This article is from the spring 2025 edition of Mobile Baykeeper’s print quarterly, CURRENTS. The magazine is mailed to active members who have given more than $50 in the past year. To get on the magazine’s mailing list, donate here.
By Nick Williams
As the editor of a local print magazine in publication for nearly thirty years, I was thrilled when William Strickland first shared that CURRENTS was in the works. I’m a fan of print. Sure, digital media is cheaper, more convenient, and often allows writers to reach a wider audience. But is that always a good thing?
Call me a hipster, a Luddite, or whatever you like, but the value of print lies in the fact that it is (apologies to the editor) a royal pain to produce and consume. Anyone — and I mean anyone — can publish a blog or social media post. And anyone with thirty seconds to spare in a checkout line can read it. I know this because I both publish and read plenty of online content, professionally and recreationally.
It’s not all bad, but gossip, slander, misinformation, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and other journalistic junk flourish in the digital world because there are no barriers to entry or production costs to weed out the worst of it. It’s like a factory churning out cheap hot dogs: grind it up, stuff it, and sell it. If you make enough and price it low enough, someone will consume it, regardless of what’s inside.
If blog posts and social media snippets are cheap hot dogs, books are a three-course meal at a formal restaurant. While there’s no guarantee of an exceptional experience, significant time, effort, and money go into the process. Your odds are good.
Books generally take years to write, let alone edit and publish. A hot-take blog post? Days, at best. It seems reasonable to assume that if someone spent years crafting a book, it’s worth a few hours of my time to read it.
The more serious the topic, the more critical it is to seek reliable, well-researched information. To me, there is no topic more important than rivers. All human endeavors depend on them, and regardless of political affiliation, race, or socioeconomic status, clean air, water, and food are essential to everyone’s well-being.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of books I consider essential reading for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta waterway. Over two decades of “getting to know” the Delta have taught me that understanding a river requires a multidisciplinary approach. Grasping its ecology and natural history is crucial, as is appreciating its human history — always astonishingly brief in comparison. And beyond the list of wealthy names and bloody dates lies the soul of a river: the poetry and folklore it inspires. These books cover “all the bases,” and I unreservedly recommend them to you.
Gone to the Swamp: Raw Materials for the Good Life in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta
By Robert Leslie Smith
“…I have felt the need to record — for those to come — some remembrances of a time when the Delta was not a playground.”
So begins one of the most fascinating books I’ve had the pleasure of reading. Partly a local history, partly an anthology of stories, and partly an autobiography, this book offers a unique look at what “the Delta” was like before it was protected under Forever Wild. It paints a vivid picture of what logging activities looked like “in the old days,” back when teams of oxen were still the best and surest way to extract timber from the muddy swamps.
As a Stockton resident and avid sportsmen, I came to this book with the expectation of a few good stories, but walked away with insights into local landmarks that I didn’t expect. From stories of black-bear hunts on the Baldwin County Hunting Club to the origins of the Red Hills Spring watering hole, it left me with a much deeper understanding of and appreciation for my small corner of the world.
The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea
By Jack E. Davis
Jack Davis’ The Gulf offers a broad, sweeping, environmental history of the Gulf Coast, stretching all the way back to the Spanish Conquistadors and culminating in the modern “Condominium Conquest” of the Gulf. It’s required reading for anyone looking to understand the history, ecology, and culture of the Gulf Coast region. While primarily interested in the ecology of the area and its impact on the history and culture, it makes plenty of room to discuss the invention of Tabasco sauce, the history of tarpon fishing, the roots of Yankee ingenuity in the commercial fishing industry, and the colorful reflections of Ocean Springs’ reclusive artist, Walter Anderson.
It also covers more serious topics, such as the steady decline of the commercial fishing industry, the replacement of mangrove swamps and tidal marshes with condominiums and golf-course communities, and the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Whether you’re a recent transplant or a lifelong resident, The Gulf will help you settle your roots in the sandy soils of the Gulf Coast.
Southern Rivers: Restoring America’s Freshwater Biodiversity
By R. Scot Duncan
“Despite their economic and cultural importance, rivers are invisible to most who live in the Southeast … They sink into the landscape, veiled behind curtains of forest or guarded by No Trespassing signs. Most people only ever see rivers through windshields from bridges. It takes an act of pilgrimage to stand beside a creek or river. This invisibility must end because southeastern rivers are in crisis.”
As somebody who has fished almost every county and every river in Alabama, Scot’s opening words in the preface to Southern Rivers resonate deeply with me. Our rivers are beautiful, full of history, and, for the most part, loaded with fish.
On the other hand, spawning fish die at the base of dams that block eons-old migration routes. Sediment runoff from new construction chokes their tributaries. Their banks are collapsing as timber is harvested from them. Waste from power plants, paper mills, chemical plants, timber operations, and a myriad of other sources poisons their waters, their fishes, and then the families of the fishermen who line their banks.
The bad news, according to Scot, is that our rivers have serious problems. The good news, which is often left out in environmental books, is that we know how to solve them. I finished the book with the same “cautious optimism” that the author himself shares. We have the knowledge, the tools, and even the time to save some of the most important rivers in the world. The question is, do we have the will?
The Mobile River
by John S. Sledge
John Sledge has written enough on the history and culture of the Lower Coastal Plain that he deserves his own list. It was tough to narrow a recommendation down to one particular book, but I feel that The Mobile River, which is now available in paperback with a new preface, sits nicely on a small shelf in between Jack Davis’ sweeping The Gulf and more focused local histories such as Gone to the Swamp. The Mobile River, measured in miles, is not a particularly large river. But when you measure its history and the impact it has had on the rest of the country, as Sledge does, you’ll find that few rivers are as momentous.
The topic is riveting, the writing engaging, and the color and black-and-white images complement the storytelling beautifully. Of particular interest is a color image of a Civil War-era map of Mobile Bay drawn by Union engineers in preparation for the Battle of Mobile Bay. Duck hunters and anglers will observe that Duckers and Polecat Bay both looked very different in the 1880s than they do today, having been mostly filled in and cut off from the surrounding waterways by sediment trapped by the Causeway and Bayway.
If you’ve ever strolled through the History Museum of Mobile or the National Maritime Museum and left wanting more, John S. Sledge is your man, and The Mobile River is a fantastic introduction to his body of work.
The Tensaw River: Alabama’s Hidden Heritage Corridor
By Mike Bunn
The winner writes history, and the Mobile side of the Bay has always been the “winner” in terms of economic, industrial, and political power. A lifelong Eastern Shore resident who has ranged from Foley to Stockton, this has always rankled my feathers a bit.
I was thrilled to add Mike Bunn’s The Tensaw River to my bookshelves last year. The most recently published book in this list, it’s also the shortest, which makes it rank higher, not lower, on my list. Good writers get in and get out, and Mike is obviously a good writer. The pages are packed with history, and this book makes for a wonderful dashboard companion on an expedition up State Route 225 and Highway 59 to “see the sights.” From Spanish Fort, to Blakeley, to the Stagecoach, to Fort Mims, and everywhere in between, this book tells the often forgotten story of “the other half” of the Mobile-Tensaw.
In the Realm of Rivers: Alabama’s Mobile-Tensaw Delta
Written by Sue Walker, Photos by Dennis Holt
One of my life’s happiest accidents was deciding to use my one-and-only elective course credit to enroll in Creative Writing II at the University of South Alabama, which was an advanced poetry composition course that I had absolutely no business being involved in. It was taught by Dr. Sue Walker, who at the time was Alabama’s Poet Laureate.
Dr. Walker very generously gave me enough encouragement in my flounderings to make me realize that I enjoyed writing almost as much as I enjoyed reading, something that quite literally changed the course of my life. It wasn’t until after I had graduated that I learned she had produced a coffee table book alongside photographer Dennis Holt. It took a couple of years and an embarrassing amount of money to track down the copy I just had to have.
Any attempt to summarize or explain their work would be totally inadequate. Instead, I’ll let Dr. Walker’s poetry speak for both itself and for one of my favorite waterways in the Delta.
Standing on the bank of Bayou Tallapoosa
it is possible to believe
how the sound of wind
in cypress crowns
are prevailing psalms,
chanted celebrations
of a sheened and sheening earth
singing supplejack and muscadine,
willow and wisteria,
ibis and sparrow,
singing salamander and bass,
eagle and otter,
and the human being, like to a tree
planted by water-rivers
in season yields fruit
and the leaf never withers
as all who join in communion
give thanks,
give thanks.
Among the Swamp People: Life In Mobile Alabama’s River Delta
By Watt Key
I’ve never had the pleasure of conversation with Mr. Key, but I have had the pleasure of meeting his friends. “Crazy Dan,” the eccentric but kind-hearted character who Key recounts as dancing in the flames of a sunken houseboat as it burns down, is as real as the nose on my face. I hunt every year over some duck decoys that he gave me. And some CURRENTS readers may recall that the proprietress of Cloverleaf Landing, Ms. Lucy “Pie” Hollings, is also a character who is somehow even more interesting in person than she is in Watt’s colorful stories.
In Among the Swamp People, Key breathes life into the human side of the Delta. His stories are by turns outrageously funny and poignant, and anybody who has spent any time themselves in the company of “Swamp People” will know that this is a “real-deal” account of camp-life in the Delta.
Bottle Creek Reflections: The Personal Side of Archaeology in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta
By Ian W. Brown
On my desk sits a small collection of pottery shards taken from the ever-eroding banks of my own backyard. I’ve spent hours looking at them and wondering about the people who made them. What songs did they sing? What jokes did they make? Did they take their gods literally or figuratively? Sadly, we know more about the surface of Mars than we’ll likely ever know about the peoples who thrived along the Gulf Coast before the arrival of the Spaniards.
I picked up Bottle Creek Reflections hoping to learn more about the mounds and middens that dot the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, and the people who made them. And I did learn a little bit about that, but what I learned a lot more about is what it was like to be a college student digging in the dirt and swatting mosquitoes in the early ’90s.
Bottle Creek Reflections offers a fascinating look at life in the Mobile-Tensaw through the lens of Mr. Brown’s personal diary entries chronicling his time spent at the Bottle Creek mound site. The writing itself is superb, with hair-raising accounts of cottonmouths, surprise thunderstorms, and foggy, nighttime barge encounters. Complimenting his firsthand account are numerous candid photographs and sketches depicting everything from artifacts to timber-company helicopters refueling on river barges.
At some point in reading through his tales of tribulations and camaraderie, I realized that maybe we know more about the Bottle Creek residents than I supposed. They, too, undoubtedly cursed the heat and the bugs, huddled together in awe of the summer storms, and laughed until they fell over at the minor misfortunes of their friends.
Southern Water, Southern Power: How the Politics of Cheap Energy and Water Scarcity Shaped a Region
By Christopher J. Manganiello
It is, admittedly, a bit of a stretch to sneak a book on the Savannah River into a list of required reading for Mobile Bay residents. But I make no apologies. Those who don’t learn their history are, after all, doomed to repeat it, and the history of Atlanta’s water woes may very well foreshadow the history of Alabama’s.
At the heart of Manganiello’s account of the history and politics of the Atlanta and surrounding region’s water and power woes lies two massive characters: Southern Power Company and the US Army Corps of Engineers. This book tells the story of how these two massively powerful avatars of Big Business and Big Government have made, for better or worse, decisions for the rest of “us folks” on how our waterways are to be utilized. It’s an all-too-common tale of short-term thinking, privatized profits and socialized consequences, and private wealth being built from public resources. With the current troubles over coal ash and mud dumping in our own state, it’s a worthwhile read for those who wish to be informed.
Saving America’s Amazon: The Threat to Our Nation’s Most Biodiverse River System
By Ben Raines
“Hidden away in the heart of Dixie, one of the nation’s greatest wildernesses is being destroyed, bit by bit, in a silent massacre.”
If it was up to me, this gem of a book would be required reading for every Alabama citizen. Ben Raines does a phenomenal job showing both the Delta’s incredible ecological richness and the real and pressing threats to its survival. The writing is tight and engaging, and the pictures really are worth a thousand words each. His last chapter, “Protecting the Edges,” is sadly proving to be prophetic, as development encroaches more and more upon the countless streams and creeks that feed lifeblood into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta and Mobile Bay.
This book hits close to home. One can read it, cover to cover, in an afternoon, and then go hop in a car or boat for an evening excursion to see both the beautiful and ugly side of the Delta that Ben points out.
An Honored Place on the Shelf
It’s my belief that the bookshelf should occupy as prominent a place in households as the television set, and that local books should have an honored place on that shelf. While I’ve accepted that life is far too short to allow me time to read every book worth reading, that knowledge hasn’t stopped me. If you feel that I’ve omitted a local classic from this list, I’d love to know about it. Send me a message about it at nickwilliams@greatdaysoutdoors.com, and I promise I’ll read it.
