What an enticing retro whistle blast

“I declare, Miss Melanie,” said Miss Scarlett; “there are simply too many scalawags on this vessel.”

Looking like she might have contained some scalawags, and even carpetbagger knaves, maybe some dueling cardsharps, and Paul Robeson off in the background singing as he toted barges and lifted bales, the amazingly impressive Empress of the North sat in Victoria’s Inner Harbor yesterday afternoon, resting before she headed north to her home port of Juneau.

There was precedent for a sternwheeler to head for Alaska because at the time of the great Klondike gold rush of more than a century ago many resurrected riverboats joined the massive flotilla of craft of all sorts carrying the gold-fevered and greedy to the fields of instant wealth, or heartbreak, despair and even death.

The Empress of the North in the off-season travels the Columbia River from Portland up through the gorge and into the interior of the state and offers all the accoutrements that any riverboat romantic would ever want, from music, to games of chance, to sumptuous staterooms as “that big wheel keeps on turning” in its leisurely pace.

Anyway, when I saw it enter the harbor I head to head down and look at it close up. It was even more alluring at such a point of scrutiny and it reminded me of how I’ve always wanted to take the classic riverboat journey down the Mississippi to the Gulf. OK, I’ve always been a Mark Twain fan, and there is something infinitely romantic about the leisurely pace of such a journey.

Two modes of transport have enchanted me since I was a child, and they have never lost their allure. They are: trains and ships. Both are infinitely civilized ways in which to travel. Flying, on the other hand, has arguably become the most uncivilized and uncomfortable mode of transportation.

So, I thought at the time of my scrutiny, that Wendy might even be able to talk me into taking an Alaska cruise (I’ve always balked at the idea due to fear of cold and bad weather; a cruise in sunny climes, is entirely another matter) if we could go on the Empress of the North. It would be very civilized indeed. And, rather than going on one of those butt-ugly huge barges that pass for cruise liners these days; cruise liners that accommodate 80 million people or thereabouts, the Empress of the North provides berth space for only 200 and something. While it may not boast pools and spas, it would take the passenger back to an earlier, more genteel time.

Most of us in an age vulgar crassness could probably do with a shot of genteel. Right, Miss Scarlett?

By the way, this is not a shameless plug for the company that runs the Empress of the North, but if they would like to offer a gratuity by means of a free passage, I wouldn’t balk.