Anyone else here from Louisiana? I am in southwest Louisiana. If I go anymore south, I'll be in the water! Surviving in the swamp is a unique thing to talk about! Any other Cajuns out there?
Beaumont Texas raised in the swamp and married a part Cajun lass. Conceived in Jennings La. I loved the swamps and spent a lot of time in them fishing, frogging and hunting.
When I was a kid the legal drinking age in Louisiana was 18 and 21 in Texas so there was a trip to Vinton Louisiana most week ends to the Texas Pelican bar or the liquor stores there. We used to go to Beaux Bridge for the Crawfish Festival and My wife and I used to go to Lake Charles all the time for the food and the casinos.
Not Cajun but that's where everyone thinks I am from I do make a good shrimp chicken sausage gumbo served over cold potato salad with crawfish hoe cake
The only problem that I ever had running in the swamps was the BUGS!! I eventually got so that they didn't bother me too much during the day but come night you have to have a net or as I did some times, sleep in the day and do other things in the night. I did a lot of frogging at night and crawfish don't care about light very much. I would tent the fire at night and catch a few cat naps then get several hours sleep the next day. I never had any trouble with the snakes or gators. The fishing and hunting was fantastic and the hummocks were massively fertile. The great thing about the swamps is that most people are afraid of them and don't go very deep into them. I always found them to be very peaceful. There are...things that live deep in the swamps. You almost never see them but you hear them and see where they have been. I never once felt like they were interested in harming me but they were curious and often followed me and trailed along. I loved the night and they seemed to find this odd so I seldom was lonely. The swamp also is like a chemical lab and the luminous stuff that you see sometimes is really cool. The swamp I ran in was connected to the Gulf to some extent and on a few occasions like the salt water the swamp water would look luminous when disturbed. I think it was some specific type of plankton that bioluminesce.
Fish, Bull frogs, gators, crawfish, deer, ducks, squirrels, and nutria rats are all plentiful and all good eating. Best of all because of the fact that getting to them is not something that you can do on a four wheeler very few people go there. The best way to move through a swamp is either get in it and wade or use a pirogue. That is a little narrow boat traditionally made from a cypress log that you can either paddle or pole through the swamps. Small aluminum boats or canoes would work too. I knew a few Cajuns that were using pirogues that were over a hundred years old. As long as you leave cypress in the water it will never rot! When I was a kid we ate frogs all summer long. Crawfish are everywhere and easy to trap or even sort of fish for. The wood ducks were there year around and the hummocks out in the swamps were often big enough to have a substantial number of squirrels and some deer. The other things were never seen or at least I never saw them. Some people called them skunk apes but I am not sure. Whatever they were , the swamp was their home in a way that few people could emulate. When I heard them I think it was intentional. There was one that seemed to show up nearly every time I would go walking along the edges of the swamp at night in the dark. I called him Hugo and talked to him. Hugo was a very good listener and at that time in my life I needed someone that I could talk to. The only time I had any sort of problem with Hugo was one night my German Shepherd decided to try and jump him. There was a loud growl followed by a squeal and my German Shepherd can flying thought the air back to me. After that when Hugo showed up she would get right up against me and be VERY quiet and subdued.
I am not a Cajun, but I did live in the Concordia Parrish for a wonderful 4 years before my move north. I certainly loved the rich culture and wonderful food. There was nothing I loved more than exploring the bayous in my skiff. It warms my heart when I find community coffee and Louisiana hot sauce in the grocery stores in Alaska!
