We were supposed to be up in Cincinnati this weekend for the River Roots Festival with our friends from We Work the Waterways, Living Lands & Waters, and so many others keeping the river spirit alive. But plans changed, and we couldn’t make it this year. Instead, we found ourselves rolling the back roads of Houma, Louisiana — and there she was… the American Queen. Once the pride of the Mississippi. Now resting quietly in a scrapyard, her name still shining through the rust. Kind of surreal — whi

American Queen is said to be the largest river steamboat ever built. The ship was built in 1995 and is a six-deck recreation of a classic Mississippi riverboat, built by McDermott Shipyard for the Delta Queen Steamboat Company. Although the American Queen's stern paddlewheel is indeed powered by a steam plant, her secondary propulsion, in case of an emergency and for maneuverability around tight areas where the paddle wheel can not navigate, comes from a set of diesel-electric propellers known a