Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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Access the Bayou Coquille Trail from the Bayou Coquille parking lot, about
a mile from the Visitor Center. The park recommends this trail to first-time
visitors because it is one of the preserve's most diverse. It begins on high
ground deposited by flooding from Bayou des Familles, once a major distrib-
utary of the Mississippi River. Dating back 2,000 years, it was once an Amer-
ican Indian village. The trail will take you through hardwood forest with live
oaks, dwarf palmettos, bald cypress, and the freshwater marsh's floating
prairie of grasses and aquatic plants.
•
Walk to Stop 1, where you'll be facing Bayou Coquille.
Coquille
is French for
“shell,” and the bayou got its name from the mounds of clamshells found
here by early French surveyors. The discarded shells are evidence of a pre-
historic Indian settlement, where Native Americans would consume small
clams to supplement their diets of game, fish, and plants.
•
Walk to Stop 2 and take note of the live oaks. Live oaks are the densest,
strongest wood native to North America. In the late 1700s and early 1800s,
oak lumber was used to build war ships. Live oaks typically grow thick
trunks and wide-spreading limbs, and their low centers of gravity and ex-
tensive root systems help them resist high winds and storms. The trees at
Barataria Preserve are 250-400 years old and are reasonably healthy, though
many have lost limbs in hurricanes or have been struck by lightning. Notice
the resurrection ferns on the tree branches. In dry weather, they curl and
turn brown. When it rains, the leaves unfurl and turn green.
•
Walk to Stop 3, where you'll learn the story of lumbering in Barataria from
the 1880s to the 1920s. Loggers were especially attracted to bald cypress like
the one in front of you. Bald cypress, which can grow up to 100 feet high and
15 feet in diameter, are resistant to rot and extremely durable. The logging
process was grueling: Loggers would cut the huge trees by hand with cross-
cut saws, all while standing in mud and water and dealing with the threat of
insects and snakes. Cables were then attached to the logs and dragged to the
end of the canal, where they were bound together to make rafts, which then
floated to the sawmill.
•
Walk to Stop 4, where you'll see a variety of invasive species of plants in the
water below you, such as alligator weed, water hyacinth, and floating ferns
called salvinia. They're called invasive because they are not native to Louisi-
ana, having been brought by travelers from South America and Asia who did
not realize the new plants would be destructive to the local environment. The
