Swamp People
Ready to find fascination in an unexpected place? Read "Swamp People," in which Ashley Stimpson visits all five of the East Coast’s largest, most legendary swamps to witness their beauty in person and better understand America's fraught history with its liminal wetlands.
When I moved from the Midwest to the mid-Atlantic, I was delighted to find that the land here doesn’t end so much as crumble like a piece of day-old cornbread, giving way to those squishy, squelchy in-between places: not quite land, not quite water. These places called to me. Driving by, I craned at them like they were car wrecks. I coveted them like they were glassy black gems. I could feel my bare feet plunge into their cold water as I crossed the threshold from tidy civilization to tangled wilderness. Alice through the looking glass; Lucy in the wardrobe.
What was going on with me, I wondered. Was I depressed? Vitamin-deficient? Had the screens I stare at all day finally broken my brain? On a scale from gamer to Girl Scout, I am firmly outdoorsy—but swamps? Why swamps?
Check out "Swamp People."
