Alpacka Raft was born in 2000 through collaboration between Sheri Tingey, a design genius with decades of kayaking and custom outdoor clothing experience, and her son Thor, who had completed a 600-mile packrafting traverse of Alaska's Brooks Range. Sheri, who had founded one of the first modern outdoor clothing companies in Jackson Hole in the 1970s, designed and built the first packraft—the "White Boat"—using her sewing expertise and Thor's backcountry knowledge. Each Alpacka Raft is handmade to order by skilled makers in their workshop nestled at the base of the San Juan Mountains in Mancos, Colorado.