“Whose land was condemned; who was displaced? What did all the shoals look like when the lilies bloomed? And . . . what would it be like to witness the great shad migrations and fishing parties of the past?”

For millennia southern marshes, swamps, oxbows, Carolina Bays, steep creeks, mountain bogs, ponds and reservoirs have provided gifts and lessons to their peoples (and of course critters). Among the gifts that wetlands and rivers have given over and over to southern culture are transportation, power, protection, recreation, and clean water to drink, cook with, and bathe in.