"The very first Official Portage of a dam on the river corridor occured at 11:00 am on May 21 at the Weiss Lake Diversionary Dam just West of Centre, Alabama. To 'inaugurate' the Trail and all the Portages, Alabama Power Company Vice President of Environmental Affairs, Willard Bowers, and Fred Couch, Jr., visionary and President of the Alabama Scenic River Trail, were the first two to 'christen' and do a Trail Portage. Mr. Bowers and his entire firm have been a fundamental key to this project's fruitful beginnings and many achievements. In addition to the many personnel at every staff level being so constructive, the use of several APCO facilities around the state for meetings, and advice, Alabama Power supplied a seed grant to expedite the coverage of many initial expenses. With his dear Father nearly 60years ago, Mr. Couch stood at almost this very spot for the spade turning announcement of Weiss Lake."

Where the Alabama Scenic River Trail goes

The Trail passes many points of historic interest, all of which are described in Trail Guides that are now available. These guides include information on all aspects of the Trail.


The route, suitable for every kind of craft from canoes and kayaks to powerboats, begins in the mountainous terrain of northeastern Alabama, flows through beautiful scenery in nine lakes, through the serenity of the second largest river delta in the United States, through Mobile Bay, terminating at historic Ft. Morgan.



The first place within the state with amenities for the boater—lodging, camping, food, fuel and access to the Coosa—is Riverside Campground and Motel (256 779 8365) in Cedar Bluff, about three miles in from the Georgia line. The campground is considered the de facto trailhead of the Alabama Scenic River Trail, whose 631 miles of riverway will terminate at Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay. This marina and others in the area will be the last source of fuel for the powerboater for many miles.

Hopping down the lakes of the Coosa means hopping around the dams of the Alabama Power Company. All of these lakes, in order from the state line south—Weiss Lake, Neely Henry Lake, Logan Martin Lake, Lay Lake, Mitchell Lake and Jordan Lake—along with their respective dams, offer no trouble to the powerboater wishing to trailer around the dams. Paddlers will find adequate portage at each dam with the exception of Mitchell Dam, whose topography is so steep that a portage would require superhuman strength. Given that most of us paddling Alabama rivers are mere mortals, a shuttle has been arranged by the organizers of the Alabama Scenic River Trail. Paddlers in need of a shuttle around Mitchell Dam should contact G.R.A.C.E.’s Marina (punctuation shown is correct… the marina’s name is a combination of the family’s initials) at 205 280 4110. There will be a modest charge to cover mileage on this twelve mile ride, and be sure to give 24 hours notice if possible.

---

Access alert!

Gadsden’s City Marina is currently undergoing a revitalization that will eventually furnish ramps, concessions, fuel, docks and showers. Call Gadsden Parks and Recreation Department at 256 549 4680 to ensure the amenities you need are available as work progresses, and that you are aware of alternative river access while the city’s marina is under construction.

---

Heed the navigation aids on the Coosa

The Coosa River is one of the most well endowed rivers in the state for navigation aids, and there’s a reason for that that boaters should pay attention to. The depth, during times of low water, can change from forty feet to ten inches in the time it takes a depth finder to know about it. In fact, some of you may have been among the crowd gathered on the south bank of the Coosa just across from Hog Island (right where the pink dot is on Google Earth that says “Crappie Capital of the World”) after we rounded the campground at Alabama Point and passed Highway 9 and the town of Cedar Bluff. If you had been standing where I was standing after I returned to my feet after being pitched headlong across the deck of our stranded craft, you could have seen the 12-foot skid mark that our skeg left in the river’s muddy bottom. Our guide misread the intent of a channel marker, and we ran aground within a rope-throw of the marker. His excuse was that the paint was faded and he couldn’t differentiate the green marker from the red. When this happens, take this simple advice: if there are two markers (green and red are commonly, but not always, used in pairs), stay between them. If there is only one marker, slow down and read the color. The rule is easy to remember: red right returning. This means that upon returning (sailing upriver), if the red marker is to your right, you’re in the channel. Likewise, going downriver, the red marker should be on your left. If you’re traveling downriver and you are to the left of the marker, you’re out of the channel.

Fortunately for us on this day in this part of the river, the Marine Police were on duty and not too far away, and we were being pulled off in less than an hour. Their patrol boat was a welcome sight not so much because of our discomfort and loss of time but because our guide had hit the bottom of his bag of jokes some half an hour before their arrival.

If you don’t see a channel marker, you’re probably in the wrong part of the river. Consult your map or GPS to determine where you should be. Carto-Craft Map Company makes excellent maps with bathymetric markings (the underwater equivalent of the contour lines on a topographic land map) but even this shouldn’t be relied upon as the sole navigation aid. The upper Coosa, well marked as it is, is no river to be on without a depth finder.

A paddler's kingdom on the Coosa

Though there’s nothing to keep a kayaker or canoeist off of the upper lakes of the Coosa, the trackless wide waters and their overwhelming affinity for powerboats mean that paddlecraft, while welcome, play second fiddle here. That situation changes where the brim of water that spills over Jordan Dam and the little dirt-and-gravel bar below it. From here through Wetumpka, the paddle is the scepter of dominion over these waters. This six-mile run is the most-paddled stretch of water in the state, and it contains the most fun you can legally have almost anywhere.

The journey begins at Jordan Dam Road off of Highway 231 and then onto Rapids Road, getting out below the dam. From this point where paddlers enter the current, the Coosa soon changes its character: it falls more than thirty feet in three quarters of a mile here. For the next ten miles or so, the river follows the course of the fall line, a geological formation that runs across the state, causing rapids and waterfalls on every waterway that encounters it. Technically, the fall line appears where the rocky underlayment of the state’s northern end disappears, and the resulting taper accelerates any water flowing over it. Damming streams crossing the fall line has greatly curbed their violent nature. The falls at Tuscaloosa are no longer visible at all, and those of the Coosa only slightly more so. The name of the town Wetumpka means in the Creek language “rumbling water” (we = water, tumpkau = rumbling or roaring) and it certainly did that before it was harnessed for power. The river, tame now, can still be playful and, under certain conditions, dangerous. Trust your outfitter to inform you of what to expect for a given rate of flow.

Setting out from below Jordan Dam, paddlers will pass large outcroppings of sandstone but very few houses. The river rhythmically challenges and rests us until, about after several miles, it careens through Moccasin Gap, the Coosa’s amusement park. Go to Google Earth at 32º34’24.20”/86º13’37.20” to see the white rapids on each side of the big rock at river center. Approaching the rock dead center provides calm water for a takeout for lunch and people watching as paddlers try their hand at the rapids on either side. To the left, the drop is clean and requires only moderate skill. The first-timer could easily do this with the help of a guide. To the right is a different story. Here’s where the skilled and daring go off and go under. Observing the parade of paddlers through this stretch of the river will provide hours of entertainment. If you’re not up for either side of the big rock, drag your boat right across the top and take off in the calm waters on the downstream side.

Just a few more miles of unforgettable paddling await you before you are back in Wetumpka at whichever of the two outfitters took you out.



For a guide, a boat and ride on this stretch of the river, call Coosa Outdoor Center at 334 201 5510 or Coosa River Adventures at 334 514 0279.

Montgomery

The first town traveling downriver from the birthplace of the Alabama just south of Wetumpka, where the Coosa joins the Tallapoosa, is Montgomery. Long before DeSoto walked what are now the streets of the city in 1540; long before the French claimed the neighborhood in 1717; before the city became the provisional capitol of the American secession; before the Wright brothers chose the fields near town as the site of the nation’s first commercial flying school, Indian villages flourished along the bluffs and banks of the Alabama and generations lived in the many villages flanking the river.

Settlers bought land at the Territorial land office at Milledgeville, Georgia beginning in 1817, and followed their claims to these bluffs. The first steamboat to visit the city, the Harriet, docked here in 1821 and changed the town and the region forever. Money grew like magic in the cotton fields that spread far away from the city. A generation later the telegraph message to fire on Fort Sumter that opened the American Civil War was sent from Montgomery. A century after that, the unsettled business of that war flared into blaze with a young woman’s landmark act of defiance and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the first organized (and still among the most recognized) struggle for civil rights.

Today, the city stands as a cosmopolitan realm, capital of its state, and among the richest of historical destinations accessible from the water than runs through it.

When approaching Montgomery from upstream the river undulates mostly north and south around two hairpin bends before the southerly three-mile straight stretch into the arms of the city. Just after the North Boulevard Bridge passes overhead, look left for the Montgomery City Marina. The marina’s lofty restaurant decks assure a fine view of the river and its doings.

The Montgomery Marina and the Montgomery Riverwalk in sight of it provide various amenities to the traveler and access to the town, its culture and history. Powerboaters take note that the Montgomery Marina is the last place on the river you are likely to encounter fuel before reaching the Selma City Marina 88 river miles downstream.

From the river, the Riverwalk includes the white, tentlike amphitheater on the left bank. A dock below the amphitheater provides shore access and presents a series of steps up to an area of grassy lawn and ancient brickwork, and the mouth of a tunnel. This tunnel is the remains of the old freight slide where stevedores hauled cotton and other goods between the decks of visiting steamboats and the cobblestones of Commerce Street. Up the slide, now a walking path beneath the railroad tracks, and a turn to the right is Union Station, an unmissable Montgomery landmark that once was the terminus of rail traffic into the city. Today, Union Station serves as offices; gift shop; a tourism information point for all of downtown and the area; and a Thai restaurant. The inside of the station is the best place to pick up information about sights and entertainment. The front of the station is the place to step onto a trolley and make your way around town on a historic tour of the city.

A brief self-guided walking tour of Montgomery is a great way to get your land legs back and immerse yourself in an unforgettable afternoon of adventure. Leaving the Riverwalk up the old freight tunnel will put you into sunlight on Commerce Street with Union Station to your right. The Visitors Center on the building’s ground floor will provide you with virtually everything to know about the city. From there, proceed to the Rosa Parks museum. The next few blocks to the roundabout at Court Square should be done with one eye out for the easy-going traffic in the area and the other eye upon the architectural details overhead. At Court Square, Commerce Street turns left to become Dexter Avenue and the view up the hill aims at the state’s Greek revival capitol.

A block before the capitol is the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where the Reverend Martin Luther King pondered and then acted out his part in the nation’s civil rights struggle that at the time centered upon the Alabama capital. One block uphill to the right from the church and across the street from each other stand the old and the new buildings of the Southern Poverty Law Center. It was here that the remnants of power held in the 1990s by the Ku Klux Klan were finally stripped away. Its slanting concrete ramparts, laid as a deterrent to potential truck bombs, evidence the new, much larger building. Across the street at the old Center, the Civil Rights Memorial and its stunning memorial fountain (designed by Maya Lin, who also designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial), whose flat, black surface sheds water along its circumference, whose edge is a timeline of the grievous loss of forty victims of that struggle.

Just two blocks east of the Southern Poverty Law Center and one block downhill toward the Capitol is the First White House of the Confederacy, home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis while the capital of the Confederacy was located in Montgomery. The building now houses many items of historical interest.

Walking back to the Riverwalk and Union Station area is St. John’s Episcopal Church (on Madison Street at it intersection with Perry Street). Within the spacious and beautiful old church are found its comfortable wooden pews—comfortable all except for one, whose straight back and bottom are not contoured, as are the others, to fit the human form. This was the pew of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, respect for whom has left the original to resist attempts to modernize it. The church’s magnificent stained glass windows were created in the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Back in our powerboat, canoe or kayak, your tour of Montgomery returns to the water and you leave Montgomery where the Marquis de Lafayette left it in 1825 and head as he did toward Selma, though you likely haven’t done as much partying in your brief stay in Montgomery as had the Marquis during his tour of the country he helped free from British rule almost fifty years before.

On the left bank of the next north-bound stretch of the river, where Maxwell Air Force Base now lies, is the site selected by aviator brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright for the nation’s first commercial aviation training school. The history of the area is interwoven with the history of flight since its inception after the turn of the 20th century, and nearby Tuskegee is knows as the home of the brave airmen who were, in World War Two, the first black aviators to train to defend their country.

---

Day trip highlight

Put in at the Ft. Toulouse Ramp (enter Ft. Toulouse, turn left at the campground road intersection and follow to the concrete ramp on the Tallapoosa side of the peninsula) and paddle or power the seven miles to the Montgomery Marina.

---

About seven river miles downstream the river touches south of Prattville and turns into Cooter Pond and some of the most magnificent golfing on the state’s renowned Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Here, too, is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cooter Pond Park, offering camping and RV access to the R. E. “Bob” Woodruff Lake, as this impoundment of the Alabama is known. Another Corps campground, Gunter Hill Campground on Catoma Creek, offers similar amenities only eight miles farther down the river. The creek was the birthplace of David Moniac, who was not only the first Indian to graduate from West Point, but whose extraordinary life became part of a number of important events during the time of the Creek Wars. Moniac and his brother-in-law William Weatherford (Red Eagle) were captured by Creek prophets “taking the black drink” and forced to either fight with the Indians against the whites or be put to death in front of their families. It is well known that William Weatherford became a leader of the warlike Red Stick faction and ultimately came into the camp of Andrew Jackson to ask for mercy for his starving people after their defeat. But it is not widely known that David Manioc refused to join the Red Sticks and fled on his horse in a spray of bullets intended to kill him. The next time Moniac was said to have seen his brother-in-law was in his famous, if disputed, leap from a bluff above the Alabama on his horse Arrow to escape death after his defeat at the battle of Holy Ground.

The next true waterway downstream of Gunter Hill Campground, Pintlala Creek, appears on the left in less than four miles. This deep, narrow stream running beneath high soapstone banks creates a unique ecosystem where ferns and other tropical flora flourish.

Traveling downriver you’ll notice a number of residential developments gathering along the shoreline as the travel the next fifteen miles or so down to the Autaugaville area where the next substantial river access is to be found at Strickland Landing and up Swift Creek towards the town of Autaugaville.

At mile 253.2, a few miles below Autaugaville and two miles above Holy Ground Battlefield Park lies the Union steamboat Autaugi. The Autaugi went down in 1865 with the bodies of dead soldiers that had been reclaimed from the Confederate prison camp at Cahaba for their final journey home after the end of the war.

A few miles south is Holy Ground Battlefield Park, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates a day-use park with all the amenities the river traveler might want other than fuel and food. A boat launch, pavilions, showers and foot trails can be found there.

Holy Ground Battlefield is a place of immense, if sad, historical significance. The massacre of white settlers by Indians further down the Alabama at Fort Mims sent shockwaves of fear through the state’s fledgling settlements, and both whites and Indians were using reprisals and counter-reprisals to spread hatred and garner support for their own causes. Reeling from the sharp reprisals and simultaneously stirred up by British agents who saw any trouble in the Alabama frontier as a way to divert the country’s military away from the main fronts in the War of 1812, leaders of the Indians’ pro-war Red Stick faction gathered fighters and families alike at Holy Ground. They convinced their followers that with their feet on this soil, the white man’s bullets would have no effect on them. The cost of that folly was enormous to the Indians who took refuge here. Their leader, William Weatherford, the last Indian to retreat, is said to have made a daring escape from the battle by leaping from the riverbank and swimming the river mounted on his horse, Arrow, with his rifle held over his head and with bullets splattering the water around him.

About six-and-a-half miles downstream, in a tight bend where Brown’s Branch comes into the river, is stunning House Bluff, a steep earth wall showing hundreds of layers of geological deposits. House Bluff is, geologically-speaking, the southernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains.

This stretch of the river, down to Selma and many miles beyond, is a particularly pleasant and scenic stretch for the boater. The sinuous path of the river alternates between low banks and high bluffs, some of them quite breathtaking. I have seen four American bald eagles at one time here; one or more great blue herons seem to dominate every turn in the river’s course; and numerous anhinga and ducks can be seen in a single outing. Spanish moss creates an atmosphere of comfortable gloom as the river rolls past and through which the calls of busy waterfowl and shorebirds are heard.

Fourteen miles below Holy Ground Battlefield Park is Prairie Creek Campground, one of the finest U.S. Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds on the river. Excellent in every way I know to describe it, Prairie Creek is a haven for the paddler and powerboater. Its proximity to the wide, quiet backwaters of Prairie Creek (not to mention the low, gentle banks and their easy access to land) make it a great place to paddle. Being only two miles upstream from the Robert F. Henry Lock and Dam make it an ideal place for fishing and powerboating. The concrete aprons at the campground will accommodate all your serious toys, but the campsites are designed to befriend the modest camper as well. The double-loop at Prairie Creek gives you the option of creek-side or river-side campsites, many with wooden decks extending near or over the water. Trees hung with Spanish moss are everywhere at Prairie Creek, enhancing the privacy of each site and the beauty of this gem upon the river.

Unless the water is too low, boaters can lock through the Robert F. Henry Dam and continue downriver. The locks generally operate from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m., and again at 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. the next morning. Call the lockmaster at 334 872 9525 for a current schedule or for directions to the paddleboat portage if you plan to arrive during non-operational times.

The banks are steep enough in this part of the river that lock operation and water level control by the dam do not appreciably change the width of the river.

As for fishing, bass thrive here because of their opportunity to stuff themselves with shad. The river is home to a lot of crappie, which make for great fishing early in the year. Hybrid striped bass, white bass, channel cat, blue and flathead catfish are to be found in quantity below the dam, where they may be fished from bank or boat. A fishing deck has been construction on each bank near the dam.

Past the dam is the town of Benton and its public landing, and beyond that is the tight noose of the river known as Durant’s Bend, only 200 yards wide at the neck but five miles around by river miles. DeSoto’s army camped here for five days in 1540 when they occupied the Indian town of Talasi.



Selma

Below Durant’s Bend are the unmistakable Cunningham Bluffs, and less than ten miles below them is the Highway 80 bridge, a signal that the city of Selma is not more than a mile or so further. Selma was founded by Rufus King, a notable Dallas County landowner who was, in his time, a U.S. Senator from Alabama; President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, United States Minister to France, and Vice President of the United States. For fifteen years in Washington, D.C., James Buchanan (the fifteenth president of the United States) shared a house with King and a relationship so close that Andrew Jackson would refer to the two as “Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy” while Aaron V. Brown would refer to “Buchanan and his wife.” One of King’s favorite books was The Songs of Selma, a collection of poems published in 1760 by James McPherson. McPherson’s publication was allegedly the work of the blind, third-century Gaelic poet Ossian, and McPherson further asserted that he had acquired the necessary ancient Gaelic tongue to wander the hills and valleys of Scotland to collect and translate the obscure texts of the long-dead poet. The texts wee probably forgeries by McPherson himself, who added his own lines to existing Scottish folk-poetry. Nevertheless, The Songs of Selma became The Lord of The Rings of its time, and was so popular that even Napoleon carried the book with him into battle.

In the book, Selma was the castle home of Ossian’s father Fingal, and was perched on a bluff above a river. In the story, Fingal was a Beowulf-like character appointed by his people to be the leader of the Fenians, an army of warriors whose exploits are the subject of many of Ossian’s tales.

It isn’t difficult to imagine the turn of mind that led the complex, literate King to name his city after the bluff-borne Selma of McPherson’s tales. Floating there on the river, looking up at the back of the St. James Hotel (the last surviving such structure out of all that once graced the banks of Alabama Rivers in steamboat days), the small, white bridgetender’s house beside it and the tumult of ancient commercial buildings cascading to the bottom of the water in fits, starts, and steps, the Selma of legend still lives. The bridgetender’s house is now a tiny B&B clinging to the bluff above the river. But it was once the quarters of the tender of a wooden toll bridge that spanned the river near the modern-day Edmund Pettus Bridge.

If this city told us all its tales from the heady days as rival to Montgomery as the state’s capital city; through the burning it took during the civil war; to its role as crucible in the nation’s struggle to recognize human decency; to its destination as social tourism Mecca in the present day, Ossian’s exploits would surely be rivaled.

William Rufus King lies buried, after an odd series of events, in the city’s exquisitely beautiful Live Oak Cemetery, which in my mind rivals the famous Pere Lachaise of Paris for sheer wonder and may surpass it in beauty. Two half-sisters to Abraham Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd Lincoln are also buried at Live Oak.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge, which comes into view next, was the scene of a bloody confrontation between civil rights demonstrators who had had enough of the old ways and the authorities that intended to force their obedience with violent means. The struggle and subsequent long march over the bridge and on to Montgomery is today a legend of American heroism that brings many visitors to Selma.

While there’s no good way to get from the river to downtown Selma these days, it is possible to see the city’s many picturesque historical and cultural sites after landing at Selma City Marina (where you can also just drop in for fuel and a bite at the marina’s restaurant) and take a taxi past Live Oak Cemetery and the several miles into the heart of the town and its museums, including the National Voting Rights Museum. Tourism information is available by calling the Selma & Dallas County Centre for Commerce at 334 875 7241. For fuel or other use of the Selma City Marina, call 334 874 2173.

South of Selma, which has taken a meandering but primarily east-to-west course from Montgomery, the river takes a dive for Mobile. From Selma to its terminus at the birth of the Mobile River, the Alabama may wander through loops, bights and bends but never strays its aim far from its end 38 miles above the Gulf of Mexico.

About fifteen miles below the bluffs of Selma are the low banks at the inlet of the Cahaba River. One of the state’s best-loved waterways today, the ghost town of Old Cahawaba above the inlet on the Alabama is all that is left of an emotional struggle that pitted the old Alabama capital of Cahawba, as it was called, against the upstart Montgomery farther up the river and higher on the banks. Ultimately, the fevers and floods that plagued the low-lying river town brought it to its knees; lives were changes, political power tilted toward Montgomery and countless Cahaba fortunes were lost to the Alabama River. What was left of Cahawba was eventually carted off to build other places, the streets of the town became as silent and bare as the archaeological site they are today.

A few miles down the river are White Bluff, a gleaming cusp of white stone cut into the outer curve of the riverbank. Add the 120 feet that the depth finder reads to the bottom of the river to the hundred or so feet of gleaming stone above you and you’ll grasp the true geological sense of this palisade at mile 179.5. At the downstream end of Whites Bluff a steep canyon called The Ravine beckons paddlers for a few hours away from the wide and glittering Alabama.

From this point down to Chilatcheee Creek Campground, a distance of some 22 miles, the amenities are virtually nonexistent. The river remains the same while the banks widen and the bluffs, for the most part, are gone for good. Good news for the boating tourist though. You’re headed down to the world of Gee’s Bend, Roland Cooper State Park and Millers Ferry Dam and Millers Ferry Campground, and one of my favorite parts of the Alabama River.

At mile 159 we near the Chilatchee Creek Campground. This U.S. Army Corps of Engineers site offers developed camping with water and electricity.

---

Day trip highlight

In a powerboat, put in at the Selma City Marina (coming into the city from the north on Highway 22, turn right on Dallas Street. Coming from the south on 80, turn left on Dallas Street. Pass the cemetery on your left and look for s stadium and jogging track. The road between them leads to the marina) and head right (downstream) for the magnificent cliffs of White Bluff 25 miles downriver. Pass the sandy white beach at Little Miami access point seven miles downriver. Watch for the opening of the Cahaba on your right and the bluffs of Old Cahawba, the state’s original capital city, about 16 miles below the marina. At 25 miles, the bluffs appear. In less than two miles is the deep, narrow canyon called The Ravine, which can be explored if the water level permits.

Upon returning to the marina, spend the few minutes to travel upstream and view the bluffs of the city, the St. James Hotel (the only remaining one of the great river hotels from steamboat days), and the best view of the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge.

---

Putting in at Prairie Creek Campground (two river miles above Robert F. Henry Lock and Dam can make a short, memorable paddleboat trip. Take County Road 29 from Highway 80 and follow the signs) and paddling to the dam, where you can lock through at certain hours. Take out at the Benton less than two-and-a-half miles downstream. Keep a sharp eye out for Old Town Creek coming into the river on your left; the ramp is a short ways up the creek. If you plan on locking through, call the lockkeeper beforehand at 334 872 9525.

If you don’t care to lock through the dam or don’t have time, the area around Prairie Creek Campground, which includes immediate access to the Alabama River, is a beautiful place to paddle and an excellent environment to view wildlife and river birds.

The big bends

Here in the near-figure-eight that is the combination of Canton Bend and Gees Bend, the night sky is like living under a rust-ridden bucket capturing the fall chill and pierced with a billion light-emitting holes. During the day, when the temperatures rise, so do the images of the generations making cotton on this land. King Cotton has been deposed; his royal highness has fled and the land here is in cultivation mostly to support timber and cattle, in that order.

And in this near-figure-eight are several places to step out of the river and into civilization and vice-versa. Two of the best in the area—and maybe on the entire river—are Roland Cooper State Park and Miller’s Ferry Campground, the latter operated by the U.S. Army Corps of engineers. Only nine miles or so apart by land, they are about 20 river miles apart. Both are on the east bank of their respective stretches of the river (Miller’s Ferry Campground was formerly called and still appears on some maps as East Bank Campground) and both offer beautiful views of the sun dropping into the Alabama every fair evening. Roland Cooper State Park features a small store; there are no provisions at Miller’s Ferry Campground. The campground is adjacent to Millers Ferry Marina, which caters primarily to powercraft but whose operator will take care of all who come his way, however they arrive. Roland Cooper State Park offers river access by way of docks and an excellent ramp. Miller’s Ferry Campground features both a ramp and several small docks for paddlecraft that step right into well-developed campsites. 

Coming down the river into the Gees Bend/Canton Bend area, Roland Cooper State Park will be met first at 22 river miles below Chilatchee Creek Campground. Following southeast and then east around Gees Bend from the park will lead, at two points, to the two ports of the Gees Bend Ferry that connect County Road 28. This ferry provides the only direct route to the Boykin community and the people of Gees Bend, once living in obscure poverty but today famous for the art of their quilting. Many “benders” are the descendents of slaves who had once worked the land here, almost perished during the Great Depression. Since the days following the Civil War, benders had worked the land and had been quietly taken care of by the owners’ lawyers. When the price of cotton plummeted during the depression, the crops they grew no longer paid for their food, seed and utensils. Absentee landlords discovered their presence here and booted them from their homes at gunpoint, leaving them literally to starve to death. The poor former tenants would certainly have died during the terrible winter that followed their ousting had it not been for the kindness of neighboring farmers, the Red Cross, and the newly-established New Deal programs that delivered financial aid to these desperate people here in this remote bend of the river.

The trip from Gees Bend to Camden is 41 miles by road. After getting back on their feet during the depression years, the benders had a ferry to take them into town. When it was discovered during the civil rights era that the benders were using the ferry to register to vote in Camden, the ferry was dismantled. It didn’t return until 2006.

There is plenty of river here for the boater and the ferry, which runs the river eight times a day the year around. If you’re in a powerboat, be sure to keep an eye on the depth if you are out of the channel if you make way for the ferry.

Where quilts are wrapped in the river

If you’re in the Gees Bend area and want to see the famous quilters at work, you’ll want to take the ferry if coming from the south. From the nearby town of Camden, take Highway 41 out of town and turn left on Highway 10. Look for County Road 28 north of town, and then take Ellis Landing Road at the Gees Bend Ferry sign in sight of the big silos.

The quilters meet at the Boykin Nutrition Center each morning Monday through Thursday at 8:30 and work until after lunch. Take your car across if you’re driving; it’s a long walk from the ferry landing. Bring anything you want to eat. Stores are few and restaurants are nonexistent, but you’ll find plenty of food in nearby Camden. More information can be found by calling Black Belt Treasures in Camden at 334 682 9878 or the Regional Tourism Headquarters in Thomasville at 334 636 0120.

Check the numbers above for current ferry schedule information. There is a small charge for the ferry.

Below the ferry port on the south bank of the river is Ellis Landing, an extensive day use facility. Heading north and then east and over the adjacent Canton Bend is the County Road 28 Bridge where you’ll find the Millers Ferry Campground on your left and the Millers Ferry Marina on your right. This little marina is big on services and hospitality. In addition to a dock, ramp, berths (as they become available), gasoline, propane and bait, proprietor Charles Stogner and his wife operate a restaurant and will even provide rides to Camden and the provisions available at neighboring commercial shopping areas.

The marina’s restaurant deserves special mention for at least one thing: when dining there recently, a customer requested steak. The first question back from the proprietor was not “how do you want it done” but rather “how thick do you want it cut?” The marina can be reached at 334 682 5125.

Less than a mile below the bridge is Millers Ferry Dam. Stay to the right of the long pointed peninsula and stay left into the lock. The locks don’t operate around the clock. Call ahead to 205 682 4877 with your expected lock time. If your trip doesn’t coincide with the lock’s shift operation, and you are in a paddleboat, then a marked portage is available to you. Obey the signs for where you can and can’t go and don’t cut corners or circumvent fences—you could be in violation of homeland security restrictions.

The quiet and secluded Cobbs Landing stands about two miles below the dam. There’s nothing more here than a flat parking lot, a ramp and a toilet, and it’s three miles to County Road 28.

Soon Roland Cooper State Park appears on your left. This park is worth a visit and is the place to spend a night or two to explore the area or as a base for any travel the area. The Park offers campsites only a few hundred feet from the Alabama River in an area with more twists than Chubby Checker. Look for the several campsites that view the river through a veil of Spanish moss. A century-and-a-half ago, people traveling the Alabama by steamboat would disembark near the site of the current-day state park and then take wagons into Camden. So slow was the progress of the boats through the tortuous channel that the travelers could shop all day in Camden at their leisure, then take a wagon to the next stop down the river where they would re-board the steamer with the day’s loot and continue on the river.

Arrive before sundown to watch the park attendants feed deer in easy sight of the parking area. Golfers will be surprised to see the condition of the park’s course in this isolated place.

You’ll have some cell phone reception in the park’s high spots. Unnumbered sites with the best views are near the first site by the bathhouse. These offer a view of the river through a gentle wooded slope. There a many nice sites to choose from, each with something different to offer, so don’t take my word for it. Go see this place for yourself.

Roland Cooper is six miles from Camden, 28 miles south of Selma off Alabama Highway 41 on the William Dannelly Reservoir of the Alabama River.

From either Roland Cooper State Park or Millers Ferry Campground, provisions, dining and shopping can be found at a commercially-developed spot a few miles north on Highway 10 (Camden bypass) from its four-way-stop intersection with County Road 28. Don’t go to this area, though, without a visit to Black Belt Treasures in Camden, a store that sells the creations of artisans from the state’s eleven black belt counties. This converted auto dealership will surprise everyone with its artworks, furniture, books, glass, quilts and lawn ornaments. Contact the store at 334 682 9878.

---

What is the black belt?

In hearing or reading about Alabama, you’ll often find references to the state’s Black Belt. Don’t feel bad if you’re not sure what it means. Many Alabamians can’t tell you either.

The term refers primarily to dense black topsoil over a layer of Selma chalk, a light limestone in a belt that stretches from Virginia to Texas. It covers the lower middle of Alabama. This land produced great quantities of cotton before it was worn out by exploitation, and is farmed very little in its current state. The Black Belt cotton grown in years past depended upon the Alabama and other related rivers to reach the cotton markets and shippers in Mobile and New Orleans.

---

Imagining steamboats made easy

One hundred and fifty years ago, the rivers of this state were its lifeblood. Alabama was new, the land was rich, and the rivers were wide and accommodating to people and the things they wanted.

Here at Millers Ferry, mile 133 on the Alabama River, much of the state’s history has flowed past the banks where I am spending the night under the bright moon and beside its rippling reflection by the Highway 28 Bridge. The sky is teeming with stars as it can only do above such a remote stretch of river, without pollution from city lights. And what a difference it makes, this remoteness. The skies hang rich with an astonishing show that city-dwellers will never see without coming here.


Sometimes it seems unfair that the life has been squeezed out of the little places and byways by the steady rumble and crush of Interstate 65. But here, at Millers Ferry Campground, as evening sets and the few distant lights begin to gleam over the river, it is difficult to look out upon this bend in the river without seeing the old paddlewheelers and feel the excitement and connection to the outside world they brought to the little towns along the Alabama.

You can discover much more about the floating palaces and life on Alabama’s rivers of those days in Harvey H. Jackson III’s excellent book Rivers of History.

---

Day trip highlights

Several day trips are available in this area for the adventurous powerboater or paddler willing to stay on top of navigation and keep and eye out for river traffic, which includes the Gees Bend ferry and its wide swings to stay between channel markers.

If you’re camping at Roland Cooper State Park or Millers Ferry Campground, paddling the environs of the river from either place will provide an afternoon of exploration. Millers Ferry Campground actually has shared and individual campsite access to the water, and both campgrounds have boat ramps.

The same short trip is available by launching from Millers Ferry Marina. The marina restaurant is the only place to eat for many miles if you don’t bring a lunch.

For a more challenging outing, consider paddling from Roland Cooper State Park to either Millers Ferry Campground or Millers Ferry Marina (they’re adjacent on the river). It’s 16.7 miles from one place to the other, and the Gee’s Bend Ferry Landing presents on the right as a brunch spot (stop early if you’re coming down from Roland Cooper State Park. It’s a lot closer to Gees Bend than Gees Bend is to Millers Ferry. The ferry’s channel markers are a good clue as to how to get up to the landing, where you’ll find a picnic shelter in plain sight. Bring anything you need, though. There’s no restaurant on The Bend.

A shorter trip to Gees Bend involved traveling the Ellis Landing Road and following the signs to the public landing, not across the bridge to the Ellis Island community. Use the public landing to launch, then leave the slough by traveling northeast and into the channel. Once there, turn westerly (downstream) and look for markers to guide you around the bar to your right and into the channel and again to your right (east), where the Ferry landing will be on your left. If it weren’t for the jog around the bar, you could head straight from Ellis Landing to the ferry dock.

Motorboaters and canoeists should have no trouble negotiating the height of the dock. Kayakers might find this difficult at low water levels.

---

The wreck of the Orline St. John

One of the most famous tragedies from the days of steamboats occurred on March fourth, 1850, about 20 miles above the town of Camden. One of the most successful steamboat operators of his time, John Meaher (for whom Meaher State Park in Spanish Fort is named) fell in love with the young daughter of a prominent New Orleans family. He named his newest boat, a craft that compared in splendor and size to many of the best on the great northern rivers, after her. On this day it was steaming north against a stiff headwind, and fast-burning pine cordwood was stacked conveniently around the mouth of the boiler. The ship had set out from Mobile for Montgomery on March first. It stopped to take on extra fuel at the landing of the small town of Bridgeport on the afternoon of March 5th in an attempt to get passengers to Montgomery on the sixth in time for an important train connection. The captain had pushed the boat hard, and it had “run well, averaging fifteen miles (per hour) against the current” as was noted by a witness on board. At four-thirty on the fifth of March, the cry of “fire!” rang out and within two minutes everyone on board was involved in an effort to save themselves from the flames, the churning paddlewheel, the smoke, the cold muddy waters of the Alabama or the inevitable impact with the bank after which the scars were visible a hundred years later.

Forty people died, including all the women and children on board. Many of them were laid to rest in a common grave in Camden.

There were no bridges then, no convenient way to cross these wide waters as we have today. Here were plantations with steep wooden slides to get bales of cotton from the field to the boat; here were landings that were the mini-metropolises of the frontier (back in the early days, going “out west” meant going to Alabama, which was known as the western territory) and here was a way of life wrapped around the river as the river here wraps around the land. Travelers complained that they were never out of earshot of the curses and foul language of the young men who piloted their passengers and pitched their cargo on the busy and crowded Alabama. Travelers also complained about waiting for the boats to load with cotton at each frequent stop in the river, a task that often took a full day or even more. Anxious to get down to Mobile or back up to Montgomery or Selma during these languid interruptions, there was nothing to do but gamble, socialize and listen to the musicians aboard these floating towns. Unless, that is, you happened to be a geologist in those days.

Why Alabama Rocks

It is no coincidence that the science of geology uses many names for soil and rock types that were taken from steamboat stops along Alabama’s rivers. Before Alabama became a state, and before America became a nation, European scientists were riding the rivers on every kind of craft to view the spectacular geology that Alabama offers. Few places on earth offer such insight to so many geological formations. Other parts of the world may offer some of the same features, but those tend to be obscured by jungle or are too remote for easy observation. There are places on Alabama rivers where I have gathered hundreds of fossils in a handful of earth simply by reaching out from my kayak.

If you want to discover the secret wonder of Alabama fossils and geology for yourself, try the book Lost Worlds in Alabama Rocks by Jim Lacefield.

Shipwrecks on the Alabama

This stretch of the Alabama River has seen its share of shipwrecks over the years they plied the river with passengers and trade.

Nearby at mile 118.5, the sidewheeler Joab Lawrence snagged and sank on August 28, 1807.

At mile 92.5, the Confederate sidewheeler Commodore Ferrand sank in 1865.

The Orline St. John burned and sank on March 5th, 1850, twenty miles above Camden, in a tragic incident reported in newspapers around the world.

At mile 253.2, two miles above Holy Ground Battlefield Park, just below Autaugaville, the Union steamboat Autaugi went down in 1865 with its macabre cargo of the bodies of dead soldiers that had been reclaimed from the Confederate prison camp at Cahaba for their final journey home.

Claiborne

South of Claiborne, the river loops into the low lands of the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta, second only to Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Delta in size. Here, the Alabama soon joins with the Tensaw and the Mobile River rises. Between these latter two giants, a jungle world of capillary creeks and streams work back and forth to host hundreds of miles of habitat rich in birds, fish, and mammals to which you are invited to include yourself in a number of ways.

The perfect place to explore this, the final stretch of the Alabama River before its realm broadens into the wide alligator jaws of Mobile Bay, is Isaac Creek Campground just north (in fact in sight of) the Claiborne Lock and Dam. Operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers, the campground offers full-service sites with concrete pads that can accommodate the biggest rigs with boats and toys in tow but are secluded and wooded to satisfy the primitive camper. Fishing must be good here if the number of boats are any indication.

Isaac Creek Campground is clean and well kept, but it’s not exactly in the middle of civilization. Monroeville is the nearest town of any size. There is only one place to buy diesel fuel, and that is on the stretch of County Road 21 a few miles south of the road into the campground. Bring what you need except ice, which is available at the gatehouse.

This is no place to plan a swimming vacation for the kids, either, with alligators commonly visible from creekside campsites. Driving the narrow roads to the campsite after the long lonely stretches of blacktop leading here from the closest towns may put you in the mood to keep moving, but don’t. Staying a while at a place like Isaac Creek can sharpen one’s aptitude for leisure, and there’s a satisfying atmosphere about this quiet, remote stretch of the Alabama River.

Directions vary depending on where you are arriving from. For information, call the gatehouse at 334 282 4254.

Fossils sand dollars abound in the formations under the bridge.

On Fridays and Saturdays, modern-day river passengers can visit the Alabama River Museum adjacent the Claiborne Lock and Dam March through October. Here you can view exhibits that will take you through a 60-million year trip from the geological formation of the area to the operation of the dams and its locks today. In between are represented Indian cultures (don’t miss the dugout log canoe suspended over your head) and steamboat days, including an exact replica of the steamboat Nettie Quill, queen of these waters, and actual artifacts rescued from the wrecks of these great vessels.

From Monroeville, take Highway 41 North 8 miles and turn left on County Road 17 and follow signs to the museum.

Launch from Isaac Creek Campground and paddle or motor straight downriver for the locks to get downriver of the dam. Lock schedules and information is available from the lockmaster at 334 682 4244. If you arrive and need to pass the dam when it is not operating, or if you simply prefer to tote your boat, a takeout is available on the east bank just before the dam. The paved road will allow paddlers to portage past the lock and put in again below the dam.

About thirteen miles downstream of the Highway 84 Bridge, Randons Creek comes into the nearly-straight southwest leg of the river. This place was the site of what has come down to us as the Great Canoe Fight.

Historic Claiborne

The town of Claiborne could be the place referred to in the DeSoto Chronicles as Piache, but the death and devastation sewn by the diseases that DeSoto left in the wake of his travels may leave us never to know for sure. His army may have crossed the river here and marched to Choctaw Bluff where may have stood the Indian capital of Maubila. Or, he may have embarked upon the Tombigbee to his encounter with Chief Tuscaloosa.

In any event, when, 20 years after he came through Alabama with DeSoto, Chrtian de Luna led an expedition that retraced his steps in the area. Here, in the year 1560, now stood the Indian village of Nanipanga.

Claiborne was established in 1813 by Andrew Jackson’s general of the same name who had in his army a number of Mississippi Choctaws friendly to the American cause and who fought bravely against the Red Stick rebels. The Indians were lead by the famous Pushmataha. The American Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de LaFayette was entertained in the town at a lavish ball in 1825 on his post-revolution sweep of the country he helped to create. He was brought downriver from Montgomery aboard the Henderson, which sank here at Claiborne upon its return trip.

The great canoe fight

On the twelfth of November of 1813, the world of the white settlers along the lower Alabama Rivers was on edge after the recent massacre at Fort Mims where hundreds of men, women and children had been murdered. Scouting parties had been sent out to determine the extent of Indian activity in the region. One such group had camped near Lovett’s Creek where it enters the Alabama River. There were three in the party, which included Same Dale, the big frontiersman who was to the Alabama territory what Davy Crockett was to Tennessee; nineteen-year-old Jeremiah Austill; and a slave named Caesar. No sooner were they in the water that morning than Sam Dale looked upstream to see a dugout canoe with eleven Indians. The three paddled for the Indian craft, two of whose occupants left the canoe and swam for shore. The nine remaining Indians closed on the canoe of white settlers and joined them in battle.

In those days, canoes were used not in the seated position as we are accustomed to today, but were rowed by standing crew. We can but imagine the fight that took place as Caesar’s mighty grip held the two boats together as the occupants clubbed each other wildly with whatever they could find. The Indians perished in that bloody struggle, and their symbolic defeat at the hands of a smaller number of whites locked in hand-to-hand combat went down in history as the Great Canoe Fight.

Next stop: Gainestown Landing

From here south the river bends can present spacious sandbars, and the higher of them can provide suitable places for spending a pleasant night under a rich, star-filled sky in the warmth of a campfire.

Two more ramps appear in the coming ten miles or so at Choctaw Bluff and Dixie Landing.

Choctaw Bluff was settled by Indians of the tribe of the same name after Christian de Luna’s 1560 expedition and the earliest exploration of the area by Louisiana Governor D’Iberville in 1702. Some believe that this is the site of the Indian capital Maubilia, but archaeological evidence has not borne the theory out.

At mile 17, the sternwheeler Cuba lies below. The big loops and lonely straights diminish and the river’s rhythm tightens in anticipation of our arrival in a network of capillaries that begins the delta experience. When you are in sight of the powerlines crossing the Alabama river at mile 7.5 (yes, you’re that close to the Mobile River) Holley Creek enters from your left. About three miles out holley Creek is Holley Creek Landing. The next creek to your left, just past the powerlines, is a narrow backwater that leads to Boatyard Landing and its access to fuel and the nearby community of Tensaw. Keep the northeast course to find the landing; don’t take the creek hading north about halfway to the landing.

Fort Mims and America's first great massacre

At Boatyard Landing you are within a short distance of Ft. Mims, where a nearby State marker commemorates one of the most brutal massacres in American history.

On the thirtieth day of August of 1813, a seething resentment was smoldered into flame as more—some say many more—than 300 settlers were killed at the settlement known as Ft. Mims. Treaties between the Indians and the settlers had been signed and broken, and the English, French Spanish and Americans were doing everything they could to undermine each others’ interests. The claims and hatred between the English and the Americans came to blows in another clash shortly after the American Revolution, this time called the War of 1812. The British, operating out of Pensacola, began arming Indians and inciting them to rise up against the Americans. Tecumseh had swept through the area giving fiery speeches supporting the routing of white settlers from what he and his followers believed to be Indian lands. The rebel faction that he led, called the Red Sticks, wanted blood.

The home of Samuel Mims was situated near the end of a dead lake that came off the Tensaw River. Here about seventeen buildings stood, fenced by a wooden wall and protected by two heavy gates that hinged closed and fastened securely. The fort was under the command of Major Daniel Beasley, appointee and close personal friend of General Ferdinand Claiborne. As good a friend as the Major was to the General, he was not qualified to lead such a command, especially in such perilous times.

With over 550 settlers crammed within its gates and fearful for the rumors that their lives were in danger, the occupants earned the scorn of Major Beasley who didn’t believe that his command was under any kind of threat. Under his direction, security was lax and improvements proceeded slowly.

A shipment of whiskey arrived at the fort on august 29th, which the residents—and the Major in particular—were enjoying at the same time nearly 1,000 Red Stick warriors under the command of William “Red Eagle” Weatherford were hiding themselves in the woods just six miles away.

Two young slaves tending cattle outside the gates of the fort were surprised to see Indians in war paint in the woods near the fort. When they informed Major Beasley of what they saw, he ordered ten of his soldiers to check out the situation. The soldiers he sent came very close to but never saw the Indians hiding in the woods. Upon hearing that no attacking Indians were found, the two boys where whipped for lying to stir up trouble.

That night Weatherford and two warriors were able to climb the fence and peer into the fort’s interior where they watched the sentries playing cards.

The next morning, Major Beasley rose to write a letter to General Claiborne describing the false alarm concocted by the slave boys. It was the last thing he would ever write. He was to receive one more clue about the trouble he unknowingly faced. A scout rode to the fort at noon to inform Major Beasley that hostile Indians had been seen in the area. Beasley scoffed and implied that the scout had only seen red cattle, not Indians, to which he was answered that the red cattle would “give him a hell of a kick before night.”

The Creek warriors had agreed that the rattle of the soldier’s noon drum would be the signal to attack. When the drums began to roll, most in the fort were playing at one diversion or another to keep their minds off of the oppressive heat of the day. Hundreds of Red Sticks rushed the fort, where they found that the lackadaisical Beasley had allowed so much dirt to build up in the way of the gates that they could not be closed for defense.

The drunken Beasely was clubbed to death in the opening moments of the struggle. The Indians, though out-weaponed, were of superior numbers and soon gained the upper hand. When they set the fort aflame, the central powder magazine exploded.

William Weatherford was supposedly horrified by the brutality that raged that afternoon but was powerless to stop it. No one knows the number for sure, but it is believed that as many as 400 settlers and militiamen were killed by the Creeks. No boat could be found for an evacuation; the survivors walked until they arrived in Mobile early in the morning of September 4th.

The events at Ft Mims were answered by the destruction of one Alabama Indian village after another and culminated with Andrew Jackson’s massacre of the Indians at Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa, bringing the Creek nation into submission and finally surrendering the Indians’ 20 million acres to the American nation.

Weatherford, who had convinced Jackson of his inability to stop the brutality of his warriors, was pardoned and allowed to live out his life as something of a celebrity in Monroe County. He lies buried next to his mother about a mile from the fort.

The Tensaw-Mobile Delta

Around a cat’s cradle of waterways strung between the Mobile and Tensaw rivers in a ten-mile-wide swath lies 2,550,000 acres of the second-largest river delta in the nation (only Louisiana’s Atchalafaya is larger). It is the last refuge of the state’s black bear population and home to endangered species including the Alabama redbellied turtle. If you eat seafood from the Alabama gulf coast, chances are that it was born here in the delta. Comprising only the 135th part of the state’s total area, the delta shouldered half of the state’s 20th century extinctions. What will the 21st century lose? Hopefully, for all our sakes, not the other half.



History along the Mobile River

Ft. Stoddard, an American outpost north of Mobile in the early 1800s, was located at mile 43 on the Mobile River at the present-day town of Mt. Vernon. The fort happened to be a convenient place to store its two most illustrious inhabitant, US Vice President Aaron Burr and the Apache leader Geronimo.

Burr was running from the law after killing Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel that began with an insult from Hamilton about Burr’s family. Burr was in the area disguised as a trapper. He was trying to make his way to Florida where he could take a ship to London, but a local sheriff discovered him on a farm a few miles upriver from Ft. Stoddard.

Burr was acquitted of Hamilton’s murder and went on to serve under president Thomas Jefferson, during which time a plot was uncovered whereby Burr and others would invade Mexico where Burrr would become king. Jefferson charged him with treason. He was found to be innocent of the charges, but his political life was beyond saving by that time.

The great Geronimo was imprisoned here for a time when he was being transferred from his place of capture in Arizona to Ft. Pickens in Pensacola in 1886.

The city of Mobile was founded in 1702 by D’Iberville as Louisiana’s first capital. Mobile Bay was discovered in 1519 by the Spanish Explorer Pineda. The famous Cabeza de Vaca survived a shipwreck which some—but not all—historians say was off of Ft. Morgan. Whether his famous shipwreck was here or not, he did spend time in Mobile Bay and on a small island off Dauphin Island in search of water. He was subsequently captured by the Indians. His journey on foot from Alabama to Spanish Territory in Vera Cruz, Mexico—naked, starving, and still handcuffed by his captors—is one of the greatest feats of survival of all time.

The Bartram Canoe Trail

Once you pass under the power lines at mile 7.5 you’re in the realm of Alabama’s Bartram Canoe Trail, a peaceful maze of Alabama jungle designed for the paddling naturalist and outdoor-seeker. Travelers on the Trail can go out for the day from a number of landing for one-day, two-day or longer trips. You may never get closer to wildlife than you can in the trail’s intimate creeks and bayous. Floating and land-based campsites and platforms have been established to provide canoe and kayak travelers with accommodations for eight or less, though at Dead Lake Island the platforms can accommodate larger groups. Reservations must be made online at www.bartramcanoetrail.com. Excellent maps with detailed preparation information are free by request by calling or writing Alabama’s Delta Five Rivers Resource Center, 30945 Five Rivers Boulevard, Spanish Fort, Alabama 36527. The telephone number at the facility is 251 625 0814.



The Mobile County River Delta Marina

New access to the delta’s waters by powerboat is underway near Mobile. Paddlers are welcome, too, and paddleboats are rented there. Known now as the Mobile County River Delta Marina, it’s on one of the last bodies of water you’re near when heading south on I-65 and it provides great access to the Mobile and Tensaw Rivers and all the spidery waterways that connect them across the delta. It was formerly know as Dead Lake Marina, and in fact is located near Dead Lake (one of them, anyway, as there are several in the region) and Big Bayou Canot not far from the Mobile River. The marina offers launching, full service camping, primitive camping, covered docks, open docks, canoe rentals and more. A new, clean delta welcome center is soon to open. The marina is not far from the Mark Reynolds North Mobile County Airport. To find the Mobile County River Delta Marina, take exit 22 from I-65 towards Creola and follow the signs. The Marina is about four miles from the Interstate. Contact the marina by calling 251 574 2267

On the trail of William Bartram—literally

William Bartram was the son of an English naturalist living in Philadelphia in the years leading up to the American Revolution. The elder Bartram, in fact, designed that city’s botanical gardens and was co-founder with Benjamin Franklin of the American Philosophical Society. William, no doubt through his father’s influence with King George III, landed the job of traveling though the American southeast and cataloging every new botanical species he could find, and sending many to his father and the King in the many trunks and boxes he traveled with. Young William turned out to be more than an apt botanist. He was a keen observer, a man cut out to adapt to travel through the rough and wild country and a skillful dealer with the Indians he encountered. His book, The Travels of William Bartram, is still a well-loved treasure over 230 years after it was written. Readers of the book Cold Mountain will remember that the book was the sole comfort for the main character’s tour of duty with the Confederate army. William’s observations of the Seminole, Creek, and Cherokee Indians he encountered offer some of the most enlightened glimpses into their cultures that we possess. His diligence in seeking details of the local flora earned him is Indian name Puc Puggy, or Flower Hunter, a title that must have made some of William’s introductions falling-down funny to his hosts.

Bartram traveled the old roads to Natchez and then returned to Charleston where his journey began, passing through the beautiful Stockton area with its spreading oaks which no doubt elicited the same response from Bartram as they do from us. It is near Stockton that he discovered the evening primrose. He surely traveled these streams by canoe, and the trail that leads through them today is an appropriate namesake for this great figure.

The tides of the Delta

To inlanders, the tides seem to be the most mysterious and vexing part of coastal boating because they are its least understood component. Many have heard the stories and lore of kayakers whisked out to sea, pursued by rescue craft unable to catch up with them for a frighteningly long while.

These stories are true enough in other parts, but the tides don’t exert so much influence on the waters of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. In fact, the most dangerous aspect of low tide in the bay—especially near the causeway—is the chop set up by winds in the shallow waters.

And not only does the tide vary by time of day, it varies by depth. Tides everywhere are caused by the tug of the moon’s gravity on the earth’s water. Tides are apt to be greatest nearest a full moon and less when the moon is darker. There is about a 20-30 minute difference between the times of the tides from one day to another. In other words, if high tide is at 4:00 on Monday, you can expect the water to start going out at about 4:20 to 4:30 on Tuesday, the day after.

The farther up the Delta, the Alabama, and the Tombigbee Rivers you travel (there are no dams on the Alabama below Claiborne and no dams on the Tombigbee below Coffeeville), the less the water is affected by the tides from the Gulf, but the effect is there. No matter where you are below these dams, you need to be aware that whatever obstacles are exposed to snag your boat at normal water, the effect will be worse at low tide. When water is running high because of rain, high tide can kick in an element of danger that would otherwise not be present.

Is there a magic tide depth number to look for when planning to get on the water? According to Officer Jeremy Doss, the State Lands Division employee who’s out nearly every day with a boat and a chainsaw to see that the Bartram Canoe Trail area is kept clear and safe, the answer is no. He advises to watch local TV weather before you go out because the coastal stations show the tide as part of the weather. If those numbers don’t mean much to you because if your inexperience with tides, Officer Doss strongly suggests stopping in at local stores, bait shops and marinas. You’ll find the best-informed opinions there.

Another angle is suggested on the tour maps issued for the Bartram Canoe Trail. The maps list the number for the US Army Corps of Engineers lockmaster at Claiborne Dam (1 888 771 4601), where river depth at the dam is logged. The maps list the optimum range of depth at Claiborne as it affects each segment of the Canoe Trail. This is a roundabout way of knowing the general water level, not limited to tidal levels, but above or below which the waterway is considered unsafe.

The Internet offers a number of options for those who just want the numbers without the advice (search “Alabama gulf tide” or similar). The website tbone.biol.sc.edu offers a tide chart for hundreds of sites from Florida to Texas. Two-day information is presented along with sunrise, moonrise, sunset and moonset. The site also features a tide predictor for each area that shows the expected tides in time windows up to a month, with calculations extending out for quite a few years. The predictor allows you to customize various colors for day or night tides, rising or falling levels, and other elements. I found a listing for Lower Bryant Landing on the Tensaw River that looked just like the kind of information you could plan a good trip around.

While the site offers no tide predictor, the accuracy and easy-to-read format provides a chart of the water levels during different times of the day over a three-day period at the National Weather Service’s www.tidesonline.nos.noaa.gov/geographic.html (or simply go to www.noaa.gov and search for “tides”).

The most direct route south through the delta without taking a side trips on the Bartram Canoe Trail is to follow the Alabama River to mile zero at its confluence with the Tombigbee and the beginning of the Mobile River. Powerboats with adequate fuel may be happy to continue the Mobile River into Mobile Bay but paddleboats will not. There is not place to get in our out of the river, and the closer to Mobile the closer to the traffic of the shipping channels. Rather than follow the Alabama to the Mobile, most boaters will want to take the few miles of the Mobile that lead to the mouth of the Tensaw, then follow the Tensaw or waterways such as Middle River, Bottle Creek, Big Lizard Creek, Little Lizard Creek and others leading to the eastern shore of the bay.

As mentioned in the section covering the Bartram Canoe Trail, this area is already networked with many places to camp and sights to see, with more on the way. Ultimately, canoe, kayak and powerboat trips will begin at the northern end of the Bartram Canoe Trail near Stockton and end at the Five Rivers facility near Spanish Fort, a distance of thirty miles over the delta.

The area between the turnoff onto the Tensaw and the eastern bay shore is rich with opportunities to see and experience some of the wildest places on the continent.

Continuing though Bartram Canoe Trail territory are Rice Creek Landing, Upper Bryant Landing, Cliff’s Landing and Hurricane Landing (all accessible from the river and Highway 225) to the bottom of Gravine Island in the Tensaw. Below Gravine Island are Cloverleaf Launch and Landing, Blakeley State Park, Scott’s Landing, Five Rivers Delta Resource Center and Meaher State Park before passing under the causeway and into Mobile Bay.

Of these potential stops along the rivers between the Alabama and Mobile Bay, three—Historic Blakeley State Park, Five Rivers Delta Resource Center, and Meaher State Park—deserve special consideration.

Historic Blakeley State Park

About a mile south of the southern tip of Gravine Island on the Tensaw River is Historic Blakeley State Park, a stopover that is among the most history- and botanically-rich along all the state’s rivers. Founded in 1814, the deep-water port of the town supported a population and economy that boomed following its designation as an American Port of Entry. The town, in fact, was considered to be part of Mobile until a separate Baldwin County was created in 1820. The town fell into decline after several yellow fever epidemics.

The town saw vicious fighting during the last battle of the Civil War. The breastworks, redoubts and headquarter left behind are virtually untouched and remain some of the finest examples of earthen civil war fortifications in the nation. A an oak near the town still stands whose open trunk once sheltered fleeing confederate soldiers for a brief part of the night after the battle before they were found. Civil war re-enactments are an important part of the park’s activities. There is enough to see at Blakeley State Park that a modest survey could take several days.

Plenty of walking and nature trails are to be found beneath the parks breathtaking live oaks; two trails lead to the enormous Cockleshell Indian Mound, built of the remnants of centuries of occupation. A quarter-mile-long boardwalk traverses the town’s old waterfront. Fifty species of plants are identified along one marked nature trail along the Tensaw riverfront alone.

The dock near the riverfront is home to the 50-passenger eco-tourboat Delta Explorer. Licensed Coast Guard captains operate the craft from Blakeley State Park and offer a wonderful introduction to the delta’s waterways.

All powerboats (including airboats) are prohibited from operating out of the park. Experienced paddlers coming downstream on the Alabama Scenic River Trail are welcome to put-in and re-launch from Blakeley Park’s concrete ramp at the stern of the Delta Explorer. Advance reservations are required by calling 251 626 5581. Visa and Mastercard accepted. Day use rates are $6 for boat and $3 per passenger. Paddlers may tent camp right at the riverfront for $15 for up to two boats and two persons. The are currently no utilities at the riverfront sites now but are planned in the near future. Paddlers are welcome to use park facilities. Spacious primitive campsites with fire rings and picnic tables are available at the same rate a half-mile walk from the waterfront. For special permission use of the Blakeley ramp and waterfront for group activities or recognized organizations of experienced paddlers, call 251 626 0798.

Five Rivers Delta Resource Center

Five Rivers Delta Resource Center in Spanish Fort is one of the finest representations of what a state has done for its citizens and its natural captital. Lying almost in the afternoon shadow of the buildings of downtown Mobile, the complex of buildings and water access was created by Alabama State Lands Division as a gateway to outdoor recreation, conservation education and land stewardship in the delta. Five Rivers provides unprecedented access to the delta’s public lands and underscores the efforts of the Alabama Forever Wild program, which has purchased over 50,000 acres in the delta over the past ten years.

There are docks aplenty at Five Rivers. Coming down the Blakeley, Sardine pass will appear on your right. The position of the pass may make it necessary to go a bit past the mouth to make sure you’re looking up it. Across the Blakeley to your left is the inlet to Bay Minette.


Paddling or cruising up Sardine pass, the facility’s imposing motorboat docks appear on your left with the lodge-like buildings above them. A short paddle around the bend is Bartram Landing, the floating canoe and kayak dock connected by a walkway to a paved loading zone and public restrooms. The dock is Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant.

Bartram Landing features canoe and kayak rentals and lessons.

Visitors to the facility can climb the steps to the spacious decks that connect the three buildings of the Nature Center Complex containing the gift shop, exhibit hall, theater (90 seats with HD video and surround-sound) and administrative offices. The Longleaf Room at Delta Hall, a spacious and attractive entertaining facility, is rented for private functions. Flyfishing programs, canoe and kayak lessons, wilderness survival training and seafood cooking demonstrations are typical Five Rivers outdoor opportunities that the public can enjoy.

Of all the things that this one-of-a-kind facility provides, the best may be access to the delta itself. Driving into the facility will lead first to the Shellbank Visitors Center where the staff introduces new visitors to the delta and will assist in planning your delta experience. Spend an informative few minutes inside to know what opportunities away you through the Five Rivers programs as well as other nature-based tourism throughout coastal Alabama. Get on the water in minutes by renting your choice of paddleboat or explore the delta from a seat on the facility’s eco-tour boat or and airboat ride.

Heading west from Spanish Fort on Highway 98 (the causeway, it’s called locally) the entrance to Five Rivers will be seen soon on the right after a small development. The entrance is directly is across the road from Meaher State Park. For information or to rent a boat call 251 625 0814.

Meaher State Park

When you ask local in the region of the eastern shore of Mobile bay where the most popular takeout is for folks paddling downriver—because with the tide and the current together, that’s all most people should attempt—they almost always say “at the causeway.” That means Meaher State Park.

The park provides convenient access to the open bay and its shore. Here you can see pelicans slowing to a landing, crossing over the bow or your boat with one eye on you and the other on a potential landing site. They sometimes come so close that you can almost feel on your face the air under their wings canted for braking; you can observe every feather. Pelicans trust a boater much more than a landlubber. You can paddle all the way to the causeway and still see your car parked on the shore.

Some years ago, Meaher (the locals pronounce it like mayor) State Park had a spot available for anyone who dropped by. These days, for whatever reason (which I presume to be the presence of itenerant contractors servicing the building boom going on south of I-10) the park stays full of semi-permanent residents with lots of lawn ornaments, TV dishes and small dogs but without a kayak in sight. This is a shame, too, because there’s not a more paddling-friendly state park anywhere on the coast. Park personnel tell me that 2008 will see a magnificent expansion (the proposed primitive campsites and bath house will be nice—there are neither now) that will greatly increase the park’s capacity, especially of full-service campsites.

Even if you don’t get to spend the night here, the day use aspects of the park are an outstanding value for paddlers. For a mere dollar, you can drive right in, take the blacktop road to the right onto the grassy park by the pier, and slip your boat into the water without even getting your shoes dirty. Paddle all day in the bay without worrying about your car or finding your way back. Leaving the launch area, head around to your left and paddle under the elevated birding boardwalk. Once under the pilings, watch to your left for the best pelican feeding action on the gulf as the huge birds dip mechanically into the clear, shallow water for a seafood smorgasbord.

From this area you will see double concrete ramps with a short piece of pier between them. This ramp and its spacious parking lot is the place to launch a powerboat. And it’s free. The entrance is the road that runs adjacent to the park’s RV storage nearest the causeway. Boater launching from this ramp will pass under the elevated boardwalk to enter the waters of Mobile Bay.

Meaher State Park is easy to find. Just head west from Spanish Fort on Highway 98 (the causeway, it’s called locally) and it’s the first left turn. Five Rivers is across the road on the right. Contact the park for information or reservations at 251 626 5529.

From Mobile bay, Spanish River leads up into the magical worlds of Chuckfee Bay, Grand Bay and Delvan Bay. Chacaloochee Bay and Big Bateau Bay are accessible from the causeway and lie about halfway between Mobile and Spanish Fort. The Apalachee River and the Blakeley River split the Tensaw at bell-shaped Big Island where the causeway crosses it near Spanish Fort and empties into the bay below the Five Rivers Delta Resource Center and Meaher State Park.


Fort Morgan and the end of the trail

If you’re traveling on the Alabama Scenic River Trail, you’re paddling the last miles of a trip that may have brought you from as far away as the Georgia state line some 600 miles away. To finish the trail at its terminus near Ft. Morgan on the tip of the Ft. Morgan peninsula, the paddler will need another night or two to sleep and rest before climbing out at the Ft. Morgan Public Landing near the ferry terminal. Accommodations on the eastern shore of Mobile bay are difficult to come by, but assistance can be had from the paddling community who can help you at www.alabamascenicrivertrail.com. The association’s guidebooks provide reasonably up-to-date information, but the web and the contact you will find there will have the up-to-the-minute last word on the subject. The problem for the paddler is that the string of coastal towns south of Spanish Fort don’t bother to provide adequate access for boaters not owning their own dock or having membership in a yacht club. Virtually no land suitable for put-ins or take-outs has escaped the intentions of coastal developers. That said, there are places to stop and even to stay. You just have to check in with www.alabamascenicrivertrail.com to discover them.