Topic starter
28/08/2006 12:08 am
Some RiverRats, round these parts, believe that the tale of one very special river cruise is likely the reason that steamboatin' is still alive in the 21st Century. That "cruise" was not on an ornate steamboat like the DELTA QUEEN, but rather on a simple vessel made of sticks, logs, and hemp rope and carried but two wayward passengers bent on a mission down the awesome Mississippi River. Without that immortal voyage of the tiny ark, it is unlikely that anything resembling the steamboats we love today would still be operating in an age that out-grew them long ago.
Of course I am speaking of Sam Clemens’s story of the river boy, Huck Finn, and the slave, Jim, that fueled the spirits of generations of land-locked dreamers and ignited them with the passion to keep alive the lure of the paddlewheel steamboats and the need to create their own steamboatin' journeys in the wake of Huck and Jim's raft.
"Only the river is real and all else is sham." FW & J H
28/08/2006 3:47 am
What a terrific way to look at this!
While I understand the steamboatin'----something I learned about rather late in life although I read and loved Mark Twain's books as a kid- river cruzin was something that worked whether one used a raft, a canoe, a kayak, a sailboat, a steamboat, or a power boat. It could still imply that lazy way to ride the rivers and does allow the company to maket all of its boats in a similar and consistent way.
I do think that the name Delta Queen stirs up a lot of memories and visions and de-emphasis may cause problems but maybe not if the company wants to broaden their target market.
Just a thought. . .
28/08/2006 12:13 pm
Sam: I think that you are correct in saying that that fictional journey a century or so ago was the factor that ignited the desire to ride the river in many people. I think that you might agree that most of those who ride the Queens do so in a vicarious attempt to share in that mystique. However, it took skills to raft down the big river that most do not have. The fine crews of the boats assure them of a safe journey in a venue that seems a far cry from that raft. However there is a lot more commonality to the two means than meets the casual eye. That eye would have to be there only at dawn and/or sunset to understand a lot of it.
29/08/2006 12:20 am
Many, many years ago, long before OSHA, USCG, and all the other inspection agencies got serious about themselves, the Explorer Post I belonged to, built a raft that measured about 20' by 20' as I recall. It floated on 55 gallon paint drums donated by the local paint factory and had a sort of tent thing to hide from the sun in. About a dozen of us set forth on the Illinois River about Starved Rock State Park and floated down river well past Peoria in about a week. Details are a bit fuzzy but that was a long time ago. Somehow we managed to survive. I suspect the tow captains were laughing too hard to hit us. In the rare cases when power was needed, a dozen teenage boys jumped over the side and started kicking hard to move the raft where it needed to go. The lock master at the Peoria Lock let us lock through which was quite an experience. He did allow as how in his many years working at the lock, we were the strangest thing that had ever locked through.
That trip, inspired by the writings of Mark Twain, started a lifelong fascination for rivers and those who ply them.