Mississippi riverboat replica to sail in lake

By Aebra Coe
Petoskey News-Review

WALLOON LAKE, Mich. (AP) — Twenty years ago, Jack Lane, 93, and his late friend Jim Paige, received a box in the mail with some balsa wood and drawings. The two men spent the next two years building a 48-inch replica of the Creole Queen, a Mississippi riverboat, complete with calliope music, smoke and glittering lights.

The men first launched the boat in Naples, Fla., and after that Paige took it to his house for safe keeping.

That wasn’t the last Lane saw of the boat, though, according to the Petoskey News-Review.

In 2011, Paige’s son contacted Lane and told him that his father had passed away and asked if Lane would want to keep the boat. He agreed and the then 91-year-old proceeded to refurbish and rewire the vessel over the next year and a half.

This spring he held a launch party near his home in Chelsea, to large crowds. And now, his final plan for the Creole Queen is to hold one last launch party on Walloon Lake at 11 a.m. Monday, July 1. After the ceremony, he will give the boat to his daughter, Judy Feldkamp, to keep at her home in Boyne City.

“That will be its final berth,” he said.

The public is invited to the ceremony and Lane says he expects quite the crowd. His daughter, along with 12 of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren and their spouses all plan to attend the event.

It will be placed in the water at Lily Pad Bay, and soon after the smoke will start, music will begin to play and the boat will move back and forth across the bay.

“I always liked to build models, but had never done it to the extent that I did this,” Lane said.

While he hadn’t taken his hobby to that level before, he did have a lot of experience as an engineer over the course of several decades at a few different auto parts and camera manufacturing companies.

He was both a die maker and tool engineer during his career.

In the case of bad weather, a rain date has been set for the launch at 11 a.m. Tuesday, July 2.