In the middle 1800s the main route from New Orleans to Bayou Teche, Bayou Courtableau and other points in south Louisiana took steamboats up the Mississippi River to Plaquemine in Iberville Parish, where the boat made a sometimes-treacherous turn into Bayou Plaquemine and followed its winding, stump-filled course to the Atchafalaya. The trip took a traveler through a wilderness that was both rugg…