Southern
Comfort
 Atchafalaya
Swamp Basin, Louisiana, U.S.A. - November 2001
Author: Lee Ridley
Posted 2 July, 2003
When the four members
of our rock band in the UK decided to embark on an excursion to
the home of the blues in the deep south, USA; we had little idea
we'd wind up spending half our time in a remote swamp… and
enjoy it!
Two days of hard drinking
in Bourbon Street, New Orleans had chipped away at our constitution
and proved to be more than a little tiring, so following a swift
discussion and review of our plans, we agreed to head up state to
check out the Acadian influences around Baton Rouge and Lafayette;
sample the Creole food and listen to some traditional Zydeco music.
While we were in the vicinity we also figured a quick sortie into
the Atchafalaya swamp basin might be a great way to kill half a
day or more.
 Covering
some 3000 square miles of south Louisiana, the swamp basin lies
along the course of the Atchafalaya River, which serves as a major
tributary to both the Red River and the mighty Mississippi. Although
largely uninhabited, the swamps are also home to a small population
of Cajun fishermen and trappers who scratch out an existence fishing
for crawfish, catfish and mullet; and trapping and hunting bullfrogs,
squirrels and white-tailed deer.
We left the interstate-10
at Breaux Bridge, just east of Lafayette and found ourselves in
a little village by the name of Henderson. From there we took a
right turn onto a levee road and just kept driving, following the
twenty-foot high levee on our left until we were in the vicinity
of Catahoula Cove. There weren't many folks around to ask about
swamp tours, but eventually one helpful chap pointed us in the direction
we were headed and told us to just keep going until we reached Bayou
Benoit and then look for a house set back from the road with a couple
of boats out front on the grass.
 And
so we came to meet Roy Blanchard…
Roy, it would seem is
a bit of a legend around these parts in the Atchafalaya swamp. We
didn't realise it at the time, but subsequent research turned him
up in numerous books and I even found him mentioned on a couple
of internet web-sites. He's a kind-hearted, fifty-something, unassuming
man with toned swarthy skin, wise eyes and familiar southern-states
drawl with a lively Cajun twang. He lives with his wife, Annie in
a well constructed, single-story house close to Lake Fausse Pointe
Park, where he daily sets out his nets for catfish and mullet in
the shallow waters and hunts white-tailed deer in the drier parts.
Roy was happy to take
us out pretty much straight away, and give us an hour pottering
around in the Cocodrie Swamp. It was late autumn, but the temperature
was still well into the seventies and the skies were cloudless.
With the minimum amount of fuss, he hooked up his 15ft aluminium
boat and trailer to the back of his pickup truck and drove us a
short distance back along the levee road to a small car park where
we could easily slip the boat from its trailer and into the water.
Lofty cypress trees adorned
with Spanish moss towered over us as we slowly pushed our way through
the water hyacinths and duckweed, ever watchful for a glimpse of
alligators and nutria while egrets and herons regarded us warily
lest we should drift too close. Rotting tree stumps punctuated the
swamp everywhere, many exhibiting a curious large hole penetrating
from one side to the other. Roy explained how the locals, pick a
suitable tree for building-timber and cut a hole right through just
above the water's surface. Through the hole goes a length of wood
that provides a platform for two men to stand on while they saw
the tree down.
 The
water was surprisingly shallow and on numerous occasions we had
to rock the boat in order to dislodge ourselves from submerged obstacles,
although we were told that at certain times of the year the water
could be much deeper and regularly threatened to spill over the
top of the levee.
Our foray into the Cocodrie
Swamp was very brief but in that short space of time we learned
much from Roy about the life of a Cajun trapper and of his uncompromising
respect for the swamp. We also learned of his houseboat some miles
away in the Lake Fausse Pointe Park and by the time we had made
our way back to the pickup and driven back to Bayou Benoit we had
made arrangements with Roy to return the following afternoon with
the intention of penetrating deeper into the swamps around his houseboat
before spending the night there.
We arrived back at Roy's
place by the levee road the next day at 3pm, laden with food for
the barbecue and found him ready and waiting. We sorted out the
things we needed to take, leaving the rest inside his house, and
set off. The launch was a few more miles along the levee and this
time the 120hp outboard was put to good use as we tore off along
several miles of watercourses that linked a series of open lakes.
 The
bone-jarring ride was exhilarating and we had to keep our heads
down as we braced against the spray, barely able to hear ourselves
shout above the deafening scream of the engine.
Eventually, as we crossed
the largest of the lakes we left open water and there was peace
again as Roy cut the engine and we moved back in among the Cypress
trees, taller and older than those we had seen the previous day.
We wound our way through the low hanging Spanish moss, surrounded
by the sounds of the bayou and the constant bursts of motor drive
from my camera as the enchanting scenery devoured roll after roll
of film. The afternoon sun was getting lower and the dappled light
across the water's surface along with beads of sunlight bursting
through the foliage made for some stunning swamp-scapes.
Sometime later we steered
into a narrow waterway between two areas of dry land and shortly
arrived at the houseboat, a simple affair not dissimilar to a caravan
on floats.A plank of wood bridged the watery gap to a forest glade,
cleared months before, and here Roy set to getting the barbecue
fired up while we excitedly laid claim to our respective bunks inside.
With time to kill while the barbecue heated up, Roy suggested we
go back out, this time to lay some nets so he might have a nice
bit of catfish for his supper the next day and so I might get some
good shots of the swamp as the sun was setting.
I never thought I could
take so many pictures of trees, but the golden light shimmering
across the still water and setting the Spanish moss ablaze was truly
memorable, and in the short time it took for the sun to finally
dip out of sight I snapped through another half a dozen rolls of
film, catching the myriad of colours in the low sky through the
trees, ranging from pale sulphur through powder blue to rich lilac.
Darkness comes quick
in the Atchafalaya basin and as the bullfrogs began their crepuscular
chorus we made our way back to the barbie.
The evening was spent eating good food, playing guitar and listening
to Roy's tales of daring swamp rescues, and of how he, on one occasion,
had found himself lost deep in the swamp at night in thick fog with
a dead battery in his flashlight. It was familiarity to the point
of recognising individual trees that saved him in the end and he
told us of how after several hours he eventually found his way back
in almost zero visibility to the houseboat and a very anxious wife.
On another occasion, a young boy of ten years old had become separated
from his father while they were out hunting squirrels. A few locals
including Roy were quickly recruited to do a sweeping search of
the area but found nothing more than a few footprints. Against general
opinion Roy had insisted the search be extended to beyond the dry
areas where the boy had last been seen. It was firmly believed that
if the child had tried to cross any of the wet swamp he would certainly
have perished from a venomous snakebite or been taken by one the
thousands of alligators that inhabit the region, but some 48 hours
after going missing, tracks were found across the other side of
an expanse of swamp and soon after, a very frightened and very grubby
ten-year old was found safe and unharmed exactly where Roy had guessed.
Tales of the wilderness
kept us spellbound well into the evening, until one by one we began
to fade and drift away to our bunks for the night, knowing we would
have an early start in the morning. John queried Roy as to what
he would favour for breakfast, expecting to be told squirrel or
racoon or something equally enterprising. "I quite like Cheerios,"
retorted our host, swiftly putting an end to that line of enquiry.
Sunrise was at about
05:45 and I had asked Roy if he wouldn't mind taking me out to shoot
it as the others slept. With that in mind, I was up and about by
5am and ready to go soon after. As it turned out, the guys were
all just as keen so no one slept in. We made it out to the Cypress
trees that fringed the lake just in time to catch the sun making
its appearance above the trees in the distance, recreating the same
soft colours we had seen less than twelve hours previously. As the
sunrise took hold, it washed through the trees around us, catching
the last wisps of early morning fog drifting across the water's
surface and illuminating pristine spider webs laden with fresh dewdrops,
creating a magical and surreal landscape. Shortage of film was not
a problem; lack of pockets was as roll after roll was spent and
unceremoniously stuffed into my jacket. The sun climbed rapidly
along its arc and the golden tones hardened, but Roy had one last
spectacle for us: Out on the open water of Lake Fausse Pointe he
motored us to a lone tree, growing in about 3 feet of water. The
tree wasn't anything special but it was surrounded by a cloud of
birds, feeding on the flying insects that were swarming about this
single point of focus in an otherwise empty lake. I recognised the
birds as martins but Roy explained the locals call them "rain
birds" because of the illusion this flocking behaviour generates.
And that's when the batteries
in my camera decided to give up. By the time I'd stuffed them down
my pants and warmed them up enough to get a token shot, most of
the rain birds had grown nervous of our presence and had departed.
It took us next to no
time to nip back to the houseboat and grab our belongings, and as
the sun climbed relentlessly into another azure sky, we hurtled
back through the watercourses towards the slipway where the truck
was parked.
Back at Bayou Benoit,
we grabbed a cold drink and sat with Roy and Annie in their living
room for a while, recounting the last 48 hours and ruminating over
life in general.
A close friend of theirs,
Greg Guirard, had written a book called Atchafalaya Autumn, http://www.accesscom.net/gguirard/
filled with photographs of the swamp, taken over the course of several
years, and as we flicked through the pages of remarkable pictures,
I felt certain that I would have also captured some equally dramatic
images. I readily promised to send copies back to Roy and Annie
as soon as I returned to the UK, but haven't done so yet; rather
I will use it as an excuse to drop by some time in future and give
them copies personally while we share a cold beer.
Author: Lee Ridley.
Contact: editor@fourcornersexplorer.co.uk
www.fourcornersexplorer.co.uk
|
