Retro sailings on Un Cruises Legacy

The gold and black S.S. Legacy looks like a fun ship to cruise on, and certainly a different one.

Built in 1984 to replicate a turn-of-the-century coastal steamer, it has a knife-edge bow, a fat funnel amidships and a stack of decks at the stern.

It has been sailing Oregon’s Columbia River, offering what operator Un-Cruise Adventures calls heritage cruises.

With crew attired in period costumes and actors onboard to portray some of the most colorful figures of the West, the history of the region springs to life nightly.

On our early-October cruise, passengers would gather after dinner in the ship’s lounge to hear declamations by pioneer missionary Narcissa Whitman or legendary tycoon and road builder Sam Hill.

Some invented characters also took the stage, such as Army Capt. Charles Donovan, who with comic ineptitude tried to deny the secret activities at the government’s Hanford reservation, in Richland, Wash., where atomic bomb materials were made.

Heritage hosts also dispense more conventional historical commentary and tidbits, and there are guest speakers ranging from a Nez Perce tribal storyteller to a marine archaeologist. Through it all, the emphasis is on keeping history lively and light, rather than dusty and dry.

“In its concept, we wanted a living history or interpretive history program,” said Ryan Downs, whose knowledge of Pacific Northwest lore makes him the ideal cruise director on the Legacy.

Pride of place on the cruise belongs to pioneer explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, whose 1804 trip up the Missouri and Columbia rivers into unknown country was turned into a PBS documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns.

Lewis and Clark battled shoddy boots, cold and a series of rapids on the Columbia, which was free-flowing before 20th century dam builders flooded its many wild cascades.

Forgotten figures are also revived, such as the aforementioned Whitman and her husband, Marcus, whose Christian ministry to the Cayuse band ended with their murder in 1847 amid a measles epidemic. The episode marked the start of 40 years of hostilities between settlers and Western Indian tribes.

The seven-day cruise begins in Portland, Ore., with a 20-mile cruise up the Willamette River to its junction with the Columbia. Day 2 is an exploration of the Columbia Gorge Scenic Area and a tour of the 1937 Bonneville Dam, followed by a full day of cruising through the arid, lonely beauty of eastern Washington.

This stunning area was a surprise treat. It was like sailing through an Edward Hopper painting, full of dry, brown hills, grain elevators, train trestles and telephone wires.

An overnight at the Washington-Idaho border town of Lewiston precedes a day-long jetboat excursion into remote Hells Canyon on the Snake River. Days 5 and 6 bring stops at Walla Walla, in Washington’s emerging wine country, and the Dalles, where a waterfall once bisected the river.

The Legacy then sails past Portland to Astoria at the river’s mouth to visit Lewis and Clark’s 1805 winter camp and a top-rated maritime museum. It returns to Portland the next day.

The Legacy has only three public rooms: a lounge, a dining room and a small bar. By the end of the cruise the 88 passengers and 26 crew knew each other by name, a point of pride for Un-Cruise.

The atmosphere is casual, to the point that no door keys are issued so cabins are usually unlocked. When passengers go ashore, they move a little marker on a magnet board to show they’re gone. The bridge is open and the captain is accessible.

Food on the Legacy is good, but not a focus of the cruise. There is usually a choice of three entrees. A breakfast for early-risers is the only buffet. Service, delivered by a mostly American crew, was pleasant and genuine.

Fitness/stretching classes are offered in a covered area on the top deck, and a massage is included in the fare.

A highlight of the cruise was an open-mic evening in which the crew and passengers tell jokes, sing, do magic tricks and share amateur talents with each other.

A guest who turned 90 on the cruise led the group in a chorus of Woody Guthrie’s “Roll on Columbia.” The captain recited a long comic poem about a shipwreck from memory.

While this cruise is best enjoyed by someone who’s read at least one history book in the past few years, it provides non-stop natural beauty, and its small-ship feel gives it a special warmth.

Most passengers were retired or late in their careers, but several multigenerational pairs brought down the average age. The jet boat trip down the Snake River would have appealed to my teen daughters but was also enjoyable for older guests.

The cruise attracted several first-time cruisers. All said they would not have sailed on a bigger, more impersonal ocean vessel.

That’s the type of sentiment that Un-Cruise Adventures was seeking to capitalize on when it adopted the unusual name 18 months ago. “You may love [the name] or hate it, but you won’t forget it,” Un-Cruise Public Relations Manager Sarah Scoltock said.

Rates for the Legacy of Discovery sailing begin at $3,195 per person, double occupancy. See www.un-cruise.com.