Mile 195.2 LBD — Bayou Goula Island

Mile-Long Bayou Goula Island is the biggest of the last three islands on the Lower Mississippi River and also the best birding and tracking, and best all-season, all- weather camping and picnicking in this stretch of river.

Bayou Goula Island is a classic Mississippi River Island: long and skinny, with forests, wetlands, sandy ridges and muddy banks. It grows an enormous sandbar over its top end in low water, and has some sand even at medium water, found mostly along a skinny ridge with willows extending from the forested towhead at its northern point. At high water the sandy places are only found in the forests. At high water the island is seal shaped, plump in the middle and narrowing towards the ends, smooth all the way around. But as the water drops its shape becomes complicated by striking sand patterns that undulate in and out in fluid rhythms, and create unusual water conditions and harbors of safety for paddlers, fish and animals. One of these is a deep inlet that forms inside the back channel in between the sandbar and the steep bank along the forests edge. This inlet remains open down to around 5 BR (on the Baton Rouge Gage). It remains hidden at low water. From the distance you see nothing but sand reaching to the woods. You won’t find it until you paddle several hundred yards down the back channel and then look back. Even though the sand is piled high above in an extensive plateau at high water, this inlet remains wide enough and deep enough for a big voyageur canoe to enter and make landing for the perfect campsite. You will have everything you need here: protection from the trees, firewood, good views all around, and you don’t have to worry about waves smashing your vessel at night. The only times you wouldn’t want to camp here would be in strong northerly or northeasterly winds, or in a fast falling river. The long shallow approach into this inlet might result in a long muddy portage back to deeper water if the river drops a foot or more overnight!

Bayou Goula Island features dependable all weather all water level camping: In high water (22-35BR) look for the highest elevation on the forests at top end; in medium water (12-22BR) top or bottom; in low water (0-12BR) good camp sites can be found top end, bottom end, or anywhere along the extensive sandbars on the main channel side. In north winds, look for shelter on the south side of the island. In south winds stay top end. A willow is found at top end with many grasses and flowering weeds surrounding, and some cocklebur patches. The willows favor this sandy medium high ground, which might be formed below an old pile of rip-rap found its northern end, much degenerated over the years, and hardly noticeable except for some partially sand-submerged rocks and gravel around them. Beyond the rip-rap the sandbar extends smooth and undulating with a very shallow low angle drop to the water’s edge. Red ants are nesting in various locations. They sometimes build their homes in pieces of driftwood, so carefully inspect any logs before lifting and moving. In East winds stay main channel. In west winds you might have to hunker down top end or bottom end, because there are very few choices for back channel camping (because of its tall steep muddy banks), except in high water when you can paddle right to the forest’s edge.

Mile-Long Bayou Goula Island is the biggest of the last three islands on the Lower Mississippi River with the best camping in the quietest and most remote location. You may not see many animals, but you know they’re with you on the island by all of the tracks you see in the sand. You will find river otter and beaver tracks in the bars closest to the river’s edge, and also raccoon, and the common shore birds egrets, cormorants, blue herons and Kingfishers. White Pelican might make landing on the top end at low or medium water, and bald eagles perch in the exposed branches of the highest trees awaiting their chance to descend and make a catch from the surrounding waters. Deer, coyote, and possibly bobcat range over the entire island, and their tracks prove it.

Bayou Goula

The Bayogoula were a Native American tribe from Mississippi and Louisiana. Their name translates as “bayou people.” They were a part of the Muskugeon people. The Houma people attacked them around 1699-1700. They lived in with another tribe, the Mougoulacha in 1700. In the early 18th-century the Bayagoula killed many Mougoulacha, almost wiping out the entire tribe. This was triggered from a fight between the two tribes chiefs. The Tonica tribe moved into the community soon thereafter. In 1706 the Tonica ambushed the Bayagoula and almost killed all of them. By 1721, the rest of the tribe had suffered considerable deaths from smallpox. The remaining Bayogoula are believed to have moved to the area of the present day Ascension Parish of Louisiana, possibly melding into the community of the Houma and Acolapissa who lived there. (Wiki)

In the 1940's an archeological excavation was conducted at the site of two mounds and a roughly 600ft earthen plaza near the present day community of Bayou Goula. A plethora of artifacts were unearthed in what was a relatively small excavation including dwellings, pottery, tools, burial remains and jewelry. Bayou Goula does not look like much these days but was once the site of a Native American settlement inhabited as early as the Plaquemine Period. French Canadian explorer Iberville documented two temples and 107 cabins enclosed within a palisade. The tribal people living here, some four to five hundred in 1700, were called the Bayougoula meaning "bayou people."

In 1699 the Bayougoula lived here with the Mugulasha but in 1700 the Bayougoula attacked the Mugulasha, killing many and driving off the others. Soon the Acolapissa and Tiou replaced the Mugulasha in the Bayougoula village. In 1706 the Taensa come to the village and subsequently attacked the Bayougoula, along with the Acolapissa and Tiou inhabitants. The survivors fled south and settled near the Mississippi below New Orleans. The Taensa are thought to have retained control of the Bayougoula site for roughly 10 years. This feuding and fleeing amongst tribes ultimately led to fusion of the Bayougoulas, Acolapissa, and Houma into a single group by 1739.

The tradition of unrest in this area continued as the Bayou Goula site was the land where the French organized before marching on the Natchez in 1730 and later saw skirmishes during the Civil War. By 1860, Bayou Goula had become an important port and steamboat landing with two elegant hotels. But in 1929 the old town was mostly erased by the relocation of the Mississippi River levees some 700 feet inland in an effort to control the Mighty Mississippi and its devastating flood waters. The small community of Bayou Goula bears little reminder of its ancient Native American or thriving river town history. (Michael Orr)