The longest natural, free-flowing river in the continental U.S. offers aquatic adventures year-round.
Only 100 miles separate the terminuses of the Mississippi and Pascagoula rivers, the watercourses framing the Mississippi Gulf Coast culturally if not politically. But they couldn’t be further apart beneath the surface.
Since the days when Mark Twain’s fictional Huck Finn would have floated it, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has endeavored to tame the Mississippi River with levees, locks, and spillways as it drains 40% of the continental U.S. and nearly bisects the lower 48 into halves. A mighty river, indeed.
In contrast to this massive, meticulously engineered artery, the Pascagoula River spans a modest 80 miles in length from its headwaters at the confluence of the Leaf and Chickasawhay rivers in northern George County. Its importance, instead, is measured by how untouched it remains as the longest free-flowing waterway and last unimpeded major river system between Canada and Mexico.
Eric Richards, a 72-year-old Pascagoula native, has paddled most of it over the past 20 years, camping on the sandbars of the upper river, rowing past the bluffs near Vancleave, and maneuvering a paddleboard through the slow, serpentine bayous of the lower section. Today, he lives on Krebs Lake, one of many meanders encircled by marsh grasses near its mouth at the Mississippi Sound, and is still a regular on the river.
“We’ve paddled pretty much all the waterways,” Roberts said of his experiences with friends in the Pascagoula Paradise Paddlers group, a loose fraternity that has organized monthly voyages on the river — sometimes drawing as many as 100 paddlers — as well as multi-day overnight trips and competitions.
The Pascagoula River Basin covers 9,600 square miles, or 20% of the state, beginning in Kemper and Neshoba counties at its northernmost point, extending west nearly to Jackson, and pulling in streams over the Alabama state line. The watershed narrows as the river splits into the East and West Pascagoula rivers just north of Poticaw Landing, then winds into broad, wandering bayous across a marshy coastal plain ranging from four to six miles wide.
“It doesn’t look like a typical river where you go from point A to point B,” said Mary Rodgers, a master naturalist who manages the Pascagoula River Audubon Center in Moss Point. “It’s extensive and free flowing with bayous, and that creates more habitat. The area serves as an estuary for plant and animal growth.”
As a wild river, the Pascagoula is home to an ecosystem teeming with diverse flora and fauna, including more than 22 threatened and endangered species and hundreds of plant species. It’s also located on the Mississippi Flyway, a major migratory pathway used by 45% of America’s birds as they travel between the North and South American continents, using the river and its marshes as a place to rest and refuel.
“The bird life is fabulous,” Rodgers said. “We see ospreys and owls along the shoreline, cormorants and waterbirds, and also backyard birds. And because it’s a flyway, we have different birds throughout the season during spring and fall migrations.”
The most commonly seen bird populations include brown pelicans, great blue herons, sandhill cranes, and other shore and inland birds that frequent the Pascagoula marshlands, Rodgers said, among more than 300 species of birds that can be found here. That fact attracts birdwatchers from across the region and even overseas — she says couples from as far away as Germany are annual visitors.
For kayaks, canoers, and paddleboarders, that means every launch into the tannin-stained watercourse is a new adventure. They may see large, wading birds like herons and egrets roam the marshes looking for meals at low tide, while ospreys hover overhead and dive into the deeper channels to catch fish. Red-winged blackbirds are a highlight for birdwatchers, and Richards has also seen swallow-tailed kites on the river.
The bird life is fabulous. We see ospreys and owls along the shoreline, cormorants and waterbirds, and also backyard birds.
After the Deep Horizon oil spill in 2010 compromised the region’s animal and plant life both offshore and onshore, the National Audubon Society decided to place a center near the Pascagoula River that would encourage people to visit the river and learn about its importance and biodiversity. The center itself, built as a green facility, is a model of environmental stewardship.
Instead of letting the average 60 to 65 inches of rain the region gets every year wash into the bayou, a network of channels and gutters redirects a portion of the rainwater from the roof into an underground cistern every time it rains. Rodgers said that enables them to keep their raised beds hospitable for the moisture-loving plants hummingbirds prefer, such as coral honeysuckle, as well as aster and blueberry bushes for larger birds. The concrete on the campus is even permeable, allowing the ground to absorb water and mitigating flood potential.
Named after the Pascagoula River, nearby Singing River Electric in Lucedale participates annually in the Renew Our Rivers cleanup of the lower portion of the river. The electric co-op has also awarded several of its Neighbors Helping Neighbors Community Grants to the Audubon Center over the years.
As the Audubon Center attracts birdwatchers and paddlers year-round for its guided kayak tours, Roberts also takes excursions on the river at all of its phases and through all four seasons, paddling past eagles, otters, alligators, and occasionally a deer swimming from one bank to the other. But if he had to pick, he says he’s partial to rowing through the cypress swamps upriver.
“The old-growth cypress trees are just phenomenal,” he said. “They’ll be 12 feet in diameter, which is 30, 40 feet in circumference. It’s an otherworldly feeling when you go through these swamps and you’ve got massive trees and thousands of cypress knees,” which grow several feet high. The autumn, he said, is his favorite time to visit them, when “everything turns copper on the cypress trees.”
But don’t overlook late summer, another ideal time to catch the magic of the river. The Pascagoula River Audubon Center’s annual Hummingbird Festival, scheduled for Sept. 25-26, welcomes birdwatchers just as thousands of the migratory birds pass through the area. Rodgers said the birds congregate around feeders and the trumpet vines covering the canopy. “We’ll see 5, 10, 20 hummingbirds at a time diving into the different treetops, and then they sit up there in their perch.”
The Pascagoula Paradise Paddlers will host the Pascagoula River Paddle Battle on Oct. 3. During the 10th edition of this 12-mile kayak race, paddlers will race from Little River Marina in Moss Point and end in Pascagoula at the LaPointe-Krebs House and Museum on Krebs Lake, the oldest structure in the state, built in 1757.
For Richards and many other paddlers who frequent the Pascagoula, the river’s rewards are evident throughout the seasonal shifts. “One of the appeals of kayaking or any boating, anything that takes you away from your normal life, is that you see things that are just otherworldly.”
For more information on the Pascagoula River Audubon Center, visit audubon.org/pascagoula-river
