Hunt and culture

Lake Mattamuskeet is, apparently, a natural lake, which is a pretty rare thing east of the Mississippi. Much of the landscape around it appears, however, to be heavily sculpted by humans. There are, for example, lots of levees and places jutting out into the lake in straight lines, for various reasons.

Indeed, much of Hyde Country seems intensively terraformed, as it would have to be, because you can see they have been negotiating their coexistence with the sea here. Here in Swan Quarter, the county seat, those houses and structures whose inhabitants could afford to raise them up four or five feet have done so. The B and b we're staying in is one of those. The county office building, the snazziest structure around here (rivaled only by the volunteer firehouse) appears to be a three story building but, upon closer inspection, it is actually two stories built atop a parking garage, so that if the water rises people's cars don't get flooded. Much like Houston.

As an aside, I should note that there was a plaque down near the county building saying the local Black population had boycotted the schools for the entire 1968-9 school year because Brown v Board had not been implemented. Astonishing that a place this unpopulated would incur the additional expense of separate schools even with a gun pointed at its head. Probably they didn't incur huge expenses educating Black kids, but still.

All the fields seem like negotiations with nature and are likewise ringed by raised levees. I wonder what they grow here, other than water fowl and other huntables.

I could go on but actually see I had better start getting organized to exit this place at 10 because, as the signs all around tell us, there is no late checkout. Not that there's anyone here surveiling us.