Of all the cultures in the North American melting pot, none are quite as fascinating as the Cajuns. Making their home in the bayou, or rural wetlands of Louisiana, the twang of the French Cajun accents and the “joie de vivre” (joy of living) of their lifestyle, can’t be missed.
This photo of a Cajun cabin in the Louisiana Bayou was taken in the Manchac Swamp, on the Cajun Pride pontoon boat, during my amazing seven days of Mardi Gras adventure a year ago. If there’s something everybody who wants to have fun should do, it’s go to Mardi Gras!
But, back to the bayou. It’s one of my favorite places for lots of reasons: the sage-woodsy smells of the cypress trees, their knuckles poking up out of the muddy water, its ripples as an alligator floats stealthily near the shore, and the Spanish moss streaming like tinsel at holiday time, just to name a few.
While it may seem strange that a prairie girl could feel so at home in the Louisiana Bayou, it’s all about the joie de vivre, which is also a part of living in rural Saskatchewan.
Here’s a video to give you the Canadian connection to Cajun people of the Louisiana bayous.
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While Mardi Gras celebrations take center stage in cities from Rio de Janeiro to the Cayman Islands to Quebec City, none are more celebrated around the world than in Louisiana. And New Orleans, of course, the city that parties the entire period from Twelfth Night (the last night of Christmas which begins Epiphany) to Ash Wednesday, is the top Mardi Gras destination for everyone from millennials to baby boomers. Mardi Gras Dates Mardi Gras begins…
Finding alligators in Louisiana in February can be difficult even on a day hitting 60 degrees, the average monthly high. My first visit to this warm winter destination, some fifteen years ago, the only alligator I saw was a foot-long little guy the tour guide had brought along. This February, though, I was much luckier! This time we packed in various Mardi Gras celebrations, along with the best of Southern Louisiana, on our eight day…
Swamp tours are the #1 thing to do when you visit South Louisiana! Imagine alligators lurking in the shadows, finding shade under Spanish moss covered cypress trees on the shore. Your covered pontoon tour boat glides by as one of these "live fossils" from the Age of Reptiles, some 200 million years ago, slides into the swamp. In fact, when you're in Atchafalaya Basin you're seeing the largest river swamp in the United States, home…
Ahoy, mateys, as they say! There's nothing like a rollicking pirate story to captivate a reader, especially if that reader is me. David and I were lucky enough to attend Contraband Days, Louisiana's premier pirate event, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in the first week of May, 2013. The festival is always on the last day or two of April and the first couple of weeks of May, making it April 29 to May 11, 2014.…
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