BSA bringing America to the Basin

Almost uniquely among the Native Americans of the United States, the Chitimacha have lived in the same place for many thousands of years, unmolested by the westward roll of Manifest Destiny.
This is thought to be so because they lived in a horrible swamp, a terrible place, full of mosquitoes, alligators and venomous snakes. A place to be avoided, or at best endured, by the European immigrants.
Acadians and a few Américains and Africans learned to see past the dangers and the hardships to appreciate the beauty and bounty that existed in the great Atchafalaya River bottoms, and there came to be a non-native swamp culture based on fishing and trapping, the remnants of which form the template for TV shows like “Swamp People.”
But in spite of all this exposure (or perhaps because of it), people elsewhere in the country, and even elsewhere in the state, still harbor feelings of dread about the swamp.
Boy Scouts of America – while trading a little on the mystique (“A wilderness far too intimidating for the casual outdoorsman ...”) – seeks to make confident swamp travelers out of scouts and scouters from all over the country. BSA’s Evangeline Area Council has mapped out and secured properties and infrastructure for a five-day, 60-mile trek by kayak through some of the loveliest and most representative swamps in the historic Basin.
In two years, hundreds of boys have already been through Atchafalaya Swamp Base, which ranks as one of BSA’s high adventure offerings like famed Philmont Ranch in New Mexico.
Early on Day One, the scouts, with Swamp Base guides, put in at the Bayou Courtableau Outlet Channel, just south of U.S. 190. They paddle down through the Corps of Engineers’ Indian Bayou area, linking up with Bayou Fordoche, which takes them into the upper reaches of Henderson Lake. After traveling about 15 and a half miles, they come to rest on well-provisioned houseboats in “Alligator Cove.”
Day Two they skirt the east bank of Henderson Lake down to the West Atchafalaya Basin Protection Levee near McGee’s Landing, where they portage and enter the remnant original Basin outside the spillway and come down Bayou Berard into Catahoula Lake. After very nearly a 16-mile day, they camp for the night in jungle hammocks on “Rougarou Island,” state-owned land at what locals call The Forks.
Day Three is about 13 and a half miles down the borrow pit canal to a narrow cutoff into Lake Dautrive and Lake Fausse Pointe to “Island Outpost,” a group of small cabins near the state park. There they spend two nights continuing their education, which includes cooking Cajun/Creole food and living off the land.
The final day is a relative sprint, a little over 12 miles down the lake and ending up at Grand Avoille Cove.
Nearly all of their equipment is furnished by the Evangeline Council, including special 16’6” kayaks with extra cargo capacity built in Baton Rouge by KC Kayaks (and now available as the “Scout” from local retailers).
In the works are plans to build a multi-million-dollar resort on state land at Catahoula Lake to serve as an orientation center for the waves of scouts yet to come, and to host handicapped visitors and other special groups not up to the robust itinerary of the scouts.