When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.
—Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi
["Robert E. Lee Steamship", by August A. Norieri.]
Riverboats, while not uniquely American, have long inspired American art, music, and literature, from Life on the Mississippi to the paintings of August Norieri to "Proud Mary". That legacy can be intimidating; our few hours on the steamboat Natchez gave us some of the pelican photos in a recent post, but up until now I've avoided the topic of the Natchez herself because I didn't think I had anything to say. Now I find myself writing a love letter of sorts, to a ship and to a city.
[The Natchez and her sister ship, the City of New Orleans.]
Talking of intimidating legacies... The current Natchez, launched in 1975, is the ninth riverboat to bear the name. The original, built a hundred fifty-two years earlier, was a sidewheel boat, as were several successors, including the seventh Natchez, famous for an 1870 New Orleans-to-St. Louis race against the Robert E. Lee.
["Celebrated Race of the Steamers Robert E. Lee and Natchez", by William M. Donaldson for Currier & Ives.]
The current Natchez, however, is a sternwheeler, modeled on the Hudson and the Virginia. While a departure in that sense, she remains true to her heritage in that she is a true steamboat, one of the few left on the Mississippi and the only one based in New Orleans; most of the riverboats now plying the Mississippi are diesels. (Yes, I'm going with the traditional "she"; this boat simply has too much character for an impersonal "it".)
The twin steam engines of the Natchez were originally built for the Kanawha River steamer Clairton in 1925. (The steering is also from the Clairton, and parts of several other boats have been incorporated as well—the bell is from the Ohio River steamer J.D. Ayres, the bell's acorn decoration from the Avalon, more recently known as the Belle of Louisville, and the steam whistle salvaged from a Monongahela River shipwreck.) Ninety-five years and still going strong: The engines produce approximately 2000 horsepower, and together they turn a bright red, 25-foot, 25-ton paddlewheel of steel and oak. Like her predecessors, the Natchez is a fast boat, never yet beaten by another steamer.
But statistics and race records fail to convey what the Natchez is really like. To understand that, you have to spend at least a few minutes in the heavy heat of the engine room, and at least a few more cooling down in the spray of the paddlewheel, sweat mingling with the waters of the mighty Mississippi on your skin. You have to hear the jazz band on the Texas deck, the cry of gulls wheeling overhead, and the sweep of water along the shallow hull, and how they cease to be separate, becoming instead the sound of Natchez herself.
Look out over the river, see New Orleans' past and present and on to its future; the cannons and cathedrals and neighbourhoods and schools. And since cruises on the Natchez generally include a meal, enjoy the braiding together of flavours and cultures; load up on fried chicken and catfish and jambalaya and cornbread and sweet tea, maybe a whiskey if you're so inclined, and don't even think about leaving the boat hungry or thirsty, for it'll be nothing but your own fault if you do.
The Natchez is a community unto herself, and also a reflection of larger communities, of the city of New Orleans and of the state of Louisiana and of America writ large. Now, I'll be the first to admit that the writing and photography here on Flyover Country tend usually to focus on the natural world more than the social world. I'll even concede that perhaps this is so because I often feel more at home with birds and fish and squirrels than I do with people. So if this particular essay seems uncharacteristically romantic with regard to humanity, consider that we boarded the Natchez a week after Mardi Gras, and that a week or so after we disembarked the streets of New Orleans—yes, even Decatur and Bourbon Streets—began to go quiet as COVID-19 made itself known.
Consider also that New Orleans is my beloved wife's hometown. She was born at Charité Hospital, the descendant of generations of Louisianans and New Orleanians, of Farrells and Heberts and Graniers and Champagnes. No riverboat captains among them, so far as we know—mostly carpenters and mechanics and sweet potato farmers—but all part of the tapestry of this long-troubled, beautiful, vibrant port city.
Through Jessa I've come to know quite a few Louisianans and New Orleanians—born-here people, come-here people, Katrina refugees and Katrina survivors—and some of them I've grown to love. We've walked the streets of the Crescent City and explored the bayous and byways of the North Shore opposite, and call them home. Yes, we live in Nebraska, but with Jefferson's savvy land deal in mind we playfully refer to ourselves as the Greater Louisiana Farrell-Churchills, as though there were any other Farrell-Churchills with whom we might possibly be confused.
So in that broad sense the Natchez is part of our family history—no riverboats, no New Orleans, or at any rate a different New Orleans, and where would that leave us? I'm glad we've now had a chance to walk her decks and become an infinitesimal part of her history.
We'll share some more photos from the Natchez below, but I keep thinking back to this one. It's a former rice mill, built in 1892, and renovated as high-end housing in 2010. Because it sat derelict for years before the renovation—and perhaps partly because it's situated next to an art school, in a city whose artistic heritage can scarcely be contained—it has extensive graffiti, which the developers decided to keep and preserve. The off-coloured bricks show where the walls were breached by Hurricane Katrina—and then defiantly rebuilt. And that's New Orleans in one shot: the city has been burned down, flooded, blockaded, occupied...and it just keeps coming back, perpetually renewing itself, while always, always celebrating its past. "YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL", indeed.
* * *
Onboard the Natchez:
[Safety first: life vests suspended below the upper deck.]
[This way to the engine room...]
[Steering: This wheel runs along an elevated, semi-circular track and changes the position of the Natchez's triple rudders. Workbenches and tool cabinets fill the space below in a sort of organised clutter.]
[The paddlewheel.]
[Tied up at the wharf, and the rope to tie her...]
* * *
Life on the Mississippi:
[St. Louis Cathedral, plus Washington Artillery Park, Jackson Square, and the Presbytère (formerly a courthouse, now part of the Louisiana State Museum).]
[Jackson Brewery building, now repurposed for shopping and dining. Jessa said of the English sparrows here, "These birds are really living their best life: riverfront property, perching on gilded chandeliers, flying down for bits of beignet..."]
[Audubon Aquarium of the Americas.]
[Roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) cargo vessels Cape Knox and Cape Kennedy, part of the U.S. Ready Reserve Fleet, at the Poland Street Wharf.]
[Jackson Barracks in the Lower Ninth Ward, established in 1834 as the New Orleans barracks, and re-constructed post-Katrina.]
[With its missing windows and rusty loading bays, the Domino Sugar plant at Chalmette doesn't necessarily look like a going concern—but it is actually the largest sugar refinery in the western hemisphere, producing over seven million pounds of sugar a day. Sweet!!]
[Dutch cargo ship Tiberborg at Chalmette.]
[Riverboat Creole Queen near Chalmette Battlefield (1815) and Port of St. Bernard.]
[Local tugs Angus R. Cooper and Providence with New Orleans skyline; crewman washing the Providence.]
[Another local boat, the Brandon, cruises past houses in Algiers.]
[Fishing fleet, also local.]
[Ferry Thomas Jefferson, which operates between Algiers and Canal Street in downtown New Orleans.]
[Quite a few non-local vessels come to New Orleans for repair and re-fitting. Here, the Brendan J. Bouchard and Robert J. Bouchard, both from New York, and the Caroline McKee from Michigan await their turns, while another New York boat, the Jean Turecamo, is in a floating drydock.]
[Liberian-registered tanker Stolt Endurance, accompanied by Metairie-based tugboat Archie T. Higgins, under the Crescent City Connection bridges.]
[Canada geese on the Mississippi.]
Thanks for the memories...
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