Louisiana is known for its swamps, and for good reason. In spite of some of the associations with have with the word swamp, I find them beautiful, mysterious, and magnetic. In this episode, I talk with Jessica Gauley about a section of swamp along the Pearl River known as Honey Island. Jessica grew up with the swamp and today runs Honey Island Kayak Tours, a company that specializes in intimate tours of the swamp. We talk about her childhood in the swamp, the rich plant and animal life at Honey Island, how the swamp changes with the seasons, and the fears inspired by the word swamp. She offers a few tips on visiting and paddling around Louisiana’s swamps. Alligators come up a couple of times in our conversation, so in the Mississippi Minute, I offer a brief peak into the world of alligators.
Show Notes
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Transcript
Tue, Jul 11, 2023 4:56PM • 43:45
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
swamp, alligators, area, kayak, river, honey island swamp, year, places, trees, find, pearl river, honey, birds, called, tours, people, island, tour, jessica, mississippi
SPEAKERS
Dean Klinkenberg, Jessica Gauley
Jessica Gauley 00:00
My mom tells stories of me out there in a playpen before I could walk and every weekend of my life, my dad would get home from work. She would already have the boat ready to go and we’d spend the whole weekend out there.
Dean Klinkenberg 00:34
Welcome to the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. I’m Dean Klinkenberg and I’ve been exploring the deep history and rich culture of the people and places along America’s greatest river, the Mississippi, since 2007. Join me as I go deep into the characters and places along the river and occasionally wander into other stories from the Midwest and other rivers. Read the episode show notes and get more information on the Mississippi at MississippiValleyTraveler.com. Let’s get going.
Dean Klinkenberg 01:06
Welcome to Episode 24 of the Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast. In this episode, we traveled deep into the Louisiana swamp with Jessica Gauley. In May, John and I were down in New Orleans and we took a tour, about 45 minutes northeast of the city, of the Honey Island Swamp with Jessica’s company, which is the Honey Island Kayak Tours. She grew up with the swamp but she’s an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide. She and her husband lead tours through that part of the swamp all year. And it’s just a fantastic experience. So in this interview, we talked about her experiences growing up in the swamp, some of the plant and animal life that called the swamps home. Getting over our fears of swamps, which is a big issue for a lot of us. Some of the seasonal changes, and the native foods that she’s been able to forage from the swamps. And then we’ll talk a little bit about what you have to do if you want to do a tour of the swamp and a couple of ideas if you just want to kayak or paddle around one of the Louisiana swamps on your own. And we have a little discussion about the joys of kayaking and even swimming in areas where alligators are common. I will post links in the show notes to her company with some information about how you can book your own tour if you’re interested. I highly recommend it. I’ve done a couple of other swamp tours in the area, I found the Honey Island Swamp Tour to be the most interesting and the most fun of them all. So I highly recommend it. So you can find those show notes at MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast, where you can also find out how to support the show. You can join my Patreon community and a shout out to all the all of you continue to show me some love through Patreon. Or you can just buy me a coffee and support my caffeine habit. Again, you can go to MississippiValleyTraveler.com/podcast to find out how to do that. Your support keeps this podcast going. And now on to the interview.
Dean Klinkenberg 03:17
Jessica Gauley is owner of the Honey Island Kayak Tours based just northeast of New Orleans. She is an excellent tour guide and, as I know, has a personal connection to the swamps that she takes people through. Welcome to the podcast, Jessica.
Jessica Gauley 03:35
Thanks for having me.
Dean Klinkenberg 03:36
It’s such a pleasure to have you here today. It feels like just yesterday that John and I were out in a kayak with you paddling around in the Honey Island Swamp. And I just I wanted to say upfront how much you know, we both really enjoyed that tour. And I hope we’ll talk a little bit about that during our conversation some today as well. But what I thought we’d start with is, I remember you mentioning during our tour that you had a very personal connection with that area. And would you mind just kind of telling us a little bit about that?
Jessica Gauley 04:04
Yeah, so I grew up in the area. I’m a lifelong resident. Generations in from the Honey Island Swamp, basically spent my whole life out there from the time that I before I could walk until now, which has been 40 years.
Dean Klinkenberg 04:18
Goodness. So what were some of the childhood experiences like then like, did your parents just throw you in a boat and say, go out and explore?
Jessica Gauley 04:24
Yeah, pretty much at a certain age, it became that way. My mom tells stories of me out there in a playpen before I could walk and every weekend of my life, my dad would get home from work. She would already have the boat ready to go and we’d spend the whole weekend out there. They let me hydroslide which is like a boogie board behind a boat. And then I got old enough my best friend lived on a houseboat and I spent most of my time out there with her exploring the swamp in a P row.
Jessica Gauley 04:24
Well, ok, for those of us who who are not in Louisiana, can you explain what you mean by a “P row?”
Jessica Gauley 05:00
Oh, yeah, so the best way that I can describe it as kind of like a Cajun canoe. So it’s a small little boat only sits about an inch out of the water. And I can tell you now that I’ve learned how to kayak, P rowing is not easy.
Dean Klinkenberg 05:15
Does it usually have a motor or not?
Jessica Gauley 05:17
No motor, and it’s a single blade paddle.
Dean Klinkenberg 05:20
All right. All right. So it’s kind of like a canoe. But is it maybe a little flatter bottom?
Jessica Gauley 05:25
It’s a flat bottom and the front and the back both come to points generally.
Dean Klinkenberg 05:30
All right. And that is that something you think that was developed kind of specifically to paddle around the waterways of Louisiana and some of the swamps or, do you know much about that background?
Jessica Gauley 05:41
You know, I wish I could tell you definitively, but I definitely don’t know that answer.
Dean Klinkenberg 05:46
All right. What is it that you liked so much about the swamps when you were growing up? What were some of the things that stood out to you from your memories of spending time in the swamps?
Jessica Gauley 05:58
Just how beautiful it is, and how vast it is? You could just explore a different place every day, and every place looks different from the other. Plus we have the legend of the Honey Island Swamp Monster. So that was pretty fun. As a kid spooking yourself out going into places looking for it. That was always an adventure.
Dean Klinkenberg 06:18
Every place has a monster story doesn’t it? Was there something like you remember like what people said the Honey Island Swamp Monster was like? Were there particular descriptions that were consistent?
Jessica Gauley 06:31
Yes, I’ve heard ape-like and tall I’ve always known it as a Rougarou, which is French for “wolfman”. So a basic eight foot tall wolfman. And so it was kind of the legend to keep us from exploring too far at night time. But being an explorative kid that I was, I didn’t quite listen to all that. I was looking for it instead.
Dean Klinkenberg 06:53
Was it a monster that came out mostly at night then?
Jessica Gauley 06:57
Mostly at night. Yes.
Jessica Gauley 06:58
Yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 06:58
Yeah. So really, it did serve that purpose of trying to scare the kids enough to keep you from going around exploring after the sun went down, I guess.
Dean Klinkenberg 06:59
Did you have any other any like, great escape stories from your youth when you’re out there? Like times when you got yourself in a bad spot that you had to figure out a way around or?
Jessica Gauley 07:20
Not so much. The one time for the swamp monster story, we were in a place that we were not allowed to go. But we had no supervision. So we went there looking for the swamp monster, and we found its footprints across the sand. So we freaked out, paddled home faster than I have ever paddled in my life and didn’t know how to tell our parents. Eventually, we told our parents and they told us that they put the footprints out there to scare other people off.
Dean Klinkenberg 07:51
And it worked with their own kids then.
Jessica Gauley 07:53
Yeah, I don’t think we ever went back to that spot.
Dean Klinkenberg 07:59
So tell me a little bit about the Honey Island Swamp in particular, as I remember your description of that was very vivid. It’s kind of a unique ecological area.
Jessica Gauley 08:10
Yeah, so the Honey Island itself is about 70,000 acres. It has the highest biodiversity of flora and fauna out of any swamp. So there’s a lot to explore. And it’s very confusing. There are several waterways within the Honey Island Swamp. So you really have to be from here to understand that. But most of it was lumbered back in the 1800s for the cypress trees. They use the wood for building materials. So what’s left behind is a lot of new growth about 70 year old trees, but certain areas in the swamp was not harvested. So we have 400 plus year old trees that are 18 plus feet in circumference. And super beautiful. They have a root system called cypress knees, that comes up out of the ground. So like stalagmites coming up, almost. And people see different images in them like faces. I always think of the Little Mermaid, Ursula’s Poor Unfortunate Souls coming up out of the ground. Some of them are 8 to 12 feet tall. So it’s a pretty unique ecosystem.
Dean Klinkenberg 09:20
And it’s it’s kind of at one end of the Pearl River, is that right?
Jessica Gauley 09:25
Yeah, the Honey Island is basically in the Pearl River Delta. The Pearl River north of here splits into two, the east and the west, and the Honey island is, everything in between those two river systems.
Dean Klinkenberg 09:36
And there are quite a few remaining swamps in south Louisiana and what do you think makes the Honey Island Swamp different from Barataria or the around Manchac Lake or some of those other places?
Jessica Gauley 09:52
Yeah, so where we are we have not had any problems with saltwater encroachment. Salt water does do damage to cypress swamps, they can’t handle the salinity. And then certain areas that we go into weren’t logged as heavily like say Manchac, there’s a lot of shipping, or manmade canals that they put in during the lumber industry. Cypress wood floats, so they would cut them down, drop them in the water, so they would make these straight shots to get where they needed them to be. The Honey Islands, the lumber mill was on the east hand side. And so they would harvest and create these little ditches to get from the west to the east, but they weren’t huge canals. And so the Honey Island to me is more condensed, and still has a lot of more old growth.
Dean Klinkenberg 10:43
All right, is there a difference in the vegetation or the plant or the animal life in the in Honey Island compared to some of the other swamps now?
Jessica Gauley 10:52
I’m gonna say it’s pretty pretty typically the same. Certain areas of the Honey Islands. So let me say this way, the Honey Island is basically a floodplain so our water levels can rise and fall 12 feet in three days. So this leads to us not getting a lot of the invasive species that the other swamps do. The hyacinth can’t really take foothold. We don’t really have the nutria in certain places of the Honey Islands, because the grasses can’t grow that they eat. We’re also dealing with an invasive snail called an apple snail. And I think that they’re not in certain places of the Honey Island because of how drastically those water levels change. So ours are more pristine, like more native species.
Dean Klinkenberg 11:40
So I’m trying to remember in my head now is the geography of that area. Is there. Is there more of a defined Valley for the Pearl River through there that helps funnel water when it rains more into a smaller area than other parts of Louisiana where it might just spread out or…?
Jessica Gauley 11:57
Yeah, so the Pearl River drains basically where it drains into like Borgne, but that’s where Lake Pontchartrain meets Lake Borgne meets the Gulf of Mexico. So it’s a huge body of water that it has areas to drain into. And it doesn’t really settle on, I guess, the outside of the watershed like other areas.
Dean Klinkenberg 12:20
All right. So tell me a little bit then about how you got started doing tours through the through the swamp.
Jessica Gauley 12:30
Yeah, so I kind of fell in it. Before this, I was a medical technician in the emergency room. Driving down the road one day, I saw a sign that said kayak tours. So I called them and asked them if I could be a guide and was pretty much hired on the spot. And eventually decided that I really wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to make it super environmentally educational, I wanted to bring attention to the area. I also host trash cleanups on the Pearl River. So I wanted to tie in all the conservation work that I do with running my guide business.
Dean Klinkenberg 13:04
Excellent. And you do that very well. So you basically then kind of called upon your childhood experiences growing up there. But then you must have also kind of been taught yourself a lot about the ecology of that area to do the tours.
Jessica Gauley 13:20
Yeah, so it all kind of stems from what my passion for it. I always love the area. But it stems from in 2011, we experienced a fish kill on the river, a paper mill north of here dumped a bunch of chemicals in the water, which is basically called “black liquor”. It’s the pulp byproduct of making paper, and they released it into the waterway all at once. And so for five days, I was just watching our river die. All of the fish, all of the muscles. The water was like black tar, anything that couldn’t get out to get oxygen was dead. And so that just kind of devastated my heart. From there, we started a grassroots conservation program. And I wanted my part to be cleaning up the trash on the river and it just kind of all spiraled uphill from there.
Dean Klinkenberg 14:13
That’s terrible. So that was 2011 you said?
Jessica Gauley 14:15
Yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 14:17
How long did it take the river to bounce back after that?
Jessica Gauley 14:21
Um, so that happened in August when our water is really really low. So that didn’t help because it was kind of already stagnant at the time. And they came they basically waited for the rain to come in to wash everything out but they did pay locals to come in and clean up all the dead fish. Yeah, I don’t know the exact time it took for them hiring people to go out in motorboats and clean up but I think it was about a week to two weeks.
Dean Klinkenberg 14:51
But it must have taken a while for the fish to repopulate and for the you know, other animals to kind of come back and…
Jessica Gauley 14:57
Yeah, I do believe they did some restocking, but for me, I’m kind of a mussel nerd. I love our freshwater mussels. And they were completely devastated. There was a study done 20 years ago, where they had found 23 species of mussels. And they did the same study after the fish kill, and they had only found 19 species after that. So some just had no chance to bounce back at all.
Dean Klinkenberg 15:23
Right, right. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about who lives in the swamp then too. So let’s go into a bit of detail. Let’s look under the water first, like what are some of the more common animals? Let’s start with those that live underwater or fish?
Jessica Gauley 15:42
Okay, yes, our fish typical freshwater catfish, bass, perch, we have gar, alligator gar, longnose gar. They’re some of my favorite fish. They can live in freshwater, they can live in saltwater, and they can use their stomach as a lung so they can go oxygen. So that makes them pretty hearty. So during the fish kill out of the millions of dead fish, we found we actually didn’t find one dead gar because they were able to come out of the water and get oxygen which is pretty fascinating to me. And we have 30 plus species of turtles. We have 52 species of snakes. We have deer, pig, armadillo, raccoon, possum, turkey, bobcat. There are bear out there. I’ve never seen one myself, but I’ve seen videos of them. So they’re there.
Dean Klinkenberg 16:31
Have you seen the evidence of bear in the area? Like black bear, I think, probably?
Jessica Gauley 16:35
I personally haven’t seen any evidence. But there’s an arboretum not far from us that posted a video of a baby bear trying to get in their garbage can. So they’re pretty close by.
Dean Klinkenberg 16:48
Well, yeah. And I remember there’s an area in, I’m gonna blank on the name now. There’s a National Wildlife Refuge.
Jessica Gauley 16:59
Boga Chitto.
Dean Klinkenberg 17:00
No, it’s further north. It’s nort west of Baton Rouge. The Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge. Apparently there are a lot of black bear there. And they’re fairly easy to spot during certain times of the year.
Jessica Gauley 17:14
Okay, well, that’s where I need to go then. Out of all of my travels with my husband the past 12 years, we still have yet to see a bear together.
Dean Klinkenberg 17:21
Well, there you go. There’s what I heard is that there are certain berries that are ripe in maybe August or so that are kind of along this road, the wilderness drive. And maybe that’s a good time of year apparently to spot them. So I get to offer you a tip. That’s a rarity, you know.
Jessica Gauley 17:37
I love it. I’m excited now. Something to do in the hot summer.
Dean Klinkenberg 17:41
Right. All right. So that’s a lot of a different animal. And of course it attracts the swamps attract a lot of birds. What are some of them more common birds that you see day to day?
Jessica Gauley 17:51
Lots of shorebirds, wading birds, birds all of the heron species. Louisiana is home to every species of heron. We see egrets pretty often. Now we’re starting to see osprey pretty often. Specifically on my kayak route. They’re all over the place. And we have started to get the bald eagle population back within the past 10 years. So that’s pretty exciting to see them.
Dean Klinkenberg 18:14
Yeah, absolutely. I remember you. We saw some osprey when we went on the tour with you back the spring.
Jessica Gauley 18:22
Yeah. And then we have some birds that are endemic to our area like the prothonotary warbler. They’re these tiny little yellow birds. We call them swamp canaries because it’s easier to say, but it’s pretty exciting to see them. We’re home to the Mississippi kite, which is another unique bird to the area. And then also the swallow-tailed kites, which are really fascinating birds that we’ve only really been studying or observing since the late 1980s. And we’ve done, our conservationists have done, a lot of work to bring the population back so we’re starting to see them pretty regularly now.
Dean Klinkenberg 19:02
Hey, Dean Klinkenberg here, interrupting myself. Just wanted to remind you that if you’d like to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the river better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series set in certain places along the Mississippi. Read those books to find out how many different ways my protagonist Frank Dodge can get into trouble. My newest book, “Mississippi River Mayhem” details some of the disasters and tragedies that happened along Old Man River. Find any of them wherever books are sold.
Dean Klinkenberg 19:36
So then, in terms of the plant life, I know like the cypress and tupelo trees are very well adapted for swamp life. What else might people see paddling around?
Jessica Gauley 19:48
As far as the trees go, cypress and tupelo are our basic wetland trees but we also have water elm out there. We have white ash. We have mayhaw, which is a hawthorn tree that produces an edible crabapple that we make jelly and jam and wine out of. Lots of edibles out there. If you come in August, we can eat muscadine grape, which makes amazing wine.
Dean Klinkenberg 20:14
Hmm. So those grow wild out there?
Jessica Gauley 20:17
Yeah, everything grows wild out there. And if you know what you’re looking for the swamp is great for foraging.
Dean Klinkenberg 20:22
Absolutely. muscadine grapes are one of those things that I’ve read a lot about, like I’ve that I’ve come across the name a lot, but I don’t think I could pick one out of a lineup.
Jessica Gauley 20:33
Yeah, so they’re really fascinating. So all grapes have 19 pairs of chromosomes. But the muscadine has an extra pair, which allows it this harder outer shell, so it protects it growing in the summer heat. So it pretty much thrives out here. And you can eat it like a regular grape, but I like to peel the shell off, pop the flesh in my mouth, and then chew on the shell afterwards, because it’s got a ton of antioxidants.
Dean Klinkenberg 21:00
So I guess some of those are used for those can be used for jams or wines as well then?
Jessica Gauley 21:06
Yeah, jams and wines. When we were younger, we would collect as much as we could and pop them in the freezer so we can have summertime snacks. And to me, or I’ve heard it’s an acquired taste. I love them. But they taste like grape flavor, but in a good way.
Dean Klinkenberg 21:25
So I’m detecting that they have a hint of something else too, though. It’s not just like the standard grapes were used to at the grocery store.
Jessica Gauley 21:32
No, uniquely their own.
Dean Klinkenberg 21:34
Yeah. All right. And so what time of year again, is that when they would generally be ripe?
Jessica Gauley 21:41
August.
Dean Klinkenberg 21:42
So I’ve got to come back in August.
Jessica Gauley 21:44
Oh, yeah, I just found a patch right where we launch. I’m watching it because it’s gonna be ready.
Dean Klinkenberg 21:49
All right. All right. So what else is out there that you can harvest that you could eat if you’re a foraging around? Other other plants that offer foraging opportunities?
Jessica Gauley 22:01
Yeah, we have wild onion. We have yaupon holly, however you want to pronounce it. It’s a holly tree that you can make tea out of the leaves. It’s the only naturally caffeinated plant in North America. Sometimes it’s called the Civil War tea because they couldn’t get coffee. So they would drink their yaupon holly and it definitely has its own unique flavor. I really love it. But only if you drink unsweet tea because if you add a sweetener to it, it takes away its natural flavor. And then I have found oyster mushrooms, chanterelles. The list goes on and on. We have wild pecan out there we have native persimmon. There’s elderberry. There’s a lot.
Dean Klinkenberg 22:46
There’s a lot. Yeah. Would you like if you’re just a person traveling through, would you find any of those foods available in markets or restaurants?
Jessica Gauley 22:56
Not really. No. Yeah, that’s pretty much foraging stuff, muscadines, you can buy in markets, but I haven’t actually found them in markets in Louisiana. It’s in other states.
Dean Klinkenberg 23:09
All right. Well, so when when people come out then for kayak tours, so you operate tours all year?
Jessica Gauley 23:18
Yeah, year round.
Dean Klinkenberg 23:19
And they’re available most days of the week?
Jessica Gauley 23:23
Yeah, we’re open seven days a week. During the warmer times, we have three times a day. And during the winter, we do once a day, the warmest spot of the day.
Dean Klinkenberg 23:33
And if I remember, right, it’s about 30 to 40 minutes from the French Quarter from New Orleans?
Jessica Gauley 23:39
I say 45 minutes.
Dean Klinkenberg 23:42
And at this point, it’s probably best that people just planned on finding their way out there. You provide spot on directions. So generally people get out there on their own.
Jessica Gauley 23:52
Yeah, they get out on their own. We do provide transportation, you just have to call us and let us know. We’re not a big company. It’s pretty much me, my husband and some locals that do everything. So we’re not quite set up for transportation, but we will come pick you up.
Dean Klinkenberg 24:07
Absolutely. And so what are the priorities for you? When you take people out, what do you what are you hoping that they come away with?
Jessica Gauley 24:15
I guess just the love for the environment. It’s such a unique ecosystem. Most of Louisiana’s wetlands were lost due to us over-harvesting them. And now with saltwater encroachment, we’re just, our lands going away at a very quick rate. But where we kayak was never harvested, has no saltwater. It’s the most pristine wetland ecosystem that I have been in that is still natural. So I just want people to like experience this unique piece of land that’s actually still left. And so I hope that they just find a love for that and maybe if they’re not already conservationists, find a love for conservation for their particular area and can go and start protecting their area.
Dean Klinkenberg 25:02
Do you think we’ve been too hard on swamps? I mean, we tend to use the idea we tend to see the concept of a swamp as a as something negative. We use it to describe, you know, the political world that we disdain or we don’t like. So what what can we do to turn this around? So people have a different understanding different association with swamps?
Jessica Gauley 25:23
That’s a really good question. And I really don’t know how to answer that other than getting people out there and showing them what it is so they can find their own appreciation. If you have never seen one, you really don’t know what it is.
Dean Klinkenberg 25:36
Yeah. So do you think like part of the problem is that people associated it with this darkness, this impenetrable wilderness that scared people?
Jessica Gauley 25:45
Yeah.
Dean Klinkenberg 25:45
There’s a lot of fear probably of what is there, right?
Jessica Gauley 25:48
There is even among locals. I don’t understand. Like, I can see how people are scared. There’s alligators out there. There’s snakes, you know, there’s predators out there. But they’re not really dangerous, as long as you just leave them alone. So we also have this idea of the Hollywood swamp. It’s spooky. It’s scary. And so I get guests out there that are expecting to be terrified and they get out there and they’re like, oh, my gosh, this is so beautiful. What was I scared of? And yet we just have this misconception of what a swamp really is.
Dean Klinkenberg 26:22
Absolutely. It’s, that is a beautiful stretch. I did one other kayak tour last year in a different swamp. That was more I think, that had been more damaged by hurricanes and salt intrusion and in logging. And the Honey Island Swamp, it just it felt more dense. The canopy was thicker. The light it felt more lush. It’s just an incredibly beautiful area.
Jessica Gauley 26:46
Yeah, I, I don’t know. I just I’ve always appreciated it so much. It’s uniquely its own. And particularly where we kayak only 10% of wetlands left in Louisiana look like where we are. So it’s just this tiny little sliver of what everywhere else is supposed to be.
Dean Klinkenberg 27:08
Right what it used to be? So what is the what’s the experience, like at different times of year?
Jessica Gauley 27:15
Yeah, I often get the question, “What is my favorite time to be out there?” And my answer is “Today”, because every season is different. I love the winter, because it’s the ghost swamp. It’s dark, and it’s gray, and it’s black, and there’s no leaves on the trees. And the Spanish moss, just Spanish moss is like this gray hair hanging from the trees kind of looks like an old man’s beard or something. It’s the same color as the trees in the sky. So it’s just a really unique experience to be out there at that time. And then during the spring, everything slowly starts to wake up. First, the mayhaw trees bloom. So it’s this white flower and it’s the only color in the swamp and it almost looks like snowflakes everywhere. And then from there and two weeks, you know, everything is going to slowly start to turn green. But the swamp doesn’t wake up in a week. It takes three months for it to reach its full potential green. So you’re just slowly watching it become just this vibrant color. And then in the fall, sometimes we get fall colors. Sometimes we don’t. But it’s unique at that time, because that’s when most of our wading birds are coming out. So we get to see a lot more species at that time.
Dean Klinkenberg 28:32
Yeah, and do you get some migratory birds topping through the area too at different times of year?
Jessica Gauley 28:39
Um, we’re kind of on a little bit of an overpass for the migratory birds, they kind of skip over the coastal areas of the Honey Island Swamp to make their way towards Florida or Texas. But we get a lot of the wading birds.
Dean Klinkenberg 28:56
Do you have any orchids in there?
Jessica Gauley 28:58
We actually do have a very rare orchid. It’s called a green fly orchid. And it’s the only kind of species that grows outside of Florida. And it’s actually in bloom right now. So it’s super unique to get to see it. It does randomly bloom throughout the year. But it is this tiny, tiny little green flower that’s super unimpressive. But it’s there. And it’s rare. So we love it.
Dean Klinkenberg 29:22
All right. Is that in the area where you where you take the tour group through too?
Dean Klinkenberg 29:27
All right. Awesome. I don’t know why but I’ve kind of been on an orchid binge the last couple of years. Been really interested in them and they’re amazingly diverse and they’re all over the place.
Jessica Gauley 29:27
Yeah.
Jessica Gauley 29:41
Yeah, they’re super fun. We just went down towards the Everglades a couple of weeks ago and I was so excited to get to see different species and all of the bromeliads that are there, the different air plants.
Dean Klinkenberg 29:44
So in the fall, which trees or if they’re gonna be any fall color, like where would the color typically come from? Which trees?
Jessica Gauley 30:00
The river maples. They turn a beautiful red and orange color. We have an early freeze, the cypress needles will turn a vibrant burnt orange that is absolutely beautiful. And that does happen every couple of years.
Dean Klinkenberg 30:19
And must be quite a shock to folks. You probably don’t get much snow though.
Jessica Gauley 30:23
No, not really. I would absolutely love to see snow in the swamp. But that hasn’t happened here.
Dean Klinkenberg 30:29
That would be awesome. So backing up just a little bit. So you mentioned alligators. I think you during our tour, you mentioned that area really doesn’t have all that many resident alligators. And is that right?
Jessica Gauley 30:43
Yeah, we have a few in the area. Not that many. We do have a couple of large alligators. Big alligators eat little alligators so that’s why we don’t have that heavy of a population and we don’t hunt them in this area. So we have hunting season to take the big alligators out so the little ones can survive. And since we don’t have that hunting in the area, we just have some big ones.
Dean Klinkenberg 31:08
All right. So most of the most of those tours then they probably most of the time, you probably don’t really catch a glimpse of the gators, or it’s not that common.
Jessica Gauley 31:18
I’m gonna say it’s not that common. This year has really been an off year for us. We haven’t seen hardly any. But we have been dealing with flood waters a lot longer than usual. And alligators don’t like the moving water so they kind of stay away from where we’re at. But usually, typically, we do get to see them here and there throughout the year.
Dean Klinkenberg 31:38
I have to admit, like when I first thought about kayaking through a swamp and being near alligators, it seemed like a fundamentally wrong thing to be in a kayak near an alligator. What do you tell people about that fear?
Jessica Gauley 31:53
Yeah, so alligators are actually terrified of humans. When they’re born they’re only about a foot long. So they’re eaten by everything. birds, turtles, fish, other alligators. So naturally, anything about eight inches over the surface of the water they’re terrified of. So us just being in our kayaks we’re a predator to them. As long as you don’t feed them, they keep their fear of humans. And so we swim in this water our kids swim in this water. So we just do not interact with the alligators at all.
Dean Klinkenberg 32:24
You just kind of keep keep your separate spaces and everybody’s fine. Yeah, exactly. It still seems fundamentally foreign to me thinking about that. But we all have that, I guess for the places where we live with are certain things we accept as part of our daily life that other people look at and think there’s no way.
Jessica Gauley 32:41
Yeah, exactly. I was down in the Everglades. We wanted to see the crocodiles. But the idea of kayaking with a crocodile was a no go for me.
Dean Klinkenberg 32:50
Yeah, well, as I understand are crocodiles more aggressive anyway than alligators.
Jessica Gauley 32:56
That’s the conception, yes, they are aggressive and alligators are not. So I mean, they do kayak tours down there. So somebody’s got to be covering their insurance. I don’t know if I would want to take the chance.
Dean Klinkenberg 33:11
Well, so I know you lead kayak tours through that area. If people can just paddle on their own, and a lot of these swamps as well, right? They don’t need to be part of an organized tour?
Jessica Gauley 33:23
Correct. There are tons of areas that you can go in on your own. I just personally do not suggest the Honey Island without a guide because of how confusing it is. Where we are, there is no obvious trail, there’s no markers to let you know where you need to be or where you need to go next. And so I feel like it’s a pretty easy area to get lost in. But surrounding New Orleans, there are tons of places that you could go on your own.
Dean Klinkenberg 33:49
Yeah, I think probably most of those places that you said would be pretty easy to navigate through. And to keep track of where you are probably the biggest risk is that you’re just gonna get lost and not be able to figure out how to get back to where you started.
Jessica Gauley 34:02
Exactly. Once I take people out there, they’re like, how do you know where you’re going, all of the trees look exactly the same. But to me, none of them look exactly the same. So that’s how I navigate is unique looking trees. But I have actually found lost people on one of my tours one time, they had been lost for 24 hours. So yeah, you gotta be really careful out there.
Dean Klinkenberg 34:29
All right, let’s see. What else should we know about the swamps that we haven’t talked about yet?
Jessica Gauley 34:36
It’s just really beautiful. If you’re ever in the area in September, and you want to get involved in the conservation of the area, we do a major trash cleanup that starts in Jackson, Mississippi, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s spearheaded by Pearl River Keeper, and so we clean up roughly 30,000 pounds of trash every year. So if you want to get involved with us that way, we’d be happy to have you.
Dean Klinkenberg 35:00
Absolutely, great. So you start up up there and work your way south as a group or are there people working on different stretches?
Jessica Gauley 35:09
People working on different stretches. We do clean up about a 500 mile stretch, generally we have anywhere from 20 to 32 locations. So you can pick the location nearest to you. Most of us will feed you and give you a little after party after your time cleaning up on the water. And if you want to donate, you can go to PearlRiverKeeper.com and just become a member or do a one time donation. And that helps us provide all the cleaning supplies that we need. American Rivers does donate the trash bags for us. So we work strictly on donations.
Dean Klinkenberg 35:47
So what are the some of the items that you typically find on the cleanups?
Jessica Gauley 35:51
So down where I am, the Pearl River is a huge recreational area and they do a lot of partying out there. So unfortunately, it’s a lot of liquor bottles and beer cans. But historically, we find some pretty old trash, I found an ammonia bottle from 1907 an ink bottle from 1829. We do find unfortunately, a lot of styrofoam. A lot of single day use people fishermen throwing their bait boxes out of their boat. And then just we find refrigerators and deep freezers and toilets like there’s no telling what we’re going to find on any given clean up.
Dean Klinkenberg 36:36
And you wonder how the heck those big items got out there.
Jessica Gauley 36:39
Oh, it drives me insane. Yeah, the where I’m at in the Honey Island, we are the floodplain of the entire river system. Like I said, our water levels can change pretty drastically. So not only do we get all of the water down there, but we get all of the trash down there. And a lot of people don’t realize when you’re throwing your trash out your car window, it’s gonna go into a ditch which drains into a water system, which leads to us having to pick it up.
Dean Klinkenberg 37:09
We need to take care of these places, right?
Jessica Gauley 37:11
Oh, absolutely. There’s not many places like this left.
Dean Klinkenberg 37:15
Exactly. As we’ve said over and over like this, this particular area and Honey Island is a rare remnant of an old swamp that’s still in good shape that we really need to go to extra effort to take care of.
Jessica Gauley 37:29
Absolutely.
Dean Klinkenberg 37:31
I think that’s about all I’ve got for questions right now. What would be what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you or follow what’s going on with you?
Jessica Gauley 37:42
Yeah, we’re Honey Island Kayak Tours. We have social media, so Facebook “Honey Island Kayak Tours”, Instagram @HoneyIslandKayak. We do have a YouTube channel now where you can follow all of our fun shenanigans at Honey Island Kayak Tours on YouTube. Our website HoneyIslandKayakTours.com And then you can also give us a call 504-517-3066
Dean Klinkenberg 38:11
And I know when when I set this up we were able to book tours online. It’s very easy to do it that way, so you know you can easily pick a time of day and a day that you want to go out there and book a tour at your preferred time.
Jessica Gauley 38:27
Yeah. You book online. You get a confirmation email from us that gives you detailed instructions on where to find us. You meet us there and then we spend two to two and a half hours out the swamp having fun and learning about the ecosystem.
Dean Klinkenberg 38:40
Yep, and there may or may not be muscadines ripe at that time, but depending upon…
Jessica Gauley 38:44
If you come in August, the dog days of summer is the best time to be out there.
Dean Klinkenberg 38:48
Yeah, I still, it still makes me wonder, I would need to be sold on that one yet.
Jessica Gauley 38:54
I’ll get you out here we’ll do some swimming with the gators. It’ll be all good.
Dean Klinkenberg 38:58
Yeah. I’m bold enough to try once. Well, Jessica, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us and for sharing some time talking about the these beautiful swamps and your your company taking people out on kayak tours.
Dean Klinkenberg 38:58
Yeah, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Dean Klinkenberg 39:29
And now it’s time for the Mississippi Minute. In the conversation I just had with Jessica, alligators came up a couple of times, so I thought we’d dive into the world of alligators a little bit here the Mississippi minute. Alligators may be top predators, but we nearly wiped them out so they needed a helping hand for most to recover. By the 1950s, excessive hunting and habitat destruction had dramatically reduced their numbers. So in 1967, the federal government listed them as endangered through a program that preceded the Endangered Species Act, and state and federal officials got together to limit hunting and to begin to restore habitat. By the late 1980s, the alligator population had nearly completely recovered. So we still hunt them today, but the season is very limited and there are caps on the number that can be killed. So generally they target the bigger ones as Jessica mentioned during our interview American alligators, they’ve been around a long time, probably 80 to 100 million years. They’re one of the last surviving relatives of dinosaurs, and their cousins to crocodiles, although American alligators have a wider and rounder snout and crocodiles. And of course, alligators are far less aggressive than crocs. Adult males, they get pretty big, generally 11 to 15 feet is about the top end of the range and they can weigh up to about 1000 pounds. Females are usually just a little bit smaller. Alligators live in swamps, rivers and lakes, with a strong preference for freshwater habitats. And along the Mississippi River they range as far north as central Mississippi and Arkansas. They have an extremely powerful bite. Strong enough to penetrate a turtle shell, but the 80 teeth that line their jaws are better suited for gripping than for shredding. On the other hand, the muscles that open and close their jaws are surprisingly weak. All it takes to clamp them shut is a strong grip or tape around the jaw. As top predators, alligators get to eat pretty much whatever they want – turtles, mammals, especially muskrats and raccoons. Birds, non-native nutria also make for a popular meal. Sometimes gators will even snack on fruit like elderberry or those muscadine grapes that Jessica mentioned. Maybe just a little palate cleansers for them. They’ve also been known to use lures to attract birds, sometimes putting together a pile of sticks or branches that tempt the birds to come over who might be scavenging for materials to build a nest. Alligators hunt both in water and on land and on land they can sprint as fast as 35 miles an hour, but only for quick bits as they tire very quickly. When the weather turns cold, they will dig into a bank or under a tree and slow their biologic functions. And then they’ll just kind of poke their snouts just above the waterline to take in fresh air. As I said, you know alligators are rarely aggressive, but if you push your luck, they will strike. Don’t get too close, especially around the nest and never ever feed them. When you do, it gradually loosens their natural weariness of humans and associate us with eating, which isn’t a good thing.
Dean Klinkenberg 42:44
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the series on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss out on future episodes. I offer the podcast for free but when you support the show with a few bucks through Patreon, you helped keep the program going. Just go to patreon.com/deanklinkenberg. If you want to know more about the Mississippi River, check out my books. I write the Mississippi Valley Traveler guide books for people who want to get to know the Mississippi better. I also write the Frank Dodge mystery series set at certain places along the river. Find them wherever books are sold. The Mississippi Valley Traveler Podcast is written and produced by me, Dean Klinkenberg. Original Music by Noah Fence. See you next time.
