FAIRBANKS — An empty "ghost" birch bark canoe trailed behind another canoe Wednesday during the Fairbanks Paddlers' final Chena River float of the season.
The handmade canoe now belongs to the Fairbanks boating club, but its creator was conspicuously absent.
Fox boatmaker and man of wide-ranging interests James Gajdics died May 3 on his 69th birthday when he was shot to death in a reported dispute with a neighbor. The case against his alleged killer is still pending and is scheduled to go to trial in late November.
Gajdics, who went by the names Jimmy Gaydos, was remembered in Fairbanks and Haines for his friendliness, hospitality and ingenuity.
The retired ironworker traveled extensively and hosted numerous international guests. He built things such as horseshoes and a converted bio-diesel engine at his home behind the Silver Gulch brewery in Fox.
Outside of Alaska, television audiences knew him as a contestant in the second season of the National Geographic reality show "Ultimate Survival" who flipped his packraft and nearly drowned.
'Very energetic'
But among the Fairbanks Paddlers members, Gaydos was known for his handmade boats.
Gaydos brought a different hand-made boat each year to the club's wooden boat rendezvous, an August celebration of wooden boats held in 2010, 2012 and 2014.
Gaydos was by no means a master craftsman, according to fellow boat builder and club member Larry Fogelson. But what he lacked in fine workmanship, he made up for in enthusiasm.
"He wasn't a real craftsman that I could tell, but it's more than I have done," Fogelson said. "Jimmy was very energetic. That guy was going all the time. Like he likes to say, 'I don't watch TV.' He was always doing something."
Gaydos was only in the Fairbanks Paddlers for the last 10 years of his life, but he was a frequent presence at club events. He'd usually bring a big pot of moose or caribou stew to club events, club president Dave Payer said.
Each year, he'd also come equipped to the club's annual gear swap, but not with the mass-produced canoe and kayak gear everyone else brought.
"Buffalo rugs, sealskin mittens all kinds of stuff," Payer said. "Everyone anxiously awaited Jimmy's arrival at the annual meeting."
Canoe of Alaska materials
Last month, Payer and Fogelson met with the executor of Gaydos' estate to look over Gaydos' boat collection.
Gaydos left behind a homemade birch bark canoe, an Eskimo-style whaling boat known as an umiak and two old canoes made by New England boat maker Old Town. One of the Old Town boats, a restored canvas canoe, was built in 1920, according to the company's detailed records, Payer said.
The umiak and the Old Town boats will be sold as part of Gaydos' estate, but the executor left the birch bark canoe to the Fairbanks Paddlers.
The birch bark canoe is made from entirely Alaska materials. It won the club's "sourdough" award at the 2010 wooden boat rendezvous. Made with birch harvested in Nenana and yellow cedar ribs from Haines, the 14-foot boat weighs only 35 pounds.
The lashings are made from spruce roots that were split, de-barked and soaked to be more pliable.
The canoe needs maintenance to keep it from drying out and getting brittle. Payer is hoping a local museum will put it on display.
But first, the club took the boat on a float through Fairbanks on Sept. 23. They stopped at the end of the float to drink an Irish cream liquor toast in Gaydos' honor.
The Fairbanks Paddlers will again remember Gaydos with a slide show at the club's annual potluck Nov. 6. The birch bark canoe will be on display.
Contact Fairbanks News-Miner outdoors editor Sam Friedman at 459-7545.