“The sun was just rising, but it was already hot when we launched our canoe just below the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. We were beginning the 217-mile journey through Georgia and Florida to the Gulf of Mexico on the Suwannee River.
“We paddled for days, with only the occasional splash of a bowfin or a garfish, or the bellow of an alligator, breaking the silence. Sometimes we ducked beneath the low hanging branches bearing wasps’ nests, watching for snakes among the contorted cypress tree roots.
“The Suwannee is one of the few large wild undammed rivers in the Southeast. As it leaves the sloughs and hammocks of the vast Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia it gradually coalesces, flowing through an eerie wilderness of stunted Ogeechee tupelo trees. Scattered cypresses rise above the swamps and give little shade from the blazing sun.”
The Wilderness Coast, by Jack Rudloe, 1988, Page 36
Okefenokee Photography Project by William Wise 