BY ANN GREEN 



The canal is an engineering marvel and a 

 truly wonderful part of America's maritime heritage. 



— Bland Simpson, author of 

 The Great Dismal, A Carolinian's Swamp Memoir 



! Capt. Merritt Walter steers 

 the Bonny Blue through a narrow strip on the 

 Dismal Swamp Canal, he points out the water's 

 reflection — a calm mirror of green trees. 



"The picture doesn't change often," says 

 Walter, owner of the Bonny Blue. "If you are 

 not careful, you get tunnel vision." 



Miles of canal banks are lined with 

 maples, junipers, cypress and gum trees. 

 Occasionally flocks of birds move in and out. 



"The refuge has more than 200 species of 

 birds," says Deloras Freeman, a Dismal Swamp 

 National Wildlife Refuge park ranger. "Many 

 of these species can be seen from the canal that 

 forms the eastern boundary of the refuge." 



Occasionally, boaters also might see a 

 snake, otter, deer or turtle in the tea-colored 

 water, or a bear running through the forest. The 

 dark water is unusually pure because of the 

 tannic acids from the barks of junipers, gum 

 and cypress. Before the days of refrigeration, 

 drinking water from the swamp was a highly 

 prized commodity on sailing ships. 



'This environment is so peaceful and 

 quiet," says Bonny Blue passenger Mary 

 Lou Chambers of Greensboro. "The trip is 

 something my husband and I had been talking 

 about doing for a long time." 



The Bonny Blue takes groups on the canal 

 from Deep Creek, Va., to Elizabeth City, N.C., 

 and back. "It is a great way to cruise the canal 



in a comfortable fashion," says Walter, who is 

 deeply tanned from his years on the water. 



The canal, which is part of the Atlantic 

 Intracoastal Waterway, stretches 22 miles, 

 connecting the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia 

 — via the Elizabeth River — to the Albemarle 

 Sound in North Carolina — via the Pasquotank 

 River. Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of 

 Engineers, the canal also includes two locks, one 

 at Deep Creek, Va., and the other in the small 

 North Carolina village of South Mills. Both locks 

 raise or lower cruising craft about eight feet. 



As the oldest continually operating man- 

 made canal in the United States, the Dismal 

 Canal is listed in the National Register of 

 Historic Places and designated as a National 

 Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. It also 

 is part of the National Underground Railroad 

 Network to Freedom, an escape route used by 

 numerous slaves in antebellum North Carolina. 



creational Waterway 



Today, the canal is used mainly by 

 recreational vehicles, including trawlers, 

 sailboats and other watercraft and a few 

 commercial boats. Each year, about 2,000 

 boaters stop in Elizabeth City while traveling 

 down the canal, according to the Elizabeth City 

 Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. 



Boaters spend about $300 per trip in 



Elizabeth City, where there is free 48-hour 

 docking, says Russ Haddad, director of the 

 Convention & Visitors Bureau. 



"Recreational boaters are increasingly 

 taking advantage of opportunities to see history 

 and wildlife off the beaten path," explains 

 Jack Thigpen, North Carolina Sea Grant 

 extension director. 'This will lead to economic 

 opportunities for local communities as well." 



Because of the large number of boaters 



12 Coastwatch I Spring 2006 I www.ncseagrant.org 



