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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