The Drowned Towns of Ruddock and Frenier: What the 1915 Storm Took
On a still morning out here, the water goes flat enough to hold the whole sky, and it is easy to forget you are floating over anything but mud and cypress roots. You are not. Somewhere under my kayak, and under yours if you come out with us, are the bones of two towns that…
Honey Island Swamp: Wildlife, the Swamp Monster Legend, and What to Expect
The Honey Island Swamp is one of the least-altered river swamps in the United States. That is not marketing. Most of it is protected, the water still moves the way it always did, and on a kayak you get into corners an airboat cannot reach. Here is what lives there, the legend that made it…
The Haunted Manchac Swamp: Julia Brown’s Curse and the Drowned Towns
Most swamp tours sell you alligators. Manchac sells you a ghost story, and unlike most ghost stories, the bones of this one are true. Who was Julia Brown? Julia Brown was a real woman, a Black herbalist and self-described voodoo practitioner who lived in the swamp community of Frenier, on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain,…