BOAT LOVERS, history buffs and other Northern Neck backers of a planned Steamboat Era Museum in Irvington will gather for a "Last Run Celebration" near the old wharf in Weems a week from Saturday.

The 4-to-7 p.m. picnic and celebration, which the Lancaster County museum planners hope will become an annual event, marks the last regular run of the steamboat Anne Arundel up the Rappahannock River to Fredericksburg and on to Baltimore.

But for many thrilled at the prospect of a museum dedicated to the boats that once were the lifeblood of commerce and transportation for the Chesapeake Bay region, the gathering is a kickoff as well.

After years of discussion and countless hours of volunteer work, a $420,000 Steamboat Era Museum is now under construction and could open to the public early next year.

A campaign to raise $800,000 will begin soon to cover the museum construction, the renovation of a real steamboat pilot house and an endowment to help the museum operate.

As soon as the building is complete, work will begin in earnest on the gathering of artifacts, documents and oral histories about the steamboats that were railroads on the rivers from the 1820s until the late 1930s.

Bruce King, a former businessman who's now the museum's director, barely remembers a time when steamboats and their history weren't the center of his life.

Sure, he's up to date on plans to give the museum building a rolling, on-the-wharf look through the use of a gabled roof and wood throughout.

Ditto for a game plan that calls for a mixture of volunteer and paid labor to spiff up the pilot house of the steamboat, The Potomac, which is now under roof near the museum building.

But what this weekend sailor loves most is researching what life was like on the steamboats. In their day, you could set your watch by their runs up the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers and across the Bay to Baltimore.