Jennifer Lambeth

Wolf River Impressions

Of the two Wolf River canoe trips, the first one was the most interesting to me.  The beginning of this trip was COOL because the river snakes through the middle of the forest, and everything was so green and wet that it reminded me of the Amazon.  The first part of the Ghost Section was extremely creepy since the “trail” was so narrow and dark, and there were animal noises sounding everywhere around us.  I can’t imagine how creepy that section would be at night.  I had never been in a cypress swamp before, so being in the middle of that forest in the Ghost Section was amazing.  I also liked how the scenery changed so quickly when we came out of the bald cypress forest and suddenly we were in the marshy area with pond lilies everywhere.  Parts of the river on the second trip were pretty, but it looked a lot like the rivers that I see in Missouri (only the countryside is much flatter here), so it wasn’t too exciting.  It was interesting to learn how the enormous old trees sticking out of the ground got there and how they have been preserved for thousands of years, though they were a pain to get our canoes around.  It was disappointing to hear about all of the changes that had to be made to the channel structure so that subdivisions could be built on the outskirts of Collierville on the river.  I think that if people destroy natural landscapes in order to build houses, they should have to live with the natural conditions that go along with living alongside a river—such as flooding.  Knowing that the Wolf River Conservancy had purchased so much of the land around the river was comforting, so at least we know that people can’t develop on that section in the future.