More than 100 supporters of the Snake River Fund floated the river Friday and celebrated its four-month-old status as a congressionally protected wild and scenic waterway.

The fete culminated at a barbecue dinner on the banks of the river south of Wilson attended by veteran oarsmen and women and paddlers of all stripes.

A U.S. Forest Service proposal in 1998 to charge recreationists with a parking fee launched the Snake River Fund, one of the nonprofits that was key to the campaign.

Board member emeritus Aaron Pruzan recalled how his organization was born when an anonymous donor stepped in and bought the first $50,000 worth of parking permits, freeing boaters from bureaucracy. The donor challenged the community to take the next fundraising step.

“Right away, everybody got it,” Pruzan said of the need to mobilize for the good of the waterway and those who use it.

Within years, the Snake River Fund was among a handful of conservation groups strategizing how to preserve the Snake and guarantee it not be degraded by dams, pollution or development that could threaten its special characteristics.

Wyoming had only 20 miles of wild and scenic rivers when the latest effort began about five years ago. Supporters, including the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, proposed the first-ever bill to protect an entire headwaters and its tributaries.

With Sen. Craig Thomas as its champion — and later Thomas’ successor, Sen. John Barrasso — the bill followed a rocky road to its approval this year. Today, protection for scenic, recreational or wild values covers 387 miles of rivers and creeks in the region, including portions of Bailey, Blackrock, Crystal, Granite, Pacific, Shoal, Willow and Wolf creeks, the Buffalo Fork of the Snake, plus the Gros Ventre, Hoback, Lewis and Snake rivers.

“People said we were crazy,” said Scott Bosse, who worked with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition on the project. “Maybe it takes a lot of crazy dirtbags to create a new reality.”

“I was inspired to protect a river that was still intact,” Bosse said. “There’s few places on Earth like the Snake watershed. It was something that was too special to risk.”

Ground-breaking in the campaign was acknowledgement of the river’s economic value to anglers, outfitters, whitewater companies and others in the tourist industry.

“It’s a recognition it’s really important in the economy of the valley,” outfitter Denny Becker said of the bill Congress passed.

“It’s a recognition that the river has value of its own,” Becker said. “In the past, it was a place to throw tires.”

Private property rights are preserved, backers say.

The darkest moment of the campaign was when Thomas, the bill’s champion, died of leukemia, said Tom Patricelli, director of the legislative campaign.

“From that time emerged another hero, and that was John Barrasso, who not only cemented Craig’s legacy but in one year did more to carve his name in Wyoming public policy than most public servants do in their entire career,” Patricelli said.

Snake River Fund board member Corey Milligan said many might not yet grasp the significance of protecting the headwaters in perpetuity.

“The bigness of this, people don’t even know yet,” he said. “I’ve got three kids. It’s for my kids.”