Mile 12.5 - -12.5 Southeast Pass Island

-12.5 Southeast Pass Island

You can camp on the shell-strewn beaches of South Pass Island, but check tide forecasts, and make sure there aren’t any approaching storms or high winds out of the east or south. You might see coyote tracks along with blue crabs. The pelicans flock on either end of the island.

Dear paddler, when you reach the ocean you are probably expecting to be rewarded with a wide open view with a refreshing clear-sight view over the face of the earth towards the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico or Cuba. You will have at least one disappointment here. Don’t be dismayed when you discover that the ocean horizon is thick with derricks, platforms, wells (and many abandoned relics of the same), and supply vessels and crew shift helicopters overhead. Amazingly, the birds and other wildlife seem not to care about the cluttered horizon, but carry on their daily life cycles and long distance migrations regardless.

Pass a Loutre State Wildlife Wildlife Management Area

Pass-a-Loutre Wildlife Management Area is located in southern Plaquemines Parish at the mouth of the Mississippi River, approximately 10 miles south of Venice, and is accessible only by boat. The nearest public launches are in Venice. This area is owned by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and encompasses some 115,000 acres. The area is characterized by river channels with attendant channel banks, natural bayous, and man-made canals which are interspersed with intermediate and fresh marshes. Hurricane damage and subsidence have contributed to a major demise of vegetated marsh areas resulting in formation of large ponds. Habitat development is primarily directed toward diverting sediment-laden waters into open bay systems (i.e., creating delta crevasses), which promotes delta growth. Waterfowl and other migratory game bird hunting, rabbit hunting, and archery hunting for deer are permitted on Pass-a-Loutre. A trapping program is conducted annually to control surplus furbearing animals and alligators. There is excellent fishing in the freshwater areas as well as the more saline waters. Fish species present are typical inland saltwater varieties near the gulf and along river channels. Freshwater species including bass, bream, catfish, crappie, warmouth, drum, and garfish can be caught in the interior marsh ponds. Salt water species include redfish, speckled trout and flounder. Other forms of recreation available include boating, picnicking, nature study, crabbing, and camping. There are multiple campgrounds on the WMA that are available for tent-camping and one designated area for the mooring of recreational houseboats (see maps for locations). Prior to mooring, however, houseboats must receive a permit from the Department. More information can be obtained by calling 337-373-0032. (LA Dept of Wildlife & Fisheries)

Balize, The Oldest City the Delta Ate

Swift and riotous life, sudden and violent death, wild men and wilder women, red liquor, keen-edged knife and crashing pistol, all night orgies that ended with a string of murders at dawn - these were the scenes that once were enacted where now the Lone Tomb rises solitary in the jungle-tangle of rozo cane; where the great arch of the soft blue Louisiana sky broods in utter and primeval silence - Frost, Meigs O. History and description of the now lost city of Balize, Louisiana. New Orleans Item. October 9, 1921. Magazine Section. Page 2.

If you choose to travel east from Head of Passes down Pass a Loutre and then into Southeast Pass you will be tracing, in reverse, the route many travelers would have taken when first arriving at this new world. Approximately 5 miles down Southeast Pass, some 3 miles from its terminus at the Gulf, on the RBD is Balize Bayou. There is little evidence of civilization here save for the rusted pillars of oil and gas infrastructure left unattended to slowly bleed the delta of its remaining riches. But beginning some 300 years ago, this area was the gateway to this new frontier. Since the French first located the mouth of the Mississippi in 1699 they maintained an outpost at this critical junction. Balize, from the french balise, meaning “seamark” or “beacon,” was a way station for those traveling north up the Mississippi from all corners of the globe. This tenuous wisp of land teetering between the river and the sea was the first refuge for countless travelers venturing into this new land of opportunity as well as the first port of entry for thousands of African slaves that were to build this new colony and burgeoning country.

The first Balize was a meager encampment of French soldiers, slaves and priests on an island within Balize Bayou called the Isle of Tolouse. While hardly a settlement, this isle was the setting for such historic events as the arrival of the Ursuline Nuns to the New World in 1727 and the transfer of Louisiana from France to Spain in 1762. The Spanish briefly moved Balize down the bayou building an encampment known as Fuerte Real Catolica but quickly relocated again up to the mouth of Bayou Balize at Southeast Pass as it had become the primary navigation route for ships entering the Mississippi River by the end of the 18th century. The undeniable importance of controlling the entrance to the Mississippi led the United States to also build a fort here, Fort Wilkinson, shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. This site, later known as the American Balize was for many years perhaps the most cosmopolitan of settlements anywhere in the Mississippi River Basin. With roughly 500 inhabitants at its peak, Balize was a pilot town for ships entering the Mississippi River and an outpost for fishermen working the salty waters of the Gulf.

The census of 1860 documented the extraordinary diversity of what must have been a community unlike any other in the world. The residents there included river pilots from Denmark, Sweden, England, Wales, Ireland, France, and the states of Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Louisiana. The community included a cook from the Philippines, schoolmaster from Germany, a lighthouse keeper from Holland, a booker keeper from Norway, an Italian gun shop proprietor, a carpenter from Holland, seamstresses from New York, a Spanish tailor and fishermen from Turkey, Denmark, England, Scotland, Austria, Ireland, Portugal and Sicily.

Sailors, seaman, and surely many drifters and outcasts from around the world came here to the edge of the world, eager to take advantage of the profits from the necessary and treacherous work of maneuvering ships through the sand bars and shallows that lay between the open Gulf and the deep channel of the Mississippi River. The early years of the Balize were described as seedy, lawless and violent. The highly profitable and unregulated piloting industry monopolized by New Orleans businessman along with the relative isolation of the Balize no doubt led to a wild watery frontier town. A report to the Louisiana Legislature in 1846 described:

The Balize prior to 1837 was a mere mudbank, whose natural loathsomeness was made the more intolerable by the beastly scenes enacted there. Riots and broils were daily exhibits and low revelry and debauchery the pastimes of the night. It was a dangerous place to visit. The savageness of man invested the desolation of nature with appalling attributes.

To bring order to this chaos, attempts to regulate and organize river pilotage began as early as 1805. In 1837 the Louisiana Legislature finally took control by implementing a system of pilot examiners to oversee professional qualifications and standards of new pilots who were ultimately appointed directly by the governor. This was the beginning of reform for Mississippi river pilotage and the professional development of the Mississippi Branch pilots. The legislative report from 1846 went on to claim it’s success stating:

'Order succeeded confusion, soberness of living followed the scenes of riot and debauchery and a village of comfortable and convenient houses has sprung up like bright exhalations.’

However, the Balize struggled for survival its entire existence, it’s buildings connected by boardwalks to combat the constant flooding and less than substantial ground on which it precariously sat. By the time of the Civil War, this original site would have been abandoned, devastated by storms and floods countless times. A new, slightly higher settlement took its place upriver which would eventually evolve into the flourishing Pilot-town of the 20th century just above head of passes. The Mississippi Branch Pilots still maintain a large outpost here despite most all of Pilot-town having been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Paddling down Southeast Pass to the Gulf is surely a triumphant experience. The end of a journey giving witness to the dissolving of a country into the gaping mouth of the ocean. The salt air, the birds, the fish, the vastness of the sky and the sea as it consumes the marsh is breathtaking but with Balize in mind this history is an exercise in imagination. The very last remnants of the Balize, ancient grave stones sinking into the marsh referenced here in the opening quote, were documented by a state survey of the Pass a Loutre Public shooting grounds and beautifully written about by Meigs O. Frost in 1921 for the New Orleans Item. Even these grave markers have long disappeared, leaving the modern day paddler with no evidence of this extraordinary place. Entombed by silt, devoured by sea, the story itself the only evidence left of the Balize. Though the artifacts of Balize have long been deceased, the history of this place will continue with the hull of each canoe that paddles by echoing the countless vessels that have passed before. The paddler that reaches this point is no doubt a rugged adventurer, an experienced and tested paddler but for the river they are also a sentinel of memory, a vessel in which the stories written by man and erased by the river continue to exist, endlessly adrift in the currents of the Rivergator. (Michael Orr)

Getting Back

Whether you paddle back from the Gulf, or hitch a ride with a powerboat, Cypress Cove is the best place to return to, and meet your shuttle home. Venice Marina is a close second. A lot of paddlers in recent years have arranged for powerboats to shuttle them back from the ocean, or have hitched rides from passing fishing boats or workboats on their return to home port (which is almost always Venice for everyone in the Birdsfoot Delta). And you might decide the same, that you don’t want to paddle upstream. The current can sometimes be tough to paddle against, and the wind might be unfavorable. You are probably exhausted from your long day’s paddle to reach the coast, and really don’t have the energy to paddle back. But you can spend the night and do it in the morning. You probably already know that it isn’t too tough to paddle upstream. But we’re going to remind you here. And also offer the option for an extra day or two for a supreme ending to your expedition. You can make an extra campsite, and the take an extra day to paddle back to Venice. You will never be more than 25 miles from any given extremity of the Birdsfoot Delta. (The only exception would be the Southwest Pass, which is not recommended) The Quapaws are the downstream people, and the Omahas are the Upstream people. You have been a Quapaw for three months or more. Be an Omaha for a day or two. Anyone who has paddled the length of the Mississippi can surely paddle back upstream 25 miles! If the water is high and you have headwinds it might require 2 days of paddling. Lastly and most importantly, there is a distinct beauty in being an Omaha and making the upstream paddle home. You see the marshes and cane brakes and islands and mudflats up close and intimately in a way that you never do paddling downstream. You get closer to birds and other wildlife. You might see (and take photos of) animals you have not been able to approach, like nutria, osprey, green tree frogs, and maybe even a gator.

Upstream Paddling

The trick to upstream paddling is to find the path of least resistance. On a river, that means staying as close to shore as possible without grounding out. It helps to hug the inside of long bends when possible. You will find it necessary to follow the long lines around wing dams, jetties and dikes, and paddle underneath docks or other man-made structures that get in the way. But the most important skill in being an Omaha is learning to dive in and out of eddies. Paddle like the French Voyageurs of the Lewis and Clark who paddled up the Missouri, and then later up the Columbia and Snake rivers. Watch carefully in front of you for eddies and slow places and use them to your advantage. Cut into every eddy you can find and relax when you can. As the water speed increases past points in between eddies paddle hard and tough with quick bursts of energy. Find the next slow place and take a break. If the wind is blowing, hug the shore which offers the best protection.

For the most part paddling up the passes from the ocean will be enjoyable, and not too tough. The water is slow in most passes (unless in flood). Try to time your return with the incoming tide. The most challenging portion of your return paddle to Venice will be the 10 mile stretch of the main channel from Mile -0- up to Venice. The currents are almost always strong here, even with the tide in your favor. Also, you will have to make a channel crossing somewhere along the way (since all the attractive passes except SW pass are found flowing from the East Bank opposite Venice). This might be a dangerous crossing with the frequent freighter traffic moving up and down the river through here. But with careful examination, and monitoring your VHF marine radio on channel 67 you will be fine. Make your crossing as quick as possible, in a perpendicular run straight for the opposite shore, even if it means losing some ground due to river flow. You will quickly regain any lost ground once you resume paddling back up the other shore.

In general the East Bank will be easier to paddle alongside going upstream since it has slower flowing water. You will have to maneuver around some of the docking and port facilities surrounding Pilottown, but these obstructions further slow the current and make the upstream haul a little easier. Furthermore, the East bank features more inlets, passes, and other breaks that offer more opportunities for rest stops along the way. In contrast, the West Bank between Mile -0- and Venice is an almost contiguous line of rip rap and caged rock. There are only a few openings, and none of them except one (New Pass) with attractive landings. Even though the distance might be a little shorter (depending on what pass you take) the current is faster along the West Bank. All in all East Bank seems to be the best choice for the upstream paddle. The one factor that might change your decision is the wind speed and direction. In a strong west wind or southwest wind you would certainly do better hugging the West Bank.

After ten miles of upstream paddling (from Head of Passes) you will reach the top end of Grand Pass Island, and your long “uphill climb” will be over. Now you can leave off being an Omaha and return to your life as a Quapaw, a downstream paddler. For a short while anyway: all of two miles. Paddle into the gentle current flowing down Grand Pass, and follow it one mile to Tiger Pass, one mile further to take out at Cypress cove. Enjoy the sensation while it lasts. This short downstream paddle is doubly delicious: the end of your upstream travail, and the end of your expedition. Now you are rewarded by one last little piece of downstream muddy waters, the same muddy waters that you started on in St. Louis, or Minneapolis, or Sioux City, or Three Forks, or wherever it is that you first set your vessel into the river and started your first paddle stroke downstream to reach this point.

LiNKS = Leave No Kid on Shore

Leave no Kids on Shore (LiNKS) is an after-school environmental conservation/stewardship program for youth from the Lower Mississippi Valley to learn the skills of carving canoes, safe paddling on the big river, and wilderness survival. This is a continuation of the successful Mighty Quapaw Apprenticeship Program which has been active since 1998. LiNKS will focus on long-term solutions over short term fixes, in particular by applying long-term attention to our youth, and fostering mentorship relationships that last a decade or longer. LiNKS is all about self-knowledge, personal health, character development, leadership, team skills, and learning to overcome challenges. Skills gained in first year will lead to self-confidence and self-knowledge and lay the foundation for future leadership skills and summer jobs in Lower Mississippi Valley eco-tourism opportunities. Skills include 1) sharpening: learning to hone carving tools razor sharp; 2) carving: learning to carve canoes with the axe, the adze, the scorp & the hand plane; 3) canoeing: learning to steer canoes using the c-stroke, j-stroke & ruddering; and 4) wilderness survival: camping skills including building a fire, setting up a tent in a rain storm, and cooking. Each skill is a rung on a ladder leading to become a confident outdoorsman or outdoorswoman. Each skill learned prepares students for next challenge (i.e. learning to steer leads to safe river navigation leads to becoming a group leader; learning to sharpen a tool leads to mastering a carving tool leads to self-confidence). The Mississippi River, the Helena Harbor and Buck Island are the classrooms for all canoeing activities. Canoe carving takes place in the workshops in and around Quapaw Canoe Company in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Helena, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee. LiNKS meets 4-6pm four times per week during the school year with once a month all-day field trips and an overnight canoe-camping adventure every spring and fall, in all involving 650 youth. A summer program will be conducted mornings during the week 9-10am for 6 weeks for 100 youth. Rewards Program: In March 2016 two youth will be chosen to participate in the 2-week scientific/educational circumnavigation of Big Island (20,000 acre island at the confluence of the Mississippi, White, and Arkansas Rivers). In the Summer of 2016 two LiNKS participants will spend 2 weeks rafting down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. In 2016 we will provide 750 youth with experiences on the big river with the main goal of creating future environmental stewards who can care for, protect, and enjoy the Mississippi River and its Mississippi Delta floodplain for generations to come. What good is it protecting the forests if we don’t also populate the woods with ethical users? If we don’t use it, we’ll lose it. If our kids don’t use it, we’ll also lose it. LiNKS will engage Mississippi Delta Youth for river-based conservation by creating 1) real experience in the outdoors with 2) real conservation practice with 3) young men and women from severely distressed neighborhoods (focusing on black males ages 13-21). LiNKS will offer high-quality learning experience outside of the traditional school year that supports low-income students over the course of their Pre-K–12 academic careers. LiNKS will create environmental stewards amongst the next generation and simultaneously help protect the forests and wild landscapes of the Lower Mississippi. It will enable participation amongst demographic groups who are not enjoying the same access as others. LiNKS will foster a young and upcoming community who will conscientiously use these landscapes in a sustainable fashion for a lifetime of good conservation and recreation. Contact:

LiNKS/Leave No Kid on Shore
John Ruskey, Director
Lower Mississippi River Foundation
291 Sunflower Avenue
Clarksdale, MS 38614
john@island63.com
Cave: 662-627-4070
Cell: 662-902-7841

© 2015 John Ruskey
For the Rivergator: Lower Mississippi River Water Trail
www.rivergator.org

The www.rivergator.org is a free public use website
presented by the Lower Mississippi River Foundation.
Re-printing of text and photos by permission only with proper credits.