Top: 



A kayaker paddles the 

 tranquil waters of a Cape 

 Fear tributary. Commer- 

 cial traffic on f/ie river 

 has almost ceased, and 

 it's a haven for those 

 seeking solitude and a 

 close brush with nature. 



Middle: 



Robin Hall, lockmaster at 

 the Cape Fear Lock & 

 Dam No. 1, points out 

 American shad ready to 

 move upstream to their 

 breeding grounds. 



Bottom: 



Solemn cypress trees line 

 the riverbanks, looking 

 just as they must have 

 hundreds of years ago, 

 when sailors first braved 

 the Cape Fear waters. 



Photos by Scull D. Taylor 



the coastal plain, reaching deep into the 

 Carolina Piedmont — past the mouths of 

 the Northeast Cape Fear and Black Rivers, 

 and on towards Elizabethtown, 

 Fayetteville, Lillington. On maps, the Cape 

 Fear begins where the waters of the Haw 

 and Deep Rivers commingle, southeast of 

 tiny Moncure. But in spirit, the river 

 pushes far deeper into the state, draining 

 land as distant as Rockingham County, up 

 on the Virginia line. 



We launch our exploration of the 

 little-traveled lower river at King's Bluff, 

 where Lock & Dam No. 1 marks a spot 

 39 river-miles above the Wilmington 

 waterfront. Opened in 1915, this is the 

 first of three low dams built between 

 Fayetteville and Wilmington, with 

 corresponding locks to raise and lower 

 vessels between the upper and lower pools. 

 Until the railroads outran the steamers, 

 pine-burning paddlewheelers brought the 

 Cape Fear to life. Scores of landings lined 

 each bank, from Wilmington to Cross 

 Creek, ancestor of Fayetteville. 



Now commercial traffic has all but 

 ceased. Lockmaster Robin Hall says that 

 he hasn't locked a barge through Lock & 

 Dam No. 1 in four years, although a new 

 project to move cypress logs from 

 Charleston, S.C., to Elizabethtown is 

 expected this summer. 



The big excitement at King's Bluff 

 this morning isn't commercial traffic, but 

 fish. As chance would have it, we've 

 arrived during the peak of the American 

 shad migrations up the Cape Fear River, 

 and untold thousands of fish are surging 

 from the ocean upstream to breed. Stymied 

 by the dam, the fish stack up in the tailrace, 

 attracting equally large numbers of fishers. 



To help the fish over the dam, Hall 

 oversees a program to "lock through" as 

 many anadromous fish as possible. Three 

 times a day, from the end of February 

 through June, the 200-foot-long lock is 

 "turned around," lifting fish from the lower 

 pool to the upper. 



The program has the approval of the 

 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which 

 manages the Cape Fear locks, and has been 

 extended to all three dam sites. 



