Lake Phelps: 



Clear Waters Reflect Unique Environment 



Sid Shearin treads 

 carefully on Moccasin 

 Overlook, a wooden 

 boardwalk recently 

 constructed to give 

 park visitors access 

 through a swampy 

 area of the park they 

 wouldn 't otherwise 

 visit. 



By C.R. Edgerton 



A light rain filters through the thick 

 canopy of cypress, sweetgum and poplar 

 trees 135 feet above Sid Shearin's head. 



His nylon coat is wet, his cap 

 droops and a slight chill in the air 

 makes for a little discomfort. But he 

 doesn't seem to mind. 



This is "his special place," a haven 

 from the rest of the world where it's 

 not unusual to see a cypress tree as 

 thick as the height of an average man. 

 Most of the trees in this virgin forest 

 were here before the first white man 

 ever set foot in the New World. For 

 centuries they towered over Algonquin 

 Indians as they built villages and carved 

 dugout canoes. 



"I'm a tree man myself," says 

 Shearin, who for the last seven years 

 has been superintendent of Pettigrew 

 State Park in Washington County. 

 "I love it out here. I never grow tired of 

 walking down this path, looking at the 

 trees." 



This day, he treads carefully on the 

 half-mile trek to Moccasin Overlook, a 

 wooden boardwalk recently constructed 

 to give park visitors access through a 

 swampy area of the park they wouldn't 

 otherwise visit. 



He and his two companions dodge 

 puddles of mud and peat and soak in 

 not only the rain, but the beauty of one 

 of the last remnants of the state's once- 

 vast swamp forests. 



But this Eden isn't the central 

 feature of Pettigrew, North Carolina's 

 largest state park. Lake Phelps 

 dominates. Discovered in 1755, its 

 16,600 acres of crystal clear waters 

 form what Shearin calls one of the 

 best-kept secrets of the state's park 

 system. 



Like its sister lakes— Mattamuskeet, 

 Pungo and Alligator (or New)— the 

 origin of Lake Phelps is lost in the 

 unknown. 



"Some folks say the lakes are the 

 footprints of Paul Bunyan, but that 

 can't be true," Shearin says, laughing. 

 "Paul Bunyan never came this far 

 south." 



There is no consensus as to how 

 these lakes were formed, but the latest 

 scientific research points away from 

 outlandish theories of the past- 

 meteorites, sink holes— and toward a 

 more logical hypothesis, such as glacia- 

 tion or the wind and wave actions of 

 ancient receding seas. 



"The North Carolina bays could 

 have had multiple origins,' ' says James 

 K. Holley, a geologist with Applied En- 

 vironmental Services in Raleigh whose 

 recent Master's thesis dealt with the 

 lake's hydrogeology. 



"They could have formed from old 

 peat burns or they could have been the 

 remnants of old river channels. In any 

 case, there's no real consensus." 



Holley 's recent findings— based on 

 radiocarbon dating— have placed the 

 ages of lakes Phelps and Mattamuskeet 

 at more than 38,000 years. 



"That means the lakes have been 

 around a lot longer than man has been 

 living on them," he says. "And all that 

 time, Lake Phelps has been shifting, 

 migrating northward." 



That migration can be proven by a 

 series of ancient rims discovered on the 

 south shore, Holley says. Core samples 

 have indicated that over the centuries 

 the lake moved, creating new shorelines. 



Continued on next page. . . 



