THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 21, 1995 TAG: 9505180373
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 161 lines
IT'S THE KIND of place Herman Melville or Ernest Hemingway could have turned into a tale about man's struggle with nature.
Only this time man's enemy wouldn't be a monstrous whale or a charging bull. It would be the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.
It's not the gators that would whip man - it's the marshes, the muck, the mud.
Loggers, moonshiners and farmers worked for decades to tame this 150,000-acre land and they all lost, finally surrendering it to the National Park Service nearly 15 years ago.
Today, endangered species such as the American bald eagle, the peregrine falcon, the red-cockaded woodpecker and the American alligator roam freely through the preserve, while only remnants of man remain.
The refuge is home to a small population of red wolf, which was extinct in the region before being re-introduced here. The preserve also is believed to hold one of the largest concentrations of black bear along the Mid-Atlantic coast.
The waters in the creeks and the river are stained a dark tea-color from the cypress trees that have made a comeback since they were heavily logged in the 1920s and '30s. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is completing a study of the cypress stands and is currently hiring students to help inventory the white cedar through the summer.
When the sun hits the murky water's surface, it mirrors the images of the bayberry trees, Atlantic white cedar and pine.
Pamela Malec, the kayak program director for Kitty Hawk Kayaks, leads trips through the creeks of the preserve.
Malec tells tales of moonshine buried beneath the mud of these murky waters and of divers going after the aged illicit liquor. She gets boaters to eye the underbrush in search of string tied to the trees and leading into the water, where she claims there's sure to be a jug of moonshine attached.
Malec guides the tour past rusting train trestles and other remnants of a decaying company town - left over from the days when these woods were logged for the valuable cypress trees.
The preserve was once home to Buffalo City, which was founded around 1885 by three men from Buffalo, N.Y. - hence the name. The men bought 168,000 acres and began a modest logging operation. Shortly after the turn of the century, they sold out to the Dare Lumber Co.
The white cedars were heavily logged because they are popular in boat and home building. Their value enticed loggers to fight through the wet peat soils of the Albemarle-Pamlico area.
According to historical accounts and news and magazine articles, the lumber company built up the town and hired workers at 15 cents an hour. They erected a company store and a company school - where employees' children could attend for 5 cents a day.
When the lumber company went broke, the town turned to making moonshine. It was the height of Prohibition, and the area became famous for its liquor. One news article from 1936 details the end of an era for the area, also known as East Lake.
``Someone not so very long ago estimated that approximately 1.5 million quart bottles of liquor that had its inception at the East Lake distilleries found their way to hotel rooms and night club tables in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York during the Dry Era,'' the article reads. ``One fashionable New York hotel advertised `East Lake Cocktails' on its bill of fare in the halcyon days of the Hoover administration.''
The death of moonshining was blamed on Prohibition's repeal and a proliferation of government-run ABC stores in eastern North Carolina and Tidewater Virginia, ``selling more reliable brands of good quality liquor at cheaper prices.''
Residents turned to farming for awhile, but found the area too unyielding and the crops too small. The land was later turned into a more than 100,000-acre farm that failed when the operators couldn't get draining permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In 1984, then-owner Prudential Life Insurance donated 118,000 acres to the Nature Conservancy. The land was turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which also later purchased other farms, making the size of the preserve more than 150,000 acres.
There are still two homes standing on the dirt road that leads to Milltail Creek. There are sheds and boats that also dot that road, the only traces of a town that once boasted two hotels, a school and a store.
Today, there are a variety of ways for visitors to see the refuge.
Off U.S. 264, travelers can see a kiosk with information about the refuge and the wildlife there. Behind the kiosk there's a half-mile paved trail with a boardwalk that goes out over the water. The Creef Cut Wildlife Trail and Fishing Area is wheelchair accessible. Even though it is a tame trail, Bonnie W. Strawser, who works in the refuge with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said visitors have seen black bear crossing it.
``Last time I was on that trail, a bear wandered across it, looked up and wandered off,'' Strawser said. ``That's relatively common.''
While visitors should keep a lookout for wildlife, they shouldn't be disappointed if they don't see a bear or an alligator their first time out. Refuge workers estimate there are about 100 alligators in the preserve, which is the northernmost boundary of the American alligators' habitat.
On the Milltail Creek Road, a dirt road off of U.S. 264, there's a platform overlooking the creek. The waters surrounding that platform, Strawser said, are a favorite haunt for one of the gators. If visitors are quiet, they can often catch sight of its snout.
Nearby, there is a rough trail laid by the Manteo High School football team a couple of years ago. Strawser said visitors are more likely to see ``critters'' from that trail, which is often under water.
Finally, there are the water trails through the creeks. The four main paths are marked by colored PVC-pipe. The trails range in distance from 1 1/2 to 5 1/2 miles. Individuals may canoe and kayak the trails on their own free of charge. Kitty Hawk Kayaks purchased a permit to guide visitors through the trails. Melvin Twiddy out of Manns Harbor also has a permit for canoe tours.
Malec, a biology major who studied reptiles and amphibians at Salem College in West Virginia, leads many of the tours for Kitty Hawk Kayaks. A former park service employee, she worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to mark the canoe trails through the preserve's creeks.
Malec calls one creek trail ``the labyrinth'' because it winds and turns through the woods. Malec is familiar with many of the plants and can point out sweet wild blueberries growing right over the water. On walks through the woods, Strawser said, folks should also keep an eye out for wild cranberry bogs.
As Malec guided the small group of kayakers through the creek trails one warm May afternoon, jets blasting overhead disturbed the tranquility of the trip. It's a sign of man's continuing attempts to tame this wild land.
There's a bombing range used by Navy and Air Force jets for target practice in the center of the preserve.
But Strawser said the planes are a mixed blessing.
``The two combined are a nice chunk of wildlife area. If the bombing range weren't there, that area would have been developed,'' Strawser said of the 140,000-acre target area. ``The bombing range sort of inadvertently provided that habitat for the wildlife. Undeveloped land is a rare commodity. It's a nice cooperative thing.''
Strawser said the jets don't seem to bother the wildlife. She said groups assigned to study the animals report that black bears look up as the jets fly over but don't seem to be ``stressed out.''
Maybe the bears are just used to noise after decades of man trying to tame these woods. Their ancestors outlasted logging operations, trains and steamboats that once disturbed the peace of their home.
And now that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service owns the land, there is a commitment to save the trees and to keep tabs on the wildlife, at the same time showing off nature to visitors who no longer want to tame the wild beast that is the Alligator River preserve. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by DREW C. WILSON
[Color cover photo]
A waterbug skirts the edge of a submerged piece of wood along a
trail at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.
A waterlily blooms along a bank near Sawyer Lake at Alligator River
National Wildlife Refuge.
Guide Pam Malec paddles ahead through the entrance to Milltail Creek
at Buffalo City.
The water has been turned tea-colored by the cypress trees that
populate the refuge.
OTHER REFUGES TO VISIT<
[list of refuges]
by CNB