About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 2011)
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To sign up for the Athens, GA Half Marathon October 22-23,2011, please visit the HandsOn Northeast Georgia website at handsonnortheastgeorgia.com FIGHTING FOR GEORGIA'S "LITTLE AMAZON As I've mentioned here before, I was once a Boy Scout, in the best kind of Scout troop imaginable, led by a retired Navy admiral who knew more about getting by on land or water than any person I've ever known. The troop would range far and wide for the big summer adventure, sometimes crossing the continent—no Scout Camps or Jamborees for us—but for our monthly camping trips the rest of the year we had our stomping grounds of central Florida, home to countless varied mini-ecosystems, from beach to swamp, and crisscrossed by rivers. I learned to canoe and love it to this day. There is nothing that compares to a boat on a river, surrounded by watchful trees, a thousand dramas of life and death swirling in the water beneath your feet, a canopy of endless sky above. Mark Twain devoted the greatest American novel ever written to this idea. A boat on a river is adventure and medi tation, turbulence and silence, a journey in an always alien world constantly touched and shaped by the hands of both angels and devils. Whether you believe in God or the blind ineffability of Nature, a boat on a river is church. This is the world into which Janisse Ray was born, has never left, and fights relent lessly to preserve. Ray is origi nally from Baxley, GA, 10 miles south of the Altamaha River that cuts through the middle of the state like an abdominal scar. The Altamaha—emphasis on the fourth syllable, please, not the third—begins where the Ocmulgee and Oconee riv ers meet and flow to the coast, where the current unravels into strands of smaller rivers running through the wetlands. Home to a staggering list of endangered flora and fauna, the river is often referred to as "the Little Amazon," and the description is apt. Like all riv ers in a nation that once depended on them for transport and livelihood, the Altamaha is steeped in history and swarming with ghosts. Ray hardly needs an introduction, not around here. Her first book. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, is regarded as a classic of modern nature writing and is required reading in some schools. Her second and third books, Wild Card Quilt and Pinhook. were tremen dously well received in Georgia. Ray is a poet, an environmental activist, and considered a hero in local conservation circles. In her new book. Drifting Into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River (University of Georgia Press, 2011), Ray revis its the river of her childhood and makes an impassioned plea for its preservation. The first half of Ray's book recalls a kayak ing trip down the Altamaha 10 years ago, a much-needed soul-cleansing amidst the worst of circumstances. Ray's new husband had inexplicably fallen under suspicion for making a terrorist threat, and the couple found them selves living under a cloud of Kafkaesque fear and paranoia. Seeking to clear their heads and renew their strength, they joined a prominent naturalist and several friends on the Altamaha, from the headwaters to the delta, eight days lost amid the fading but still potent grandeur and beauty of the river. Ray's narrative of the trip is lyrical and earthy all at once, capturing the camaraderie of her campmates as well as the spirituality of utter immersion in nature. Every river is unique, and Ray tells the story of this one beautifully. While the first half of the book tells of the river then, the second half tells of the fight to save the river now, and it stirs the blood as ably as the first half stirs the soul. Ray reports on the work of the Altamaha Riverkeeper orga nization to keep the river unspoiled and viable to those fisheries and other local interests who depend on the river's stability for the local economy, and on the efforts of The Nature Conservancy to purchase and preserve not just parts but the entire length of the riverfront on both sides, an enormous undertaking that may well be the Altamaha's only hope. Aside from the dangers posed by indus trial dumping and the Hatch nuclear facility located on the river, the Altamaha has been devastated by deforestation, wholesale clear- cutting of the pine and cypress trees that sus tained the basin. Ray's investigations into the obfuscation and the doublespeak of the U.S. Forest Service—who claim that 67 percent of Georgia is still forest but base that figure on whether trees are there or ever were—a re tell ing and infuriating. Ray is pissed, and believes you should be, too. Even now, when a boat on a river is largely a leisure activity rather than a necessity, the need to preserve rivers and wetlands and the devastating consequences of environmental ignorance (recall the loss of the Louisiana wetlands, which would have helped protect the state from Hurricane Katrina) are still vital factors in our lives. We need healthy rivers. And we need more Janisse Rays. JohnG. Nettle* 8 FlAGPOLE.COM OCTOBER 12,2011
