File:Coast watch (1979) (20659488945).jpg

Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_7 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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learned how to drain chunks of the swamp to get at the rich eons-old soil that lay beneath the disappearing trees. That's why less than half of the original Dismal is still swampland. The remainder nourishes everything from tobacco to wheat. As the swamp retreated to the slice of the iron plow, so did the number of animals that inhabited the area. In 1973, the Union Camp Company, the last major corporation to cut trees in the swamp, donated 49,100 acres of the Dismal to The Nature Conservancy. The U.S. Fish and Wild- life Service agreed to manage the land as a wildlife sanctuary and nature preserve. Union Camp's gift, added to land that the government had purchased in the swamp, created the 107,000-acre refuge. I'd boned up on this wonderland by read- ing Bland Simpson's The Great Dismal, but I'd never seen the swamp from beyond the highway. George and I feel a tinge of excite- ment. What would we find in this mysterious patch of spongy earth? We walk to the counter at Johnnie's to pay our tab. A sign at the cash register announces the owner's philosophy and is an omen of sorts to two strangers in the Great Dismal. "Today's Menu: Two Choices. Take it or leave it." Drizzling rain greets us at Arbuckle Land- ing on the Virginia side of the swamp. As we canoe into the Great Dismal Swamp Canal, a flock of geese honks overhead, clipping low- lying clouds, heading east toward the ocean in a near-perfect chevron. Their racket drowns out traffic on U.S. 17, which parallels the canal. As we turn onto the Feeder Ditch a few minutes later, the geese return, making a turn toward Lake Drummond, a good three miles up the ditch. The Feeder Ditch was dug in 1812 to provide water for the canal and to simplify travel to Lake Drummond. The 3-mile ditch is about 3 feet deep and shoots straight through the heart of the Great Dismal. It's the only direct route to the lake and to a campsite nearby that hosts about 10,000 visitors a year. Overhead, a large blue heron lopes out of a high tree and heads up the canal. As we make our way into the swamp, the majestic bird flies a few hundred yards, alights in a tree and waits for us to catch up. It never allows us to paddle closer than 50 yards before taking off again. Paddling the ditch is easy, smooth. In less than an hour and a half, we step out of the canoe and onto the Lake Drummond Campground, run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The drizzle has subsided, and things aren't as gloomy. Abandoned hunting lodge on Lake Drummond 4 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1994

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