Okay kiddo, have you ever seen a boat before? A keel boat is a special kind of boat that has a big stick called a keel that sticks down in the water to help it stay stable and go straight.
Mike Fink was a famous boatman who lived a long time ago. He was really good at steering keel boats, which is why they're sometimes called Mike Fink keel boats. He was really strong, too - he could pull a boat all by himself if he had to!
Mike Fink and other boatmen like him used keel boats to travel along rivers and deliver things like food, cloth, and medicine to towns and cities. They could also carry passengers who wanted to go on a trip. Sometimes they even had races to see who was the fastest boatman!
Keel boats were a really important way to get around back then, before cars and trains were invented. It's pretty cool to think about how people used to travel on water in big, strong boats like Mike Fink's!