Excerpt from the 1926 History of the Okefenokee Swamp by AS McQueen and Hamp Mizell:
“It was in the early winter of 1874 that my father found Chase Prairie. On this trip, and on all others thereafter he always carried a small pole about 8 feet long with an old bayonet on the end which was used to fight off the thousands of alligators that would, at times, fight the boat and attempt to drag out the dogs.
“The last few hours of their journey they had been following alligator trails, which looked like small streams running through the moss, grass and lily leaves. These trails showed that many alligators had traveled these streams for the trails were worn out wide, and the further west they traveled the wider the trails grew.”
iNaturalist observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/53522320
Okefenokee Photography Project by William Wise 