PWAC Victoria: Tom Koppel, Writing Sample

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Riverboat Rules the Mississippi

by Tom Koppel © 1998

The Delta Queen recalls a world of mahogany, crystal and brass. Originally published in The Georgia Straight, Apr. 9-16, 1998.

NEW ORLEANS--As a kid I prowled the local lakeshore by rowboat, fancying myself a pirate or explorer. At 19, I hopped a freighter to Europe. I've watched the hills of Rio recede from the deck of a container ship and seen volcanic craters emerge from the haze as I approached the Galapagos Islands in a wooden yawl. Even today, as the gray hairs spread and the others thin out, the romance of ships is still in my blood, so when I learned of the opportunity to cruise the Mississippi aboard a 70-year-old paddlewheel steamboat, I jumped at it.

The Delta Queen, built in Stockton, California in 1927 to navigate the Sacramento River between Sacramento and San Francisco Bay, still has her original 1,000-horsepower engines. She's now a United States Historic Monument. In 1948 she was towed through the Panama Canal, and since 1985 she's been based in New Orleans, offering a variety of cruises along the Mississippi and numerous smaller river systems.

My wife Annie and I had signed up for the eight-day Cajun Culture cruise, imagining a week of genteel antebellum riverboat travel, fine dining, promenading the deck, and watching life on the river slowly roll by. We were not disappointed. Walking up the gangplank, we stepped back in time and entered a world of varnished mahogany woodwork, polished brass, Tiffany lamps, and crystal chandeliers. Uniformed stewards whisked our luggage to a cozy cabin, furnished with antiques. We settled into big rocking chairs on deck, sipping drinks until, as dusk fell, blasts on the ship's whistle warned visitors to go ashore. Then, accompanied by sprightly carnival tunes from an ancient steam calliope, the big red stern wheel began to churn the soupy water and we slipped past the skyscrapers and into the channel.

As we explored the boat, we eased into its unhurried ambience. That evening, dressed to the nines, we descended the Delta Queen's grand staircase for a five-course dinner, then two-stepped the evening away to the fiddle and accordion of a hot Cajun band. The next morning, our steward knocked and left us a wake-up tray of coffee, juice, and sweet rolls. This was to be our daily routine for a week--dancing at night, breakfast in bed--and we enjoyed every minute of it.

We left the Mississippi and cruised up the canal-like Intracoastal Waterway, a dredged channel with locks that stretches west into Texas. Wisps of mist rose over the reeds and scrubby trees of a vast, sparsely populated wetland. Egrets and herons stalked the narrow bayous that intersected the main channel. The boat idled along so quietly--steam engines make none of the rumble or vibration of diesels--that we could feel the immense silence. Every few hours we came to a settlement of modest homes. This is Cajun country, where descendants of the Acadians expelled from Canada in the mid-1700s still speak archaic French, raise crawfish, and gamble on fighting cocks. As in Mark Twain's day, when the cry "Steamboat a comin' " brought out the whole town, our arrival, flags flying, whistles blowing, was a gala event. At each town or bridge we passed, locals stopped their cars and pickups to get out and wave. Kids stood transfixed. The Delta Queen's captain, Gabe Chengery, would play a few bars on the calliope in salute.

Chengery, 50, and his ship go back a long way. He told us how he had been captivated by the Delta Queen as a teen in the early 1960s. "I used to sit on the cliffs overlooking the Ohio at Pittsburgh," he said, "and watch her fight her way upstream." Captivated by the spectacle, he decided he'd become a steamboatman. At 20 he signed aboard the ship as a night watchman, and worked his way up.

River travel has never become routine for Chengery. "Every trip is still an adventure," he said. Channels and sandbars are forever shifting, the water's flow and level are always changing. And so it proved to be on our voyage. After several days of cruising and side trips to Cajun historic sites, our itinerary called for a jog up the wild Atchafalaya River to rejoin the Mississippi. But the water was the highest in 25 years and one low highway bridge forced a change of plan. "We could fit under it," the captain joked, "but we'd have to saw off the pilothouse." So we doubled back and had more time on the Mississippi itself.

As steamboats have always done while bucking the current, the Delta Queen often hugged the shore to take advantage of relatively slack water. So did many of the towboats and their barges we shared the river with. It is a delicate manoeuvre, and if it's not done right, the barges can be swept out of control and crash into shore. Our officers, including two river pilots, were on constant watch for the rusting, sunken hulks of such barges.

But keeping close to shore had advantages. The perfume of the honeysuckle wafted over the water on an early-spring breeze. In one spot, we saw a scene straight from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: teenage boys were swinging from a rope tied high in a cottonwood tree and leaping into the river for a swim. Being close to shore also meant we could look over the levees and rooftops and see the serried yellow and green rows of sugarcane that sprawled away across the floodplain.

On the return run, heading downstream from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, the boat stayed far out in the middle of the river to take maximum advantage of the current. As we swept around the Mississippi's looping bends, the sun swung from one side of the boat to the other, and we often found ourselves heading north or west for a time, even though our overall direction was southeast.

Our last night on the river, the captain hosted the finest dinner of the trip. Later, we danced slow and easy to the ship's band. Before heading to our cabin, we stepped outside for a final turn around the deck. The Delta Queen spun a fuzzy halo of light on the water. Occasionally, a bobbing bird was caught in our glow, squawked in protest and vanished as we slid quickly past. A sliver of moon was just rising over a black line of trees that seemed miles away. We leaned on the rail, not speaking. Our boat, for all its grandeur, was just a flickering candle on a huge, darkened stage. The Mississippi, timeless and mute, swept on to the sea.

Access

The 174-passenger Delta Queen steams along the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and other rivers. Most cruises take four to eight nights and focus on regional and seasonal themes, such as Cajun culture, the Civil War, and autumn foliage.

All cabins aboard the Delta Queen face out and have private bathrooms. The smallest, with bunk beds and showers, get booked months in advance. (Many passengers spend little time in their rooms and the price difference between small cabins and large suites with queen-size beds and bathtubs is substantial.)

Fares begin at $1,050 per person (double occupancy) for the seven-night Cajun Culture cruise. Most cruises of seven nights or longer include free round-trip airfare from major U.S. airports if booked eight months in advance (deposit required).

For more information, write to the Delta Queen Steamboat Company, Robin Street Wharf, Port of New Orleans Place, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130-1890 or call, toll-free, 1-800-543-1949.

Tom Koppel
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Last updated: April 22, 2002 http://www.islandnet.com/pwacvic/koppel03.html