Uncover the currents of memory

The water carries stories—of resilience, loss, and survival, of those who live at its edges. Like the river, we are shaped by what we carry.

Recent Quick Dispatches

Short dispatches from the river and beyond

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Recent Field Reports

Longer reports from the field

  • Field Notes from Bayou Teche

    Field Notes from Bayou Teche

    Somewhere between careful piloting and gentle persuasion, we kept the shantyboat pointed downstream. The Atchafalaya doesn’t take kindly to plans. Humidity climbed, moods sagged, but we held course mostly on charisma and sheer will. After days navigating muddy channels and dense cypress corridors, we pulled out at Butte La Rose with the intention of seeing…

    Quick Peek

  • Lynda Frese is out here making art like the Earth is watching

    Lynda Frese is out here making art like the Earth is watching

    We sat down with her this week—painter, collage artist, professor emeritus from University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Lynda grew up in Rhode Island, but her work is soaked through with bayou light and Louisiana mysticism. Her collages pull together satellite scans, saucers, sacred forests, and pigment ground from the literal dirt of this place. She…

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  • The Cats of Krotz (Katz?) Springs

    The Cats of Krotz (Katz?) Springs

    We didn’t see many people in Krotz Springs. But we did see cats. On porches, in tall grass, under trailers. Lounging in the shade or darting behind cars. For every cat we photographed, another vanished the moment we made eye contact—like shadows with whiskers. They weren’t strays. They belonged here. Not to anyone, necessarily, but…

    Quick Peek

  • A Night in Simmesport

    A Night in Simmesport

    Why are we sitting in a police station at nearly midnight after two white young men kitted out in military garb pulled rifles on us for allegedly trespassing? Welcome to our small town in southern Louisiana, where tying up to an unmarked riverbank can get you met by armed young men in tactical vests, backed…

    Quick Peek

  • A Day in Simmesport

    A Day in Simmesport

    Just after breakfast, we passed a spot where geography and history tangle like roots underwater. This is where the Red River becomes the Atchafalaya—where a meander of the Mississippi once captured the Red, and later, human hands sliced it back open, inserting control structures to keep the rivers separated, but not disconnected. A crossroads of…

    Quick Peek

  • First miles, first mishaps

    First miles, first mishaps

    We launched. Not on water yet, but we hit the road—and that’s no small thing. The past week was a blur of last-minute repairs, packing lists, untested gear, late-night epoxy sessions, and frantic repainting. There was preventative maintenance and finishing touches, but also some real “hold-your-breath-and-hope” fixes. You know: the fun stuff. We never got…

    Quick Peek

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Follow the River to Its Deeper Currents

What draws us back to the river, year after year? How does the project challenge dominant history? How do river communities respond to change? Explore the deeper ideas that shape our journey.

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Conversations with people who live and work on the river

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