Bayou Chene: The Life Story of an Atchafalaya Basin Community

摘要

The Atchafalaya River Basin has changed a great deal in the past century and a half twisting bayous where steamboats traveled, loaded with barrels of sugar or towing huge rafts of timber, are now filled with sediment and grown over with trees. Other bayous, broad lakes and the Atchafalaya itself have been straightened and dredged to greater depths. Willow thickets now stand where immense live oaks and cypress once grew, robed in Spanish moss. Arrow- straight canals crisscross the landscape, ignoring natural terrain. And every year the spring floods of the Atchafalaya River leave more silt and sand behind, burying the basin's past further beneath the surface. However, some people can recall a different Atchafalaya Basin. They remember a beautiful environment that repaid hard work with rich harvests of timber, fish and game. They remember a home where their ancestors lived for more than three generations, and where they themselves grew up. They remember a small community that no longer exists, but that still draws them together, like a family, after the passage of decades. They remember a place called Bayou Chene.