By Richard E. Condrey

Come on a brief voyage of discovery into Louisiana's environmental history. Begin a search through our rich legacy for clues to the past and lessons for the future.

In this retrospective adventure, we'll view Louisiana through some of the accounts of the early explorers. The Louisiana they saw teemed with wildlife -- parakeets, bison, bears, and waterfowl. It contained impenetrable cypress swamps, dense canebrakes, vast park-like forests of longleaf pine, majestic oak cheniers, endless trembling marshes, and sweeping prairies aflame with wildflowers.

Through it flowed the mighty Mississippi, the father of all waters, teeming with fish and an abundance of sweet water. Below the Red Stick, the Mississippi in flood spread out over the face of the land from what is now St. Bernard Parish through backwater flooding to what is now the Atchafalaya Bay.

Come. Begin our voyage with Iberville. The year is 1699. Iberville has been given permission by the French king to found a colony in the new province of Louisiana. We have sailed from France into the Gulf of Mexico and are anchored off Ship Island (which lies off what is now the Mississippi coast). We are looking for either the east or west fork of the Mississippi River.

Iberville tells us, "I am making ready to leave and go and discover the Mississippi." He takes a small group of us to what is now the Mississippi coast. He notes that "the approach to the shore is quite shallow. . . . The trees here are very fine, mixed. We are seeing many plum trees in bloom, tracks of turkeys; partridges, which are no bigger than quail; hares like the ones in France; some rather good oysters.

We met and befriended members of the Biloxi and Bayogoula tribes. We "showed the east fork of the Mississippi was, [and] we decided that they were indicating that it was the Pascagoula River. . . . The chief of the Bayogoula came to tell [us] that he was going hunting for buffalo and turkeys."

On February 18, we initially set sail in our smaller vessels in search of the east fork of the Mississippi, but since the wind is against us we return and sail the next day in search of the west fork. Sailing around the many marshy islands that then filled Chandeleur-Breton Sound, we are caught in a squall on March 2. Fearing that our small vessels will be swamped, Iberville heads toward two large boulders with the intent of running aground. As we approach the boulders, we note that the water has become fresh. We have found an entrance to the Mississippi.

Sailing into the river, we see that the boulders are actually large driftwood trees. These trees have been torn out of the heartland of America by the river and cast upon its shores. The trees appear from a distance to be boulders because they are covered in dried sediment. While they are piled high here, Iberville notes that they are all along the coast and are very important in beach-building.

Maps made by the Royal French Cartographer Bellin in 1764, showing parts of Louisiana. Figure 1 on left. Figure 2 on right. Click for full-size view (167K).

We have scarcely entered the river when a new danger presents itself. Directly ahead are breakers over a submerged sandbar. It threatens to ground our boat. Luckily for us, there is sufficient water (12 feet) over the bar for a safe passage. Later we find how lucky we were, for we had likely found the only entrance to the river with sufficient water to sail over its bar.

As we ascend the Mississippi, we look out through dense canebrakes, over impenetrable marshes, and see a great quantity of game, such as "duck, geese, snipe, teal, bustards, and other birds." When we are eight leagues (19.2 miles) from the entrance to the river, we encamp and go hunting, finding "a variety of animals such as stags, deer, buffalos, and very fine country."

Ascending the river against the swift current, we find that it becomes cloaked in a dense cypress swamp, towering on either bank which is periodically replaced with dense canebrakes.

The decision by Napoleon (above) to sell Louisiana to the United States in 1803 ended the French exploration and colonization of the territory. The present state of Louisiana was only part of the land area included in the Louisiana Purchase. Click for full-size view (183K).

On March 9, our Indian guide points out a fine path-which leads to a small bayou we will call Bayou St. Jean. He tells us that the Indians use this path and bayou to travel from the Mississippi River to a lake Iberville will call Pontchartrain. When the French missionary Father DuRu later visits this area, he notes, "There are parrots by the thousands; their plumage is marvelous, but they are far from being as good (to eat) as they are beautiful." Later we will settle this site because of its path/bayou connection between the river and Lake Pontchartrain. We will call it New Orleans.

On Saturday, March 14, we are near the village of the Bayogoula. On the bank the Indians have "cut the cane away to receive us. We arrived at the beautiful place about four o'clock. The cane which they cut was upwards of twenty-five feet in length, perfectly straight, about an inch and a half thick and so close together that one cannot pass through them without the greatest of difficulty."

"They then made us sit down upon the cane, which they had covered with bear skins." We smoked the calumet of peace, a ceremonial pipe. "They brought us Indian corn, cooked in various ways, in round and long cakes, baked in the ashes, mixed with bear's oil or sagamite mixed with beans."

After the feasting and dancing, Iberville questions the Indians on the location of the east fork of the Mississippi. "We marked the course of the river upon a piece of paper, they seemed to comprehend very well. . . . We showed them where our [larger] ships were [at Ship Island] . . . but they persisted in saying there was no branch of the river."

Continuing our search for the east fork of the river, on March 17 we come to a spot which will be known as Baton Rouge. Here there is a stream which is "the dividing line between the Oumas' hunting grounds and the Bayogoula's. On the banks are many huts roofed with palmettos and a may pole with no limbs, painted red, severed fish and bear bones being tied to it as a sacrifice. The area is extremely fine." In the stream there is an "abundance of fish. . . . [The] Oumas come to hunt and fish here."

We turn and descend the river. We divide into two groups. Iberville takes a small bayou which we will name River Iberville (later renamed Bayou Manchac). At the point where this waterway meets with a lake he names Maurepas, Iberville comes "upon a herd of more than 200 cows and bulls [bison]." Sailing through Lake Pontchartrain, Iberville eventually reaches Ship Island and reunites with his crew.

He tells us that his voyage on the River Iberville and lakes was exceedingly difficult. "They were obliged to make more than eighty portages, on account of the vast number of fallen trees. . . . They told us they had run great risks from the numerous crocodiles [alligators] that swarmed in those lakes."

Louisiana oysters. Click for full-size view (217K).

We sail back to France and realize that we failed to find the east fork of the Mississippi because we were on it. We had passed the west fork around three o'clock on Friday, March 13. We noted then that it was a "large body of water running in a S.E. direction" and that "the current of the river was not so strong, on account of this body of water, which tended to diminish it considerably."

A year later, Father DuRu accompanied Iberville on his second voyage up the Mississippi. When they approached; what is now Bayou Lafourche, DuRu wrote, "The famous Fork of the Mississippi is now in sight. I would not have distinguished one branch from another. . . ."

Right or left fork, the Mississippi was a fine, wild, and sweet river - perhaps the most beautiful in the world. The historian Amos Stoddard tells us that "the people who live on the banks of the Mississippi prefer its waters to all others."

In 1720, Father Pierre de Charlevoix was commissioned by the French Regency's Counseil deMarine to explore and describe New France and Louisiana. By the time Charlevoix had reached the lower region of the Mississippi, he had recognized the critical link between the river and the land.

He specifically recommended "that it would be very advantageous to leave free room to the annual overflowing of the river, especially for the soil" since the overflow "renews and fattens it." Of the Barataria Bay Region (south of New Orleans), Father Charlevoix noted that "the world might be cut there, the whole coast being covered with them."

In 1764, the Royal French Cartographer Bellin provided a glimpse of these magnificent oaks, the interior of the Barataria complex, the importance of uprooted trees in beach building and the two forks of the Mississippi and their island. In plate 43 of his atlas (Figure 1), we see Charlevoix's "Forest of green oaks which are proper for construction" in the northern regions of what is now Barataria Bay. We see that what is likely now Lake Salvador was a lake filled with canes or reeds. We find that soundings had been made in what is likely now Barataria Bay and Little Lake. This transect tells us that these bodies of water had a shallow channel and that there was an extensive submerged, shallow bar at what is now Barataria Pass.

In Bellin's Plate 44 (Figure 2), we have a close-up of the entrance to the Mississippi. The soundings show that the sandbar at the entrance "which is now the most practicable" has a depth of 12 feet at its shallowest and that the other passes are too shallow for crossing. The stylized driftwood trees give us a feel for their importance.

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Illustrations of Louisiana from Harper's Monthly in 1887. Figure 3 on left. Figure 4 on right. Click for full-size view (167K).

Come. It is 1887. Harper's Monthly has published an article by Rebecca Harding Davis which contains wonderful illustrations of Louisiana. Here are last looks at the Carolina parakeet (Figure 3) and a dense, virgin cypress swamp (Figure 4). Here are a thick bamboo canebrake (Figure 5), a glimpse through the gateway into a New Orleans courtyard (Figure 6), a peaceful street scene in the French Quarter, and a massive oak by Jefferson's lake (Figure 7).

Figure 5.
Click for full-size view (218K).

Of our cypress swamps, she reports, "The [Morgan and Southern Pacific Railway] track ran through interminable swamps of giant cypresses, magnolias, and fig-trees. Their myriads of gray trunks stood knee-high in water, opening in silent vistas on either side. Overhead huge vicious coils of vines knotted these bare columns together. It was March, but there was no coy, tender approach of spring here. Nature was a savage -- fierce, prolific. The very leaves burst open here like clots of blood or an angry glare of white; even the thickets of saplings were hoary as with age. Strange red and orange birds flashed through the sombre recesses; now and then a huge alligator rose out of the plane of slimy water, stared at the train with dead eyes, and plunged into it again."

Of the Opelousas prairie she writes, "The next day Mr. Ely set off across the prairie. It stretched in green shimmering waves to the horizon on every side. He drew a long breath, as a man does in coming from a stifling house out-of-doors. There was all the breadth and freedom of the sea here.

"After a while the intense silence of the place began to oppress him. It was a clear morning. The wind passing from the Gulf bent the grass in long furrows now and then, but made no sound; there was a spell of absolute silence in the sunshine, on the bright sluggish bayou, even on the herds of native cattle that lifted their heads from grazing to stare at them with curious eyes. Flocks of huge black buzzards rose from the prairie occasionally, swooped and wheeled over their heads, and settled again on their prey when they had passed by. Sometimes an eagle swept across the sky with slow majestic directness. Brightcolored lizards darted in and out of the matted grass; on the lower marshes the tiny mud chimneys of the crawfish rose in thousands.

Figure 6 on left. Figure 7 on right.
Click for full-size view (199K).

"They travelled all day. Still the interminable prairie, the sunshine, the driving winds, the abounding life, and still the brooding quiet. The rank excess of growth, the exhaustless waste of life and beauty and color, startled the old man, who had been used to the pinched crops of New England. The very mud, in which the feet of the mules sank to the fetlocks, was hid by exquisite lilies and blush-roses. Vines knotted themselves here overhead with thick trunks like saplings, and flung masses of white flowers up into the air. There was something paganish in this silent, fierce extravagance of nature."

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Come. It is 1995 the start of a new year. The mighty Mississippi still flows through our state. Though the parakeets and bison are gone, the egrets, alligators, and pelicans remain.

The main lesson from the past is that we can make a difference. Our actions largely determine what will remain, what will flourish, and what will disappear forever. If we are wise stewards of our resources, we will guarantee their use for future generations.

Richard E. Condrey [(504) 388-6456/ is Associate Professor of Coastal Fisheries and Oceanography at the Center for Coastal, Energy, and Environmental Resources at Louisiana State University.

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