A kayak to the past: Where to find the still-wild places in South Carolina

Hey guys! Is that a bald eagle?”

A half dozen kayakers paused mid-paddle and looked upward into the cloudless Lowcountry sky. Sure enough, black against the glowing blue canvas, a lone raptor glided in lazy loops high above. As it turned, the white head and tail feathers became visible in the morning light. Within a few minutes the eagle had made several more wide circles and disappeared over the tall pines along the lake’s northern edge. The bird of prey on a morning hunt was one of several bald eagles that make their home around Lake Moultrie near the town of Moncks Corner. Its a reminder that wild places exist surprisingly close to home and can be more accessible than you might suppose.

Lake Moultrie is a 60,000 acre man-made lake that was constructed shortly before World War II as part of a vast reservoir and hydroelectric system in South Carolina. Like the slightly larger Lake Marion to the north, it was carved into the vast floodplain and channel off the mighty Santee River. The lake quickly earned its keep as an energy resource and it also became a magnet for recreation as a fishing, hunting and boating paradise.

But long before the lake, the river and the region were extremely important for a different reason.

The powerful Santee River is formed by streams that rise from the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains and it empties itself in a curving delta miles to the north of the harbor and city of Charleston. In 1786 the state of South Carolina commissioned a canal to connect the commercial port of Charleston with the Santee and open a gateway to prosperous shipping from the upcountry. Col. John Christian Senf was commissioned as engineer and a canal was begun in 1793. This passage would stretch 22 miles between the Santee and Cooper rivers. It would have three brick-constructed locks to lift flatboats and promised to open a new era of prosperity for the state.

Time and progress doomed the project almost from the start as drought and the rise of technology in the form of railroads soon made the canal obsolete. It fell into disuse and much of it was lost when the lake was constructed.

There are still several places where the Santee Canal is visible. One is the Old Santee Canal Park near Moncks Corner and the other is a remaining stretch of several miles on the northern shore of Lake Moultrie.

Recently, I paddled the lake and this stretch of the canal with several friends. When you make this journey by boat or kayak, you will be rewarded by the beauty of the lake and the sense of history that comes from exploring the old canal. Wildlife abounds as alligators silently patrol the waters and migrating songbirds fill the myrtles and cypress along the shore. The canal enters the lake in a wide passage and you will travel down a ruler-straight channel lined with cypress and tupelo. The embankments on either side remind you that the project was hand-dug over 200 years before and yet its mark remains. After several miles the canal becomes too narrow to navigate easily but you will enjoy the remote feel and sense of history around you.

So much of the past is still present in the Lowcountry and when you seek to explore it you will not be disappointed.

This story was originally published March 1, 2017 at 7:57 AM with the headline "A kayak to the past: Where to find the still-wild places in South Carolina."