Into the American Amazon

My mother says snakes crawl in months beginning with the letter A. I didn’t have to walk far down a palmetto-lined trail leading to the Bottle Creek Site for proof that this bit of folk wisdom is indeed correct. Deep in Alabama’s Mobile-Tensaw Delta, a cottonmouth as long as a baseball bat stretched across the lone muddy path leading to the largest Native-American mound complex on the northern Gulf Coast. I was looking out, heeding my mother’s advice. But if the snake had not flashed its eponymous white mouth, I would have stepped right on it, so perfectly did it blend with the surroundings.  

There was a lot of trail left before I reached the mounds – eighteen in total – built almost eight centuries ago by what’s now referred to as the Pensacola people. The tallest one rises 52-feet above the swamp. A veritable mountain in this otherwise pancake-flat landscape. I won’t lie. I considered turning around. But I’d paddled six miles through majestic cypress-tupelo swamp largely spared from the last major Ice Age, crossing deep rivers and narrow bayous, and portaging several downed trees to reach Mound Island. With two small kids at home and an impending out-of-state move, I wasn’t sure when I’d have another chance to make what was a bucket-list trip for me. I also needed a little solitude. Turning back didn’t actually seem like an option, despite the possibility of more run-ins with venomous snakes.

The Bottle Creek Site is one of only two Native-American sites in Alabama recognized as a National Historic Landmark. It was an important trade and religious center starting around 1250 for the Pensacola culture, which stretched from western Florida to Louisiana. The mounds remain somewhat undisturbed despite being known by the non-Native world for three centuries. One of the most fascinating aspects of the delta, I think, is just how much human and natural history overlap here.

 While it’s possible to arrive at the Mound Island trailhead via motorized boat, I’d chosen to float a stretch of the Bartram Canoe Trail. Named after the American-born naturalist William Bartram, who first traveled the area in 1775, this 200-mile canoe trail is one of the longest in the country. It carries intrepid paddlers through what another naturalist, Pulitzer-prize winner E.O. Wilson, who spent part of his childhood in nearby Mobile, dubbed America’s Amazon. Five rivers drain into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. It is the most biologically diverse river system in North America. Home to, at last count, 500 species of plants, 300 birds, 126 fishes, 69 reptiles, 46 mammals, and 30 amphibians. According to The Nature Conservancy, 67 of these species are considered rare, imperiled, threatened, or endangered. 

I departed Rice Creek Landing on a mild April morning. A cacophony of birds called out – Acadian Flycatcher, Northern Parula, Red-eyed Vireo, to name a few. On either bank, bald cypresses towered fifty-plus feet into the air. I felt dwarfed. Sitting in a kayak will have that effect on a person. Moving no faster than the current and my arms could take me, I also felt immersed in the landscape.

At Larry Island I heard—but never saw—fishermen. The closest I’d come to encountering another person until the day ended. South of the island, I was welcomed to Bayou Jessamine by the thrum of a red-bellied woodpecker. Deeper in, the distinct call of a great-horned owl echoed through the swamp. Wild hogs crashed among palmettos. The most threatening thing I actually encountered was poison ivy with leaves as large as my hand.

This was problematic when I reached a downed tree blocking the bayou. Its trunk was wrapped in the hairy, rope-like vine. To continue, I had no choice but to get out, sinking shin-deep in gray silt, and drag my kayak upstream. Using cypress knees as footholds, I shakily climbed back in and paddled on to Bottle Creek. Carp were feeding, making a popping sound as they broke the water’s surface. I drifted, watched a swallow-tail kite circle in the sky.

The trailhead to the Bottle Creek Site isn’t easy to spot. Marked only by neon-orange flagging tied around a tree growing in a bend in the creek. A reliable GPS helps. The water ran high that day. I heaved my kayak atop the steep bank so it wouldn’t float off.

Beyond where I saw the cottonmouth, a stream flooded the trail. The owner of a local outdoors store had told me he knew people who’d been snake-bit wading on the island. I crossed the stream on exposed tree roots. Later, a second stream required lugging a downed tree to make a wobbly bridge. Farther still, the trail was covered with standing water. Tall, rubber boots are a must for visiting the mounds, especially in spring. I also carried a hard, plastic tomato stake from our garden and swished the water to warn critters of my presence.

Finally, I reached the mounds. They were, of course, overgrown. Without a guide, it was difficult to understand exactly what I was seeing. That didn’t matter. I stood in a place humans had inhabited for centuries, and marveled at how easily nature reclaimed it. Palmettos grew taller than my head. Broad-headed skinks rustled in the leaf litter. Golden-ringed dragonflies as big as my son’s toy planes buzzed past. If not for the faraway whine of an actual airplane, I could’ve been convinced I’d arrived in a prehistoric age.

Ready to explore the sprawling maze of bayous, cypress swamps and quiet waterways of the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta? These Wildsam recs can get you started on planning.