How to survive in a Louisiana swamp

I’d come because I was curious about what drives someone to live in a swamp. The flat-bottomed boat nosed through the murky water like an alligator. At the tiller, Keith steered with the confidence of a man who’d run these channels since boyhood, his camouflage style and mirrored sunglasses screaming summer of ’87. Tara sat up front, loose strands of blonde hair breaking free from her braid in the cool wind. We were slinking through the edge of the Atchafalaya Basin, the largest river swamp in the United States. It’s about an hour and a half west of New Orleans, Louisiana, where the French Quarter had been restless the night before, with partying tourists and jazz bands. I’d heard Pierre Part (population: 3,000) was about as Cajun as you could get; that it was the most French-speaking town