Virginia - Day 14 - Great Dismal Swamp

Chesapeake Campground
Thursday, 14 March 2019

today's route

This campground is literally on the eastern edge of the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, and it took me nearly an hour to drive around to the Park Headquarters on the western edge - that's how big it is.

There was a very nice ranger at the HQ building who told me they hadn't had any snow this year at all, it had been unusually warm.  She said they'd only had about 13 days where the temp got down to freezing.  (Bet mosquitoes will be a problem soon.)

Their literature says, "At nearly 113,000 acres, the refuge is the largest intact remnant of a vast swamp that once covered more than 1,000,000 acres."

part of the driving trail

Lake Drummond

The refuge has several hiking trails but only one driving trail, which we took.  The drive was 6 miles long, in 2-mile segments at right angles to each other.  It ends at Lake Drummond, the largest natural lake in Virginia.  It was formed 4,000 years ago after a fire burned away several feet of peat soil.

In fact, I think much of the soil here is peat, making fires harder to fight because it's such good fuel.  In 2006 there was a fire started by lightning that burned about 500 acres.  In 2008 there was a fire started by people that burned nearly 5,000 acres and took 4 months to put out.

They've got 200 species of birds (not counting migrants), 100 species of butterflies, and one of the largest black bear populations on the east coast.  I saw dozens and dozens of turtles sunning on logs.  I saw 2 river otters playing on the road.  Actually, gamboling was the word that came to mind when I saw them.

I know it's hard to see, but there's a wake coming from the lower right side of this photo, ending in an otter head.  And in the center left are 3 turtles that actually stayed on the log when I went by - most of the turtles I saw plopped into the water almost before I saw them.  At one place I think I saw a turtle nursery - there must have been 18 of them, all small, sitting on several logs together.

I saw several beaver dams and a lodge.

Part way down the driving trail is a boardwalk into the swamp, and because I hadn't seen any other cars I figured it was safe to take the dogs in.

the boardwalk

from the boardwalk

another boardwalk view

Part way along the walk was a black box strapped to a tree and it said "song monitor" on it.  I'd have loved to listen to the results.

They had a separate pavilion to display information about the reason this swamp has been designated a landmark on the National Underground Railroad.  Unfortunately, all of my photos came out blurry, but I'd picked up a pamphlet about it at the Park HQ.  It's now estimated that as many as 50,000 people might have lived here between the mid-1600s and the Civil War.  The difficulty is that these folks lived in secrecy and the areas were seriously inaccessible.  But researchers are finding artifacts that are helping piece together information.

These folks were called maroons from the French word marronage, meaning "to flee" or "to be removed."  (Thus our word for being stuck on a deserted island.)  Maroon communities developed throughout the South, especially in swampy areas.  There's evidence they established trade with some of the slaves that were working in the swamp, using a barter system, trading labor to help the slaves with tools and clothing.

It must have been a really hard life, but so was slavery.

I drove back around the swamp boundary through Suffolk (one of America's 100 best small towns to live in).  I passed cotton fields.  Ornamental fruit trees are blooming like crazy.

I listened to a radio program about language, and one person told the story of a king who was crazy about the wild animals in his kingdom and kept collecting them and bringing them back to his palace.  More and more of them until finally his reign was called on account of game.  (heh, heh)