days of hiking will bring them to their destination: the village of 

 Sunbury on the swamp's southern edge. 



"They're tougher than I am," says Ray Jenkins, whose job brings 

 him out to the Lake Drummond campground five days a week. 



Jenkins has been the primary keeper of the Great Dismal Swamp 

 Canal for 18 years. It's his job to regulate the flow of water from 

 Lake Drummond through the Feeder Ditch spillway and into the 

 canal. The lake is the canal's main water supply, and it must be 

 controlled so that the canal doesn't drain the lake, which is only 4 or 

 5 feet at its deepest. 



The Great Dismal Swamp Canal, completed in 1805, is the 

 nation's oldest artificial waterway. Its designers envisioned the canal 

 as a major regional waterway, but over the years that dream withered. 

 Though important to the swamp's major logging industry, the 



canal never lived up to its origi- 

 nal purpose. The failure can be 

 seen in its major design flaw: 

 canal owners relied on rain to 

 fill the big ditch with enough 

 water for safe passage. And there 

 isn't always enough rainfall, 

 especially in summer months, to 

 keep water levels high enough 

 for boat travel. The construction 

 of the Feeder Ditch didn't help, 

 for Lake Drummond 's level is 

 also determined by rainfall. 



The U.S. Army Corps of 

 Engineers, which manages the 

 canal today, runs into the same 

 problem. Occasionally, the canal 

 must be closed during hot, dry 

 weather. During these dry spells, 

 boaters must use the Dismal 

 Swamp Canal's sister waterway, the Albemarle and Chesapeake 

 Canal, a few miles east. 



Still, the Great Dismal Swamp Canal — a link in the Intracoastal 

 Waterway — is an important shortcut between Elizabeth City and 

 Norfolk. It's also important to Jenkins, who owes his livelihood to the 

 fickle brown water. 



Around noon, Jenkins saunters off to the small, white frame 

 dwelling that houses his office. It's simply furnished with a desk 

 and chair, a couch for visitors and a telephone. A handcrank that 

 opens the gates on the Feeder Ditch dam hangs loosely on a stairwell 

 by the door. 



Jenkins takes a seat and chats with us about the pleasures 

 and pitfalls of working in one of the most remote natural areas on 

 the Eastern Seaboard. A couple of older hunters in camouflaged 

 jumpsuits and jackets meander in. Their shotguns are conspicuously 

 absent. 



George P. Johnson 



Judy Kemell (left) leads hikers. 



