Water, Seed, Soil

Left: Ricefield trunks, a feature unique to the Lowcountry, regulate the flow of water on the fields. Only a few craftspeople still make these gatelike structures.

Only photographer Gary Clark, flying somewhere high above, sees the area's whole story, written in the watermarks of dikes and canals across autumn's parchment far below. Over decades, with axes, shovels, and mules, African slaves and indentured Irishmen cleared cypress swamps, drained and diked the new fields, cut canals, and built trunk gates that regulated a river's flow on rice crops.

With water, seed, and soil, they grew a golden kingdom like none other in antebellum America, spreading a seasonal buffet for birds. As rice moved west in the late 19th century, wealthy Northerners saved the old estates and redefined plantations as winter residences for escaping the cold and hunting waterfowl.

"A big misconception of the ACE Basin is that it's pristine. It's not," emphasizes Dean Harrigal, a wildlife biologist and ACE Basin project coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. "This place has seen the ax, fire, the whole thing. There are trees getting cut right now. This is a living, breathing, working landscape.

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