania swept the nation. The boats originally appeared on an episode of Disney’s weekly TV show that chronicled the storied keelboat race between Crockett, “The King of the Wild Frontier,” and Fink, a swaggering Mississippi River pilot.
The boats are back because employees felt the Crockett legend should live on at Disneyland, said Paul Hersek, assistant manager of river attractions at the park. In Frontierland “we have a great living river that brings back the ambience of the 1800s,” Hersek said. “The keelboats were an important part of that. . . . The cast members had a real passion for that attraction.”
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Marla Dickerson covers tourism for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-5670 and at marla.dickerson@latimes.com.
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