For more than 4 decades, the J & K Steamboat Company has been chartering passengers around Michigan's rivers and lakes. In 1976, John and Karla Chamberlain started a small canoe rental business in Lansing's Potter Park.
After a few years, they expanded their business by purchasing an old barge and building it into their first boat, the Spirit of Lansing. This boat operated out of Potter Park and took passengers downtown to Adado Riverfront Park.
The Princess Laura
The Spirit of Lansing became so popular that they needed a larger boat to accommodate all their new passengers. In 1984, they christened the Princess Laura, named after John's daughter. This boat was double the size and held 110 passengers. Communities throughout the state began asking John to transport Laura to their waterfronts for different festivals.
The Michigan Princess
John spent a few years planning his next project – a boat that would be less affected by outside weather and could manage large scale events. In 1991, Governor John Engler christened the Michigan Princess. The boat was originally designed to be disassembled and moved to different communities. As more people around Lansing became familiar with the Michigan Princess, the demand to rent it our for private parties grew. In 1998, the boat went through a major remodel to expand its size. Now able to handle 500 passengers, it has stayed and operated out of Grand River Park ever since.
The Detroit Princess
While the Michigan Princess was a huge success, Captain John had even bigger plans for his next boat. He considered purchasing one of the original Bob-Lo Boats, the large steam vessels that transported passengers between Detroit and Bablo Island for nearly a century. After touring the boats, talking with the Coast Guard, and doing some heavy research, he decided it would take too large an investment to restore these boats to their former glory.
But the dream to operate a boat out of Detroit was not lost. In 2004, John found a boat for sale in the classified ads that was perfect. There was only one issue – it was in Texas on the Gulf Coast. John and his wife knew they were facing a giant hurdle to bring it to Detroit, but they purchased the boat anyway and set sail for Detroit in May. They only made it as far as Florida before they hit the first bump in the road. Hurricane season had settled in and they had to delay their trip for four weeks, which meant paying extra docking and fuel expenses. To pay for the amount of fuel they needed to make it home, John and Karla had to make the tough choice to sell Princess Laura. Despite these set backs, they safely brought the boat to Detroit – and it only took 104 days!
