Cajun Families of the Atchafalaya (English and French Edition)

Privately Published , 1999. 3rd Printing. Hardcover. Like New. 11x9x0. Signed by Author. Revised and Expanded. Signed "Greg Guirard" on title page. A cultural documentary, with 143 beautiful duo-tone photographs, of the people -- mostly French-speaking Cajuns -- who earn their livelihood by fishing, crabbing, crawfishing, trapping, and hunting alligators, turtles and bullfrogs in Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin. This is a book of black and white photographs accompanied by interviews of the people who are pictured. It is a very moving and personal account of life in the Atchafalaya Basin, introducing some of the people that have lived there all of their lives. The interviews tell about what their lives have been like, mainly centered around fishing, hunting, and logging. Greg Guirard (1937–2017) was a photographer and nature writer on the Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin and Cajun culture. His works were focused on the Atchafalaya landscape, its flora and fauna, and its human population. His life and works were dedicated to nature preservation, inspired by other prominent environmentalists such as Thoreau or John Muir.Besides his works as photographer and writer, Guirard was also an English teacher, tour guide through the Atchafalaya Basin, Cajun speech coach for actors, farmer and cypress furniture maker. He reused cypress logs dragged from the swamps and dedicated himself to reforest formerly deforested cypress lands by planting more than 50.000 trees throughout his entire life. He was an active supporter of Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the ecosystems within the Atchafalaya Basin. Following Thoreau's example, he dedicated himself to pursue a simpler way of living, and his personal Walden was the Atchafalaya Basin where he lived in a riverboat house. Please see our other hunting, fishing, and natural history titles.