The Ghosts of Ebenezer Creek

When a man named Possum tells you to buckle your life vest, it’s really best to listen. 

After all, he grew up on this creek, and though it’s known for its mellow current, he isn’t taking any chances on your paddling abilities. Personal safety is part of Possum’s job at Backwater Expeditions, an Effingham based-outfit that puts people on the county’s murky waterways—and makes sure they come back.

“OK ma’am, you ready?” he drawled, not waiting for an answer as he pushed me and my bright orange kayak into the inky black water where my husband and daughter were already floating.  

Seconds later, with another push by Possum, we were joined by our guide Cathy Sakas, who had directed us to rent kayaks from her go-to guys at Backwater for this excursion into one of southeast Georgia’s most scenic and compelling waterways. Thousands of people a year come to this tributary of the Savannah River to take in its unique ecosystem of cypress and tupelo groves.

But Ebenezer Creek holds more than meets the eye, and you need more than binoculars to see it.       

We knew how lucky we were to have Cathy leading the way. In the clipped drawl of her Virginia childhood, she calls herself a “freelance naturalist,” as if that could possibly cover her five-decade-plus career as an explorer, scientist, and leader of numerous environmental organizations up and down Georgia’s coast. She’s led tours for Wilderness Southeast since she was a biology grad student in the 1970s and once spent nine days underwater as an Aquanaut off the Florida Keys. The existences of Grey’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary and Tybee Island Marine Science Center owe much to her efforts. She’s also a documentary filmmaker and the author of Swamp Goddess, a collection of stories from her years exploring and mapping the Okefenokee Swamp. 

This day trip was actually a consolation prize for a canceled overnight foray into the Okefenokee two days before Christmas, which you may recall was the night it got cold enough to freeze the nipples off a possum (the marsupial, not the man.) Rather than suffer a long, cold night on a floating platform in the middle of the swamp, we rescheduled for a sunny day a little closer to home. While a good paddle always helps with New Year’s reflections, we were also sort of hoping that this eminent, ebullient biologist could show our undeclared college freshman the myriad possibilities of what happens when you combine a STEM degree with a love of being outdoors.  

“Welcome to the blackwater swamp, thousands of years in the making,” said Cathy as we dipped our paddles into the tea-colored water. 

Illustrating nature’s long, slow clock, our first stop was a 500 year-old bald cypress tree, its buttressed trunk fanning out regally on the bottom like a pageant queen gown. Cathy explained that the trees adapted this way to stabilize themselves in the squishy substrate, formed by decomposing plant debris dropped in the water over millennia. Fallen leaves release tannins that color the dark soup, which maintains a low pH thousands of times more acidic than rainwater that makes it inhospitable to much of the aquatic wildlife we’re used to seeing in our coastal Georgia waters.

“The decomposition can’t keep up with the deposition,” summed up Cathy poetically. “There’s not even a lot of fungi or bacteria.” 

“Are there alligators?” inquired Liberty nervously.

“Everywhere,” replied Cathy, though she added that on a cool winter day like this, the ubiquitous reptiles were happily tucked under a layer of swamp mud. Probably. 

The creek does host a few species of fish, including gar, still hideous after a hundred million years of evolution, along with their slick cousins the bowfin. During warmer months when the water’s oxygen levels are low, the latter will break the surface to gulp air, a survival tactic that can sound distressingly human. 

“One time a guy came racing by me, absolutely terrified that he heard ghosts in the trees,” recalled Cathy. 

“I tried to tell him the bowfin were out, but he wasn’t having it.” 

Not that this creek isn’t haunted by less supernatural specters. Tossing a nut-shaped tupelo fruit known ‘round these parts as Ogeechee limes, she pointed out a mess of deer entrails caught in a tree skirt that had been carelessly — and illegally — discarded by local hunters. It was a reminder that as peaceful and pristine as these waterways seem, they’re shared by others with different motivations than quiet enjoyment. 

Industry and agriculture have threatened this and Georgia’s other waterways for decades, from the forever-contaminated Savannah River Site to the 2011 Ogeechee River fishkill to the ongoing bullying to mine the ancient Okefenokee Swamp. During Cathy’s tenure at Gray’s Reef, she helped conduct studies that found pesticide runoff and other toxins from upstream rivers more than 20 miles offshore. She lauds the state’s Riverkeepers — including the Savannah, Ogeechee, and Altamaha — for protecting the fragile ecosystems and keeping polluters in check. 

“They’re the watch dogs. You can have all the regulations in the world, but we have to make sure they're being enforced.”

We floated on until the creek gently deposited us at a grove of gum trees, their trunks adorned with uniform mossy green bands that marked the creek’s ebb and flow. 

“We are now entering the Magic Forest,” intoned Cathy with a smile as she disappeared into the striped, watery woods. 

The closely huddled trunks fostered a mysterious ambience, for sure. The winter-bare branches sent spindly shadows across the water, pleated skirts swirling in the slow motion of the trees’ growth. Cathy often brings her biomimicry students here as part of SCAD’s Biologist at the Design Table program, offering that when seeking inspiration for science or art, nature likely thought of it first. 

Cathy leading my people through the Magic Forest (peekaboo, you!)

I let my mind drift with the languid current, chasing a bit of stillness before Liberty went back to college and the new year really kicked in. My short little life always feels so busy no matter how much I thought it might slow it down, and the barrage of 2023’s new climatic and political disasters hasn’t helped. I tried not to chastise myself for thinking about droughts and atmospheric rivers and liars appointed to House committees, wondering what the future would bring as I watched the sun fling white sparkles on the creek’s murky ripples. 

Suddenly a ghostly movement behind one of the tree skirts startled me. I wobbled in my boat, thankful for Possum’s life vest. Bowfish might talk, but they can’t fly, right? 

We all turned to see a lone kayaker dressed in cammo gear streaking between the trees.

“Hey there, nice day,” called Cathy to the man as he darted off.

She shrugged with her hands on her paddle. “Hunting or fishing.” 

“Probably drinking and hiding from his wife,” I harrumphed, annoyed that he’d interrupted a rare mindful moment.

We left the enchanted gum forest back into the main channel, cruising another half mile to a hard bend in the river. On the bank stood a turkey vulture, head deep in what looked like another pile of deer entrails. A few rotted wood pylons jutted up, some stapled with signs marked “Private Property” and “No Trespassing.” 

Though the water seemed the same shade of black as the rest, we’d come to the darkest spot on Ebenezer Creek. Here was the site where on Dec. 9, 1864, Union troops slashing their way to Savannah laid down a pontoon bridge to allow its soldiers to pass — then pulled it away before the crowd of newly-freed enslaved people who had been following them could cross to safety. Hundreds of men, women, and children drowned in the frigid water, the rest left to be recaptured and tortured by the pursuing Confederate army. 

Four days later, aghast by the inhumanity of what was supposed to be the “ethical” side of the war, President Abraham Lincoln approved Special Field Order No. 15, which redistributed 400,000 acres of plantation property to former slaves in 40-acre tracts along the Georgia coast. My heart twisted, imagining what a different country this would be if the justice of “40 Acres and a Mule” had held.  

What happened at Ebenezer Creek is often swept together with the many other terrible events of the Civil War, and Liberty confessed that while she’d heard of Sherman’s March to the Sea, she had not learned of this humanitarian disaster in history class. It’s barely mentioned on expedition sites, as it's hardly a fun fact to point out on a nature tour. A historical marker was erected up the road in 2010, but without a guide you would paddle right by this tragic route, its historic horrors remain invisible beneath the surface.

“So many people in Savannah have no idea what happened here. It’s very sobering,” murmured Cathy. She nodded towards the private residence on the banks, where the vulture continued its meal among a small pile of burning leaves and the distant hum of power tools.

“You have to wonder what they hear on cold winter nights.”

We let the creek cradle us for a while, keenly aware of the bones beneath us. If humanity is to evolve and become better at governing ourselves and our planet, the way so often seems impenetrable, so much knowledge buried under the detritus. Finally, the kwirrr of a red-bellied woodpecker broke the mournful silence, a small reminder that nature eventually subsumes all. 

We turned back towards the boat ramp where Possum was waiting to pull us out. Our college girl wondered aloud if she could fit a natural resources class into her spring schedule, chatting with Cathy about wood storks. My mood was still ambivalent about the coming year, and I peered deeply into the dark water, hoping to see something beyond my own reflection.   

The afternoon light spread sideways through the gray forest, glinting through ribbons of purple, greens, and blues on the surface. I sighed, thinking this glassy rainbow was the result of a gasoline spill or some other upstream pollution that would settle on the bottom or make its way out to sea. But Cathy corrected me with delight. 

“It’s pollen,” she said happily, noting that the sunny weather must’ve piqued some nearby oaks to send out the early powder. The scientist stirred the water, pointing out how the refraction of the sunlight evenly separated into colors, causing rainbows on these waters since the gar were newbies.

It was a relief to learn that this kaleidoscopic phenomenon existed long before anyone was there to witness it. Perhaps with enough advocacy and education, it always will. 

And though Ebenezer Creek and its magic forests might have its ghosts and very real threats, its flow reminds us that even if evolution comes slowly, it does come, even in the dark.

Oh black water, keep on rollin’ ~ JLL