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For many years, Gandalf and Tiger Print had miraculously undertaken the work of restoring the MV Kalakaka. Originally put into service on the Puget Sound in 1935, it sported a unique, futuristic, Art Deco style that made it an instant international sensation. Sleek and chromed, the Puget Sound's “flying bird” ran the ferry route between downtown Seattle and Bremerton until 1967 when the slim waist of its car deck and its small loading doors made the Kalakala impractical for use as a modern car carrier.
The vessel was eventually sold to an Alaskan fishing company where it became a floating cannery. A role it continued in for twenty more years, even after ceasing to function as a boat at all. Run aground in Kodiak, Alaska, the Kalakala continued on in its role as a fish cannery until a succession of operators filed for bankruptcy and left her to rust, becalmed on the shore, a forgotten victim of the harsh Alaskan winters.
Then, in the year 1984, the rusting hulk of the Kalakala was again rediscovered by the world. A sculptor visiting from Seattle stumbled across the icon while on a fish trip. He resolved to rescue the old vessel and restore it, falling in love with its abused but still sleek Art Deco lines.
But it would take almost fifteen years for the sculptor to realize his dream and remove the Kalakala from the sands of its Alaskan beach. Re-floated, she was towed back to the waters of the Puget Sound. There, the work of restoring the old ferry proved elusive. For decades, well-meaning but poorly funded non-profits attempted to restore her, but failed. With various bureaucrat and financial hurdles thrown in her way, the Kalakala rusted to little more than a carcass. Bounced from mooring to mooring, she lived out an itinerant life in various ports up and down the Puget Sound. Always one philanthropist's dream away from restoration, the ferry never found the resources necessary to kick-start its rebirth. For forty years, again, the craft was almost forgotten.
Until the birth of the Raft.
Richard Browne had been one of the Raft's earliest advocates. A self-made billionaire, he'd begun the tax resistance movement that eventually morphed into the Raft. He wasn't one of the first to flee from shore, but he was certainly the first to do so in style. Richard, after changing his name to Gandalf, purchased the derelict Kalakala from a trust for little more than the back moorage owed to the Port of Tacoma.
He began a meticulous, luxurious restoration, pouring in millions, returning the ferry to its interwar grandeur, and reconfiguring sections of its decks for use as a residence.
He spared no expense, for he knew any money he didn't take with him to the Raft would be seized to pay his tax debts. The Kalakala became the beneficiary of his billions, the store of Gandalf's wealth aboard the Raft. What money he did not spend of the ferry, rumor had it, he converted to gold and stowed away in bowel of the craft – a secret treasure room aboard the ship.
With this wealth he backed his Exchange, the online community from which the Raft eventually drew its default currency.