On a tour of the Mississippi River Delta, I hardly expected to find myself in a beautifully restored 1934 Art Deco airport terminal. But there I was, standing on a large marble compass inlay admiring the surrounding flight-themed murals by Xavier Gonzalez. Once called the “air hub of the Americas,” New Orleans’s diminutive Lakefront Airport lies on the north side of the city along Lake Pontchartrain and rests atop an artificially built peninsula, a concept of great relevance in the Delta, I would soon learn.
This was but one surprise on a five-hour adventure into a beautiful world of water and shifting earth. My guide into Delta history, ecology, environmentalism, and culture was Barbara Johnson. Ohio-born, Johnson came to New Orleans for grad school in the ‘80s and never left. Her background in urban planning coupled with a passion for the environment inspired her to found the Great Delta Tour Company.
“Our hope,” said Johnson, “is that our guests experience the beauty, richness, and importance of the Delta ecosystems, diverse cultures and economic resources of the Delta and what the community and state are doing to protect, restore, and build a more resilient coastal New Orleans.”
We started the tour heading north from the French Quarter—away from the Delta, I thought. But the city itself sits on the Delta, in particular the St. Bernard Delta lobe which formed over a period 2,000-4,000 years ago as the river turned east of present-day New Orleans and cut off an estuary that became Lake Pontchartrain. The reverse, however, has happened with Lake Borgne just south of there: the loss of coastal land has opened that lake into a lagoon on the Gulf of Mexico. Various factors, environmental and human-development related, have gradually taken away one million acres (25 percent) of its wetlands, forests, and barrier islands since 1932.
The tour offers a wealth of stories of the river, levees, canals, and Hurricane Katrina before it even leaves town. Johnson indicated the concrete slabs where houses once stood. Some of them have been taken away and repurposed as oyster beds, she said.
After the Lakefront Airport, we drove south into the wilder places rich with birds, sea life, and history, but also a lot of stumps: “The saltwater killed this gorgeous swamp and made this community vulnerable,” said Johnson. In the 1960s, the creation of “Mr. GO”— the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a 500-foot wide 75-mile long shortcut from the city’s port to the sea—destroyed protective coastal land and flooded cypress swamps. That canal is now 2,500 feet wide in places, and during Katrina, a 20-foot wall of water ran straight up the cut to push into city waterways and communities.
Seafood from the Delta reaches all across the United States. Here shrimp, crab, and oyster boats moor in Yscloskey after unloading the day's haul. Kevin Revolinski
On the highway we pass through massive gates in the 26-foot-high surge barrier. This connects to the Great Wall of Louisiana, a 1.8 mile-long, $1.3 billion concrete-and-steel surge barrier, the largest civil-works construction in the history of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, completed in 2013. Beyond, in “unprotected” terrain, the stories continued: A Delta community of Filipinos escaping slavery from a Spanish ship; a lost battle in the War of 1812; a waterside cross and a list of names remembering St. Bernard Parish victims of Katrina; buildings on 20-foot stilts built according to new code; old Christmas trees airlifted in by Blackhawk helicopters and deposited in Lake Borgne to help capture sediment to rebuild the land.
If you don’t know about subsidence, the sinking of land, caused by both natural and unnatural forces here in the Delta, you will by the end of this tour. But Johnson’s Delta tours also provide opportunities to have bayou-side chats with the locals, such as Don Robin, an oyster harvester based in the fishing village Yscloskey. Robin is fifth generation in this business, and he speaks of the tradition and the hardship one faces in a place at the mercy of floods and hurricanes. His forefathers founded this town and descend from some unexpected settlers: Canary Islanders sent by Spain in the years 1778–1782. At least 40 percent of the parish’s population has a connection to this Isleños heritage. Robin shows how to find oyster beds with a long cane pole, and afterward, he grills up some of the day’s harvest for his guests.
We also stopped at a roadside eatery, far from Bourbon Street, where the day’s crawfish were scooped onto large trays by weight. Much more than just a study of the Delta’s natural beauty, the tour becomes a connection to the people who most value these coastal lands, and we find out what’s being done to build back the lost land and return the natural protections they once provided.
“By doing these eco-tours we are raising awareness of what we need to do and getting communities engaged,” Johnson said. “I really think New Orleans can be a global destination where we celebrate nature, ecotourism, and stewardship of our environment.”
The Great Delta Tour Company offers this Delta Discovery tour to groups large and small. The tours are also becoming popular with cruisers in the port of New Orleans.
Kevin Revolinski is an avid traveler, craft beer enthusiast, and home-cooking fan. He is the author of 15 books, including “The Yogurt Man Cometh: Tales of an American Teacher in Turkey” and his new collection of short stories, “Stealing Away.” He’s based in Madison, Wis., and his website is TheMadTraveler.com
