| Porthole 11 Mar 22

A new Virginia-based tour company is offering a bygone way to travel the state’s rivers in a vessel first popularised more than 200 years ago.

Around these parts, when you tell someone you’re going out on the James River, it typically means you’re doing so on an inflatable tube with a cooler full of beer in tow.

However, in the late 18th and 19th centuries, flat-bottomed pole boats called bateaux navigated the tempestuous River, bringing crops such as tobacco, flour and later coal to the East Coast.

Now, the James River Batteau Company will set a course next month, offering guests tours, cruises, and private charters from Apr through Oct aboard the six-passenger Morning Dew, a period-correct reproduction bateau.

Tours are two-hour trips along the James River, operating in the afternoon and evening.