Mile 172.0 RBD — Point Houmas

Highest sandbar in area, dry up to flood stage 35 BR, but popular fishing and party spot.

oint Houmas has the highest sandbars (good to flood stage 35 BR) and the best predictable camping within this stretch (until Poche Park in Paulina) but is also vehicle accessible and a known party place, spent bullet casings, shotgun shells and broken beer bottles are commonly encountered, along with abandoned picnic chairs and other trash. Solo paddlers might want to camp elsewhere. Larger groups would have more security. In low water you can camp on a shorter and smaller sandbar across the inlet above the big sandbar. The view from the top of the sandbar is spectacular. This unusual bend of the river with a tight corner above (Bringier) and below (Houmas) means the freighters will be rolling by making radical maneuvers all day and night long, and you will have the best possible location to enjoy them from!

There is another big sandbar around the bottom end of Houmas Point near 170.5 RBD, but it has been consumed by a dirt removal operation. You could possibly make camp late in the evening, just before dark, and avoid disruption. But only do so in emergency situations such as oncoming storms or high south winds.

The Houma Indians had lived on the east bank of the Mississippi until the Tunicas hounded them out of their old home and forced them to seek a new one on the west bank of the river in the area now known as Houma Point. Henri de Tonti, LaSalle's lieutenant, had called the Houmas the bravest savages on the river, and Father James Gravier who spent some time with them in 1700 added that they were as gentle and kind as they were courageous. He noted with surprise that the Houmas treated their war prisoners with the same gentle courtesy they showed to their own children. The Houma women often wept over the unfortunate captives and did their best to console them for having had the bad luck to be captured in battle. Father Gravier, who often gave interesting sidelights on the characters of the Indians he visited, also reported that the Houmas were inordinately fond of chickens-not as food, but as pets. He said they had obtained a flock when a vessel was wrecked at the mouth of the Mississippi, and had kept the domestic fowl in their villages ever since, giving them the run of the cabins in the winter. The Houmas would never sell their chickens to voyagers who might eat them, Gravier said, but were glad to give them to anyone who professed to want them for pets. In 1811, Governor William C. C. Claiborne received a visit from the chief of the Houma tribe in New Orleans. The governor, a kindhearted man, noted sadly that there were less than 80 surviving Houma Indians in Louisiana. He spent $100 on a present for the old chief, and thanked the Houmas for their many kindnesses to French settlers in the colony's early days. (Braggs: Historic Names)