Freedom in the Swamps

By Jacqueline L. Scott, Safina Center Senior Fellow

A yellow warbler in a shrub

The border between land and water is the kingdom of the wetlands. They can be a swamp, bog, fen or marsh – depending on how much water covers the land.

Leslie Spit, Toronto is built on reclaimed land and its wetland has become a haven for birds. It’s a favorite birding patch of mine as it is wild and yet still in the city. As I walked along its gravel path, cattails quivered in the breeze, and a downpour of sunshine warmed my skin. Within minutes I saw chickadees, Baltimore Orioles and Red-wing Blackbirds. And of course lots of ducks and a few raptors.

There used to be a huge natural marsh in the eastern edge of Toronto. For millennia it was part of the hunting grounds of Indigenous people. The wetland was so plentiful with birds, fish, and turtles that it seems limitless. Early white settlers depended on the bounty of the marsh to help them get through the long winters. And yet, within a century of European settlement some 90 per cent of the city’s wetlands were gone. They were drained or filled in for farms, and later covered with concrete for urban development.

At Leslie Spit some tall trees had their feet in the water and their branches reaching up to tickle the clouds. It was calm, quiet, a land of endless shades of green. Larger marshes like these were once a refuge for fugitive slaves. They built communities – known as maroons, quilombos, or palenques, depending on the country – like those in the Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia. The fugitives were safe as swamps were hard to navigate for outsiders; there were no trails to follow, and lots of water hid scents from the hungry blood hounds.

A Great Blue Heron, with stilts for legs, was planted in the water waiting for a fish to become dinner. A yellow warbler flitted about a shrub. It seemed anxious. It took some long minutes for me to realise that its nest was probably nearby and I was too close to it. I moved away and the bird seemed to calm down.

Wetlands provide many ecological functions. They are the first line of defense against floods and storms battering the land. Take away the swamps, and angry waters invade the land, leaving death and destruction in their wake. Like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Yet, in the white spatial imagination swamps are bad places, best avoided. They were the homes of diseases, bogey men and witches.

Common Terns and Ring-bill Gulls flitted in the air near a large pond. A couple of photographers stood and stared, trying to find something new to shoot in the wetland. The bird man – John James Audubon – had no choice but to use a gun to capture his birds. Camera lens are much better for the birds and the birders.

Leslie Spit, a haven for birds in Toronto

In the Black spatial imagination swamps were hard but safe places to live. They offered shelter, hope, and the possibility of sweet freedom.

Audubon stumbled upon a Black family living in the swamps, as he hunted for more birds to paint for his gorgeous book Birds of America. The family was trying to survive in the Louisiana wetland. They were ripped apart when the husband, wife, and children, were each sold separately on the auction block, and forced to live on dispersed plantations. The husband found and reunited the family in the swamp.

They were safe until Audubon came along.

In a story called “The Runaway” in Ornithological Biography, his book of nature writing, Audubon describes how he spent a night eating and talking with the family. In the morning he persuaded them to return to slavery, and the initial slave-owner to promise never to sell the family again. It’s an incredible story that makes Audubon have it both ways. He looks good as the hero for saving a fugitive family, while supporting the status quo of Black enslavement and white dominance. Audubon is a master nature painter and a storyteller too.

The loss of wetlands increases the risks for riverine and coastal communities. They are even more important now due to the extremes in weather caused by the climate crises. Swamps are nature’s buffers and absorbers. Some are being restored to protect communities and to provide homes for birds and other wildlife.

Mama Odie lives in a swamp in Disney’s animation film The Princess and the Frog. This queenly Black woman is part healer, wizard, and fairy godmother. She is a small, jolly bundle of wisdom for the Black princess and the rest of the community. Mama Odie’s signature song is “Dig a Little Deeper” to find what you really need from life. I love the Roseate Spoonbills singing and dancing along with her as she belts out the gems of wisdom.

In Leslie Spit I drifted over to another large pond where a gaggle of men chatted or meditated as they reeled in or out their fishing lines. Wetlands help to purify water. Fish, amphibians and small mammals also depend on them as they are a rich habitat with lots of food and protective cover. On other walks around this wetland, I have watched fish and frogs frolicking in the water, and a beaver and mink busy with their own business. 

Knowing how to read the land, including the swamps, made Harriet Tubman a successful liberator. She made multiple trips guiding people from enslavement to freedom on her own Underground Railroad. Along the way they used the wetlands for food, shelter and hiding. Some of those swamps still survive, such as the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, Maryland which is now a sanctuary for migrating birds.

Harriet Tubman lived in Canada for about a decade. There is a wetland close to the Salem Chapel, her former church in St. Catharine’s, Ontario. I have visited the church a few times. My next bike ride in the area will be a trip to see these wetlands.

Jaqueline L. Scott, author.