Water Trails of the Atchafalaya

[POSTPONED] A new exhibition at the Wedell-Williams Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum celebrates one of Louisiana’s greatest natural resources, the Atchafalaya Swamp Basin. Originally on display at the West Baton Rouge Museum in 2017, this new version will be tailored for its new home. Photography and paintings by well-known Louisiana visual artists, including photographer C. C. Lockwood and landscape painter Melissa Bonin, will illustrate the rich biodiversity of the world’s most productive swamp.

Named “long river” by the Choctaw, the Atchafalaya River stretches 135 miles from where it branches off the Mississippi and Red Rivers to its terminus at the Gulf of Mexico. The basin of this river, which includes some 1.4 million acres, is the only growing delta in Louisiana. It boasts the largest contiguous bottomland hardwood forest in North America and is prime wintering habitat for more than half of America’s migratory waterfowl. louisianastatemuseum.org.