(water rippling) - Welcome aboard the Sainte Genevieve Riverboat.

Come on in.

(bright music) (bell ringing) (engine humming) (water splashing) Back in 2021, smack dab in the middle of COVID, I was running a small real estate business here in town, and truthfully, I got a little bit bored maybe.

And so, there was a local businessman here in town who actually brought the idea to buy the Julia Belle Swain, which was a very famous riverboat that was for sale at the time.

And quickly realized that that project was just way too much.

It was gonna cost way too much money.

We had no idea what we were doing.

The concept really struck me, because we live in a great river town with the beautiful Illinois river running smack through the middle of our town, and it just felt like an interesting concept that nobody else was doing.

And we kind of stayed on the lookout, and we found this boat down in Cincinnati.

It was named The Mark Twain.

And so in the fall of 2021, we went down and looked at The Mark Twain and pretty much immediately started negotiations to buy it.

When we bought the boat, we knew we were gonna change the name.

We knew we didn't want it to be The Mark Twain.

That felt like more of a southern river thing.

We wanted to kinda make it unique and make it our own.

So, we took off from Cincinnati, heading back towards Ottawa.

We assumed it would be probably about a 17-day voyage to get it up here.

You know, going down the Ohio River, up the Mississippi, and then up the Illinois.

The boat kind of ran into a storm, and we were blown into some rocks that were along the shore of the Mississippi River there.

And about eight hours later, we noticed the bow of the boat was starting to be about at the water line, so we knew we had an issue, the boat was going down.

So the captain at the time was able to successfully navigate the boat to the middle of the river where there was a sand bar.

We were rescued on that sand bar by a tow boat company who took us to their quarry, which was in Ste.

Genevieve, Missouri.

(water rushing) As we were thinking about that incident, we heard the name Ste.

Genevieve, Missouri, and we said, "Oh, that's a pretty name.

"Let's look into Ste.

Genevieve."

And so, did a little bit of research on Sainte Genevieve, who's the patron saint of Paris, and quickly heard that part of her legend was that her enemies conspired to drown her in a lake, but they were unsuccessful.

So at that moment, it became painfully obvious that the boat had just named itself, and it became the Sainte Genevieve Riverboat.

- Sainte Genevieve is a unique venue for the community to gather, listen to music, have small bites, take time out, slow down.

It's a nice, intimate, unique spot to host an event.

We have narrated sight seeing cruises, sunset music cruises.

We're doing fall color tours, and we have a local historian that does once or twice a month awesome Ottawa tours.

- We do some dinner cruises where local restaurants will cater in a really nice buffet-style meal.

We do a lot of live music cruises, so we'll just have local musicians come in and play up on the top deck.

Those are a lot of fun.

And then we do a lot of private events.

So we're doing wedding receptions, rehearsal dinners, class reunions, pretty much any sort of private gathering where you're gonna have 50 to 100 people.

It's a great event venue for that.

Getting out on the water on a morning like today, it's incredible.

It's extremely peaceful.

There's tons of nature out there.

You'll see all sorts of bald eagles and vultures and herons, and it's just kind of a good chance to disconnect.

So our boat is a true paddle wheeler, or some call it a stern wheeler, meaning that the wheels or the propulsion is at the stern of the boat.

There are some boats that are side wheelers where the paddle wheel will be on the side of the boat, but ours is a true stern wheeler.

So basically, we just have two diesel tractor engines in the engine room that each operate a chain, which pulls the paddle wheel either forward or backward, however you engage that engine.

(engine rumbling) (water splashing) For me, the best part about owning this boat is the community pride that it brings.

I've been stopped by a lot of people in town that have told me stories of family coming to town and them being able to show off their little town on this cool, unique riverboat.

You know, this is something that you just don't see everywhere.

All along the Illinois River, I don't think there's another single paddle wheeler operating right now.

And so, it's just a unique thing that kind of helps bring attention to this community.

Ottawa's got some great stuff going on downtown, great restaurants, and so anything we can do that kind of helps shine a spotlight on that, I'm proud of.

(engine rumbling) (water splashing) - I think the Sainte Genevieve is a gem for this area and beyond.

To me, it's a treasure for the community.

It's very special.

It has a really cool vibe for being a unique venue.

- You know, I grew up here in Ottawa, and my family wasn't a boating family.

And so, I drove across that bridge every single day, and I spent virtually no time on this river.

And I think there's a lot of people in this community that are the same way.

They appreciate the river.

They know it's a big part of our community, but they haven't spent a lot of time on it.

And so, this really gives our community the opportunity to experience the Illinois Valley from the middle of the river channel, kind of seeing Buffalo Rock from a different perspective than they from have seen growing up.

- We've had guests ask us, "Is this just the coolest place to work?"

And it is.

It's fun.

I want people to enjoy what they're doing.

It's two hours out of a busy life, and we hope that they can just kind of disconnect and just enjoy themselves, take a breath.

- Thank you for traveling on Sainte Genevieve, and when you get off the boat, enjoy the city of Ottawa.