Lewis and Clark Riverboat summer season suspended until 2021 due to pandemic

May 6--The Lewis and Clark Riverboat will not ply the Missouri River in the Bismarck-Mandan area this summer for only the second time in its 30-year history, another casualty of the coronavirus pandemic that has sent people indoors, prompted restrictions on large gatherings and led to uncertainty in the tourism industry.

The board of directors for the Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation on Tuesday decided to suspend operations until 2021, for health safety and also logistical reasons in the era of social distancing.

"It's a vessel built in 1991 -- it's pretty close quarters," said Aaron Barth, president of the Missouri Valley Heritage Alliance, which is the rebranded foundation. "You get out a tape measure and you do 6 feet distancing, even 3 feet, and you're scratching your head."

The alliance also needs to hire professional boat captains, buy liability insurance and pay costs such as using a crane to get the dry-docked boat into the water.

"Looking at that in the face of 50% occupancy, social distancing, I think it's a lot like other venues that are saying, 'we're just going to pause this year, and continue in 2021,'" Barth said.

That hasn't happened with the riverboat since the 2011 Missouri River flood.

"It will be very different," Barth said. "It's one of the draws of our community."

Staff will be contacting private charters and public cruise ticket holders about refunds or rebooking next summer.

About 14,500 people take riverboat rides in an average season, generating between $290,000 and $420,000 in gross revenue for the nonprofit alliance that operates heritage tourism businesses including the riverboat, Five Nations Arts and The Post. It also collaborates with the Northern Plains National Heritage Area.

However, the riverboat is "about a break-even proposition," and the alliance sometimes has to use charitable gambling revenues to bolster the boat operation, Barth said.

A drop in gambling revenue due to bars being shut down by the state for 1 1/2 months to stem the spread of the virus might be a bigger financial concern for the alliance. The impacts are still unknown, according to Barth.

"Charities statewide are kind of staring at this, with eyes wide -- we're all waiting to see what the numbers look like," he said.

The alliance receives federal and private money to pay its small office staff, but it also must pay dozens of temporary workers. It has had short-term help doing that through $95,125 in funding via the Paycheck Protection Program, a part of the federal government's coronavirus economic rescue package.

"I just don't know, two months from now, three months from now, what everything is going to look like," Barth said.

The alliance will use the suspended season to get needed work done on the riverboat, such as new paint both inside and outside -- work that was disrupted by last fall's early October blizzard. Officials also are working to raise the rest of the money needed to finish Heritage River Landing, a $1.5 million project on the banks of the Missouri for which about $1.4 million has been raised.

Officials broke ground in June 2018 for the facility, which will include new headquarters for the riverboat, a gift shop, restrooms, a bar and restaurant and public gathering space. It will have both a main floor deck and second floor deck.

Work was to wrap up this month, but the supply chain for materials has been disrupted by the pandemic, and the goal has shifted to "a couple months out," Barth said.

It's still possible the facility could open sometime this summer. But the boat -- a common site on the river during the warm months -- will remain on dry land. For Barth and likely many others, it will be a stark reminder of the magnitude of the pandemic.

"I'm trained as a historian, and this is going to be one of those placeholders in world history which everybody is going to look back on, and everything is going to be different moving forward," he said.

Reach Blake Nicholson at 701-250-8266 or [email protected].

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