Days 31-32: Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

In the southeastern corner of Georgia lies fabled Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. At 1500 square kilometers it's the largest refuge east of the Mississippi and one of the largest remaining intact freshwater systems on the planet. A vast bog covered by unstable peat deposits 15 feet deep, it's name is derived from the Seminole word for "Land of the Trembling Earth."

I arrived at the refuge campground on Tuesday, September 29 and stayed until Thursday morning to explore. Nighttime temperatures through Georgia had been in the 70's but cooled rapidly to a low of 49 degrees on Tuesday night, cold enough that I could see my breath. Having only a polarfleece sleeping bag liner, I layered myself in all of the non-spandex clothing I owned and spent the coldest hours in the bathroom, which was outfitted with a glorious oil-filled radiator space heater. It goes without saying that I did not get to the swamp during the golden hour just after sunrise, when wildlife viewing is at its best, but rather arrived bedraggled at 10:30am and proceeded to eat my way through the next hour and a half at the visitors center cafe.

Despite the fact that the swamp supports one of the largest alligator populations in the U.S. it can be kayaked unguided, which was a thrill for someone like me who had never kayaked solo before. I spent the first two hours picking my way through a canoe trail so narrow I had to hold my paddle nearly vertical to fit it between the marshy banks, and saw the head and back of my first adult alligator swimming 20 feet ahead of my boat. On the return trip, I sidled over to the parallel Suwanee Canal (pictured), which was dredged during the 1890's by the Suwanee Canal Company in order to drain the swamp for agriculture. Fortunately, after three years of digging the company went bankrupt and left just this nice little paddling trail.