Page 14 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 2 #2

9 SAFARI TO MATTAMUSKEET
“Safari is a Swahili word
meaning ‘long journey.’”
Although we associate the term with African
safaris, photographers have adopted it to de-
scribe a trip designed to explore an area and
shoot photos instead of animals.
My photographer friend, Ernie, and I plan safa-
ris to explore areas that we don’t know or know
well. We generally study the area to decide on
some general things we want to see and shoot;
and, we find a place to stay, at least for the first
night. After that, everything is unplanned. As
on any animal safari, one never knows when
that special opportunity is going to present it-
self. So, we go with the flow. If we see a dirt
road that looks interesting, we turn down it to
see what we might find. We also ask people we
meet along the way if there are any interesting
places in the area to photograph. We get many
leads this way.
Our most recent trip was to Lake Mattamus-
keet, in Hyde County, which borders the Albe-
marle and Pamlico Sounds. Although both of
us grew up in Charlotte, we had never been to
this area. The lake dates from 1934 when three
private investment companies joined with the
public Mattamuskeet Drainage District to build
the world’s highest capacity pumping plant
and 130 miles of navigable canals in order to
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drain the land and form the lake. The develop-
ers named the reclaimed area New Holland, af-
ter similar reclamation projects in the Nether-
lands. (Information from Wikipedia.) The lake
bed is three to five feet below sea level.
Today the area is a National Wildlife Refuge,
and there are a number of other wildlife ref-
uges and state and national parks within easy
driving distance.
black bears
We learned about the bears and bear hunting
from several hunters we met as we pulled into
the Hotel Engelhard in, you guessed it, Engel-
hard, NC, (population a little over 1,000).
Engelhard is a quaint fishing village that we
entered at the tail end of the annual Christmas
parade last December.
Hyde and the four other counties around it also
host one of the largest black bear populations
in the U.S. The thick underbrush provides a
natural home for the bears. In fact, the largest
black bear ever killed was an 886 pound bear
killed in North Carolina. The state’s estimated
black bear population is about 12,000.
old homes
Over the next several days, we explored the
volume 2, number 2, summer 2012