Somewhere between careful piloting and gentle persuasion, we kept the shantyboat pointed downstream. The Atchafalaya doesn’t take kindly to plans. Humidity climbed, moods sagged, but we held course mostly on charisma and sheer will. After days navigating muddy channels and dense cypress corridors, we pulled out at Butte La Rose with the intention of seeing the culturally rich lands of Bayou Teche.
From there, we became land-lubbers: trailering the shantyboat down backroads and through small towns, absurdly out of place. A tiny river museum on wheels. The Bayou Teche towns weren’t ready for our floating sculpture, and to be honest, we weren’t ready for the bridges—each one a bureaucratic riddle or mechanical fossil. Our only option was overland.
Arnaudville welcomed us with open arms and potluck plates. George Marks—artist, instigator, and local myth—folded us into the town’s orbit. One minute we were talking about logjams and abandoned boats, the next we were on a half-drunken river rescue mission with a homemade hook crafted from an old steering wheel lock. Sometimes community looks like dragging a wrecked boat out of the bayou. Sometimes it’s ribs and potato salad.
We docked the Dotty at the NUNU Arts & Culture Collective for a community night with live music by Maya Kamaty. Folks clambered aboard, swapped stories, poked through our floating archive. We met weirdos and thinkers, artists and activists—people who saw something of themselves in a drifting project about forgotten histories.
Breaux Bridge brought more generosity. We met the radiant Lynda Frese, whose art seems to shimmer with bayou light and UFOs, pigment and myth. She talked about trees like old neighbors and reminded us the Earth still has secrets. Meanwhile, a gray tabby began lingering around the boat, maybe falling in love with us. We didn’t name her, didn’t try to own the moment. Just shared a few quiet nights on deck together. JK. We named her Arnaud.
And then it was time for farewells. Jeremiah, my shipmate through the upriver slog and the wild early summer heat, headed home. I stayed behind to prep the boat for relaunch. St. Martinville isn’t exactly built for shantyboats—especially not its swing bridge, which required a hydraulic auger, a skid steer, and a hero named André from the Louisiana DOT. We’d radioed ahead assuming someone might push a button. What we got was a full-on mechanical resurrection.
With Dotty back in the water, I motored solo into Bayou Teche—quiet, narrow, shaded, dense with memory. Launching alone is slower. But I’ve learned to be methodical, to embrace the tempo the river demands.
New Iberia was waiting. The bridge was stuck, of course. Electricians were en route. I made tea, kicked my feet up, and stared out the open doorway as dragonflies and frogs hummed past like it was rush hour on the bayou. I wasn’t even mad. What were we rushing toward anyway?
When we finally slipped under the bridge, it felt like entering a chapter I hadn’t known I needed. We held a pop-up exhibition at Felicite’s Landing, with a crowd of warm, curious folks. One night, I gave up trying to sleep in the swamp heat, took a sponge bath at 5am, and watched a violent rainstorm break the temperature open just in time for sunrise.
Then Age arrived—from New Zealand, from memory, from past expeditions. We played cribbage under the buck moon, ate red beans and rice at Roc Star Café with Mace Broussard, and sat down for stories with Mayor Freddie Decourt, a class clown turned builder turned mayor, who talked about public spaces like they were dreams you could hammer together.
From there, we drifted to Franklin, where a guy named Tiger found us before we even tied up. Within minutes, we were connected to the whole damn town. Tiger introduced us around, told our story like it was local legend, and got us a crowd for another pop-up. That kind of welcome isn’t common, but when it happens, there’s usually a Tiger involved.
Floodgates near Morgan City were closed, so out of the water we came—again—and back in at Patterson, where we met Capt. Caviar and Angela, a pro fisher who casually took us to school on the water. She had curiosity, humor, and a tackle bucket full of secrets. We just tried to keep up.
That final push down the last winding miles of the Teche felt loaded. Not dramatic, not nostalgic—just full. We passed through Centerville and Berwick, skirted Lake Fausse Pointe (where we endured the Battle of the Mosquitoes and lived to feast on shrimp and drum over dirty rice), and finally arrived at Morgan City. There, a lock lifted us a single foot into the Atchafalaya again.
Back to the river that started this leg of the journey. Back to the wild, the unpredictable, the open.
Leave a Reply