Saint Joseph Church

Every spring the bayou outside St. Joseph turns into a parade. Chauvin shrimpers began a Blessing of the Fleet here in the late 1920s or early 1930s, according to a Louisiana Folklife study, with an outdoor Mass and the priest blessing boats as they passed. Today a lead boat leaves the church with the clergy, decorated trawlers fall in behind, and the parade ends in a party on Lake Boudreaux. Women in each family plan the decorations in secret, often copying coloring books and needlework patterns, and prizes go to boats of the parish.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Southdown Plantation and Terrebonne Museum — 13 mi
  A Greek Revival sugar plantation house in Houma, worked by 233 enslaved people by 1852, with the last Terrebonne mill's story and a worker's cabin of about 1885.
• Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge — 14 mi
  A 4,212-acre refuge of freshwater marsh and cypress-tupelo swamp southwest of Houma, with a nature trail to a boardwalk and observation deck and mostly boat-only access.
• LUMCON DeFelice Marine Center — 15 mi
  The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium's laboratory at the end of Highway 56, open for self-guided tours of aquaria and exhibits, an observation tower and a pond boardwalk.
• Laurel Valley Village — 26 mi
  A sugar plantation's workers' village south of Thibodaux, with cabins of about 1845, shotgun houses, a store and cemetery, and the 1887 strike and massacre in the parish around it.

More markers nearby

• Montegut School — 2.3 mi
• Sacred Heart Church — 2.4 mi
• "Hello Baby!" — 2.5 mi
• NAS Houma (LTA) — 9.7 mi