SEPTEMBER 2022:

THE REAL MARSHLAND OF NORTH CAROLINA…

The Great Dismal Swamp stretches the Coastal Plain Region across Northeastern North Carolina into Southeastern Virginia, between Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and Norfolk, Virginia. It is located in the northern North Carolina counties of Gates, Pasquotank, and Camden, and is located in parts of the southern Virginia independent cities of Chesapeake and Suffolk. The swamp is one of the largest natural areas in the Eastern United States, with over 100,000 acres protected by state and federal preserves. Some estimates place the actual size of the original swamp at over one million acres. The current size of the Great Dismal Swamp is around 750 square miles or 480,000 acres.

THE NATURAL FLOW OF THINGS…

Lake Drummond, a natural lake with 3,100 acres, is located in the heart of the swamp. Lake Drummond is a circular body of water and is one of only two naturally occurring freshwater lakes in Virginia. Along the Great Dismal Swamp’s eastern edge runs the Dismal Swamp Canal. The canal stretches 22 miles long and was completed in 1805 to provide a pathway for trade between Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, and the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. The largest water supply for the Great Dismal Canal is through Lake Drummond. The origin of Lake Drummond is not entirely clear as there is no apparent network of natural streams emptying into the lake.

PAPERED CONSERVATION…

In the mid-20^th century, conservation groups across the United States began demanding the preservation of the remaining Great Dismal Swamp and the restoration of its wetlands after it was understood to be critical habitat for a wide variety of birds, animals, plants, and other living things. The area is along the Atlantic Flyway of migrating species. The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge was officially created in 1973 when the Union Camp Corporation, a paper company based in Franklin, Virginia, donated 49,100 acres of land to The Nature Conservancy after centuries of logging and other human activities began to devastate the swamp’s ecosystems. The following year the land property was transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

CONGRESSIONAL REFUGE…

The refuge was officially established through the U.S. Congress with the Dismal Swamp Act of 1974, and today consists of over 167 square miles and almost 107,000 acres of forested wetlands, including the 3,100-acre Lake Drummond at its center. Outside the boundaries of the refuge, the state of North Carolina has preserved and protected additional portions of the swamp through the establishment of the Dismal Swamp State Park. The park protects 22 square miles of forested wetland. A 45,611-acre remnant of the original swamp was declared a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service in 1973 and was in recognition of its combination of geological and ecological features.

HISTORICAL REFUGE…

But despite the appearance of the swamp as an untouched, primordial landscape, the swamp has a long and complex history of human settlement and exploitation. The swamp was a refuge for The Great Dismal Swamp Maroons between 1700 and the 1860s. The swamp was also a refuge for enslaved people escaping the Southern states, before the American Civil War, as well as Native Americans who were escaping colonial expansion. Archeological evidence suggests that varying cultures of humans have inhabited the swamp for over 13,000 years. The Powhatan empire extended to the northern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp around the time of the settling of Jamestown, displacing the Chesapeake tribe residing there before. Prior to the maroons inhabiting the swamp, it was inhabited by the Algonquian-speaking Native Americans of coastal tribes in 1650.

NATIVE REFUGE…

We know Native American communities fled to the Swamp for refuge from the colonial frontier, based on archeological findings. Along with the Native American communities that fled, there were multiple populations of Africans and African Americans that took refuge in the Swamp in early American History, many of them there as a result of fleeing slavery due to the Atlantic slave trade, these communities of Africans and African Americans are known as the Great Dismal Swamp Maroons. By the year 1860, these Great Dismal Swamp Maroons consisted of thousands of escaped Black refugee slaves. The runaway refugees were able to find shelter, community, and society in the swamp that wasn’t available to them freely in the world outside the swamp. Today the presence of these communities is commemorated in the recently-added Underground Railroad Education Pavilion located on a trail near the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge headquarters in Suffolk, Virginia.

A DISMAL HISTORY TO REFUGE…

The first enslaved Africans brought to the British Colonies in Virginia in 1619 arrived on the frigate White Lion, it was a British privateer ship flying under a Dutch flag. It carried approximately 20 Africans, coming from present-day Angola, and had been seized by its crew from a Portuguese slave ship, the Sāo Joāo Bautista. At the time they arrived the enslaved Africans in British North America were legally deemed to be indentured servants, due to slave laws not being passed until a year later, in 1641 in Massachusetts and in 1661 in Virginia. They were entitled to freedom with the passage of a certain period of time, as servants, and they were also allowed to purchase their freedom. Other servants would gain their freedom by converting to Christianity, this was due to the English at the time not enslaving Christians. It was slave labor efforts that would drain and log the Great Dismal Swamp during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The people who escaped slavery and lived in freedom within the swamp became known as maroons or outliers. Excavations have revealed island communities existed until the Civil War.

A SWAMP OF NAMING RIGHTS…

When the Europeans arrived in the area, the swamp immediately became an object of fascination. In 1665, William Drummond, the first governor of North Carolina, was the first European recorded as discovering the swamp’s lake, which was subsequently named after him. In 1728, William Byrd II, while trying to establish a boundary between Virginia and North Carolina colonies, lead a land survey and made many observations of the swamp and due to none of them being favorable he is credited with naming it the Dismal Swamp. Settlers at the time did not appreciate the importance of the wetlands and their estimated 2,000 square miles.

PRESIDENTIAL REFUGE…

In 1763, George Washington visited the area on a dedicated mission to transform the swamp into something other than a swamp. He and the others who visited founded the Dismal Swamp Company with the intent of draining the swamp and clearing it for settlement. When it proved impossible to drain the swamp the company found it more profitable to use the company to harvest timber from the swamp. Harvesting the timber would lead to the creation of the Great Dismal Swamp Canal to transport the logs from the deep forests of the swamp. The Great Dismal Swamp Canal was authorized in 1787 by Virginia and then North Carolina followed in 1790. Construction began on the canal in 1793 and was completed in 1805. The timber was able to be harvested from deep in the forest through the canal built, as well as a railroad constructed through part of the swamp in 1830. With the construction of the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal completed in 1858, the canal began to deteriorate. So, in 1929, the United States Government bought the Great Dismal Swamp Canal and began to repair and improve it. Like the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, it is part of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and the Great Dismal Swamp Canal is now the oldest operating artificial waterway in the country.

DISMALLY BEAUTIFUL HISTORY…

The swamp is both beautiful and dangerous at the same time. The waterways and islands can easily get you lost in their stunning wildness, and you are surrounded by dangerous animals and also dangerous geography. The water can often be deeper than the mirrored reflection in the water and almost impossible to climb out of if you underestimate its depth and strength. With a long and complex history and the danger that can take your life in a number of ways in the swamp, it is no wonder that so many people are not familiar with the history of the swamp itself. But the swamp, much like history itself, is a stunningly beautiful and murky journey that can be dangerous the further in you go. But unlike history, which is better understood when read in a book, the history of the Great Dismal Swamp is better understood when you see it in person and can see the place of refuge that it once was so many thousands of years ago.

REFUGE OF THE NOW…

The Great Dismal Swamp lies wholly within the Middle Atlantic coastal forests ecoregion. The swamp contains a wide range of plant and animal species and the tree species found in the refuge, support the fauna within. The species of trees include the Bald cypress, tupelo, maple, Atlantic white cypress, and pine. In a survey of the refuge taken from 1973 to 1976, some 334 plants from over 100 plant families were found to be exiting within the refuge. The swamp is home to many mammals, including black bears, bobcats, otters, and weasels, as well as over 70 species of reptile and amphibian. There are 213 bird species that can be seen in the swamp throughout the year, including 96 nesting species; birders are common in the swamp within the prime birding months of April through June. The swamp was once home to American alligators, the swamp today only receives occasional vagrants from North Carolina to the south. Lake Drummond at the center of the swamp attracts fishermen, sightseers, and boaters. There is no camping allowed on the refuge.

Where the Crawdads Sing is available to stream on Netflix now…