THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506010500
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
TRUST A MAN named Barefoot to know how to tramp the seldom scene.
Touring the Backroads of North Carolina's Upper Coast and its companion volume, Touring the Backroads of North Carolina's Lower Coast, by Daniel W. Barefoot (both, John F. Blair, 365 pp., $15.95), are illuminating guidebooks to overlooked travel treasure, all within easy reach of Hampton Roads.
You can take them by car to augment the evidence of the eye or enjoy them in an armchair to inform the imagination.
Either way, they're essential as fuel in effectively traversing throwback turf that the author calls ``the Rip Van Winkle of the Atlantic seaboard in terms of development until the second half of the twentieth century.''
Barefoot, who spent 15 years compiling the material for these interesting excursions, knows his ground. He lives in Lincolnton, N.C. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina School of Law.
He was appointed to the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission by Gov. Jim Hunt.
This Barefoot leaves authentic Tar Heel-prints.
He's proud of it.
``Whereas much of the Atlantic coastline displays the telltale signs of rampant, unplanned development,'' the author observes, ``the North Carolina coast has been largely spared the engineering nightmare evident on the coast of the states to the north and south. Millions of people travel to coastal North Carolina annually to enjoy the land which has enchanted visitors since the early European explorers. Much of the attraction lies with the unspoiled conditions.''
That's changing. Look at Nags Head. All the more reason to set out immediately with Barefoot books in hand to appreciate what remains of this stunning 301-mile coast before the inevitable asphalt-and-neon makeover.
Gear up to slow down.
Take for example volume one, excursion two: ``The Great Dismal Swamp Tour.''
This tour begins at Easons Crossroads, visits Merchants Millpond State Park and moves east through the Great Dismal Swamp to the historic town of South Mills at the locks of the Dismal Swamp Canal. It then heads to Camden and Shiloh and leads visitors on a brief walking tour of Elizabeth City before turning south to Weeksville and the historically significant village of Nixonton.
Among the highlights of the tour are the geography, history and legends of the Great Dismal Swamp, a Civil War love story from South Mills, the Camden County Courthouse, Shiloh Baptist Church, the historic district of Elizabeth City and the Museum of the Albemarle. Total mileage: 102.
Kind of gets you groping for the old travel bag, doesn't it?
Canoe rentals at Millpond State Park: ``Bats can be observed roosting in clumps of Spanish moss hanging from the trees. And although they are rarely seen by humans, mink, black bear and bobcats roam the shores. Beavers were introduced to the area in the 1930s, and their presence is apparent from the number of dams throughout the park.''
Don't forget to pack the bug spray.
And a sense of adventure.
``Today,'' reports Barefoot, ``the Great Dismal Swamp remains a forbidding place containing areas that have never been seen by the eyes of man. Many travelers on US 158 and US 17, the two primary highways that crisscross the vast jungle, pass through the swamp without ever knowing they have done so. Yet on either side of the roadway lies one of the most unexplored natural areas in North America, the northernmost link in the chain of large swamps of the mid-Atlantic coastal plain.''
More than a century ago, duelists used to meet at the Lake Drummond Hotel and, armed, face one another across the state line.
Now we can do it.
Barefoot. < MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia Wesleyan
College. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Daniel W. Barefoot spent 15 years compiling the material for these
coastal excursions.
by CNB