According to Mississippi river legend, the graceful yet mechanically stiff herons that live along the water's shore were essential to steamboat pilots before the advent of radar. The herons - allegedly reincarnated steamboat drivers - flew ahead to rocks in the boat's path and rested there until the pilot had seen the danger. Even today, you'll find the corporeal birds guiding boats through the fog.
Such is the strange marriage of Luddism and mysticism that infused my deranged weekend voyage aboard the steamboat American Queen. From the lofty deck to the bowels of the engine room, there lingered the confused funk of technogadget lust mixed with a misty-eyed nostalgia for kinder, gentler times. As we slap-paddled from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, then back again, it became less and less clear in which direction the proverbial time line was unraveling. And if it were up to the crew of The Delta Queen Steamboat Co., all aboard would be transported to some postlapsarian yet antediluvian Broadway musical by the time the first calliope clanged out its Twainian salute.
Speaking of Mark Twain - and the questionable merits of charging the (mostly) retired set deluded wads of green to join in this melancholic crush staged on a wedding cake of jigsaw carpentry and Victorian gingerbread architecture (once considered the height of tech) - it was the great writer who dubbed these "magnificent floating palaces."
And yes, I did vibe epic majesty as I strolled past the tall, twin smokestacks and the 30-foot-wide paddlewheel - all perfect replicas of the 19th-century superstructure. Well, except for the 20th-century bow thrusters and electric Z-drive motors and, for your comfort, climate control.
"We've built more than a steamboat; we've built a situation," says Al Luthmers, senior vice president of development for American Classic Voyages. "People are buying 19th-century small-town American family values, patriotism, nostalgia, and good times."
Call us when the time machine lands, Al. Rounding out the package were nifty a.m. dockings at perfectly preserved plantations with tours by real-life white folk. That's where it started getting weird. Bad weird. But fuck it, what's the difference between a drop-jawed horniness for the technology of the future and a starry-eyed pining for the technology of the past? Baggage, baby, baggage. That's what I brought on the American Queen, and that's what I got off with.
Traditions die hard on the river.
American Queen: US$560 to $3,670 per person double-occupancy. The Delta Queen Steamboat Co.: (800) 543 1949, +1 (504) 586 0631.
STREET CRED
Feats of ClayThe Way-Distant Future
The Floating Palace
