Exploring the Great Dismal Swamp

One of the most interesting area in the North Carolina and Virgina Low Country is the Great Dismal Swamp.  It is preserved through joint effort by the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, a federal enclave, and North Carolina's Great Dismal Swamp State Park.  We were particularly interested in the National Wildlife Refuge, because it includes Lake Drummond, one of only two natural lakes in the entire Commonwealth of Virginiam, as well as lands surveyed by George Washington.

We took the advice of the ranger at the Refuge Office and decided to bicycle Washington Ditch, partly because it's the most historic, and partly because it would give us access to Lake Drummond. Here we are, at the beginning of the Washington Ditch path:

Two older historical markers explain the significance that George Washington had for this area.  The first sign explains his work in surveying this area in 1763 - more than 10 years before the Revolutionary War:

Another older marker memorializes the area, called "Dismal Town," where Washington and his crew had the surveying headquarters.  Washington truly slept here!

The Great Dismal Swamp also have other significant historic importance, because many slaves, freed and unfreed, fled into the swamp to escape persecution during the era preceding and during the Civil War.  Artwork and literature memorialize the strategies and privations these "maroons" experienced in striving to live free, even in great hardship:



The refuge contains an Underground Railroad Pavilion, devoted to slaves, the Underground Railroad, and the maroons.  Otherwise, for the most part, the swamp's markers describe the natural features of the swamp and its flora and fauna.  Here, David examines one of the markers as we begin our bike ride:

As we began our bicycle ride on the Washington Ditch, we first walked a boardwalk nature trail that strives to show many of the natural features of the swamp.  We were taken with the large number of hollow trees, which must provide homes to some of the swamps cuddlier creatures:

After walking the boardwalk nature trail, we began our bike ride.  Here, Kathy points the way toward Drummond Lake along Washington Ditch:

This view along Washington Ditch is pretty representative of what we saw and rode on for the 4.5 mile ride to the lake:

The ditch boasts one small spillway, which we assume serves flood control purposes now:

The majority of the swamp looks more like this:

Finally, we made our objective - Lake Drummond!

Along the lake shore, cypress stood in the shallow waters, silhouetted against the far shore and the cloudy, cold winter sky:



Throughout the swamp, one of the only green plants was the ubiquitous MISTLETOE!

The cypress trees contributed their mystical knees:

On our way back along the ditch, we surprised this deer:

The Great Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond have been the stuff of historical legend, and have spawned many legends and stories that may not be historical.  The oldest and best known of the Dismal Swamp legends is that of the Lady of the Lake, a myth the Irish poet Thomas Moore canonized in 1803 in his poem, “The Lake of the Dismal Swamp.” Based on local lore about an Indian maid who died just before her wedding and who is periodically seen paddling her ghostly white canoe across the waters of Lake Drummond.  Moore’s poem tells how the bereaved lover came to believe that his lost love had departed her grave and taken to the Swamp. He followed her and never returned but was reunited with his Lady of the Lake in death.

Most good legends are rooted in reality. Eerie lights in the middle of the night are not uncommon and have been attributed to ghosts, pirates, madmen, or flying saucers. What causes these strange lights is Foxfire (a luminescence given off by the decaying of wood by certain fungi), burning methane escaping from decomposing vegetation, or smoldering peat.

In any event, in tribute to the Swamp, the Lake and Thomas Moore, here is the poem in its entirety:

A BALLAD: THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP

                                                                                           Thomas Moore, 1803
                                                                                           Written at Norfolk, in Virginia

"They made her a grave, too cold and damp 
For a soul so warm and true; 
And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, 
Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, 
She paddles her white canoe. 

"And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see, 
And her paddle I soon shall hear; 
Long and loving our life shall be, 
And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree, 
When the footstep of death is near." 

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds- 
His path was rugged and sore, 
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds, 
Through many a fen where the serpent feeds, 
And man never trod before. 

And when on the earth he sunk to sleep, 
If slumber his eyelids knew, 
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep 
Its venomous tear and nightly steep 
The flesh with blistering dew! 

And near him the she-wolf stirr'd the brake, 
And the copper-snake breath'd in his ear, 
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake, 
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake, 
And the white canoe of my dear?" 

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright 
Quick over its surface play'd- 
"Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!" 
And the dim shore echoed for many a night 
The name of the death-cold maid. 

Till he hollow'd a boat of the birchen bark, 
Which carried him off from shore; 
Far, far he follow'd the meteor spark, 
The wind was high and the clouds were dark, 
And the boat return'd no more. 

But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp, 
This lover and maid so true 
Are seen at the hour of midnight damp 
To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp, 
And paddle their white canoe!