Over the past few years, Gerard set out, in stages, to boat the entire length of the Cape Fear again – all the way from Chatham County, just south of Chapel Hill, where it’s formed by the junction of the Deep and Haw rivers, to its mouth at Southport, where it empties the silt that forms the Frying Pan Shoals.
He paddled in a canoe through the rapids with biologist David Webster, an associate dean at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He detoured through the Black River swamps in a kayak with fellow author Virginia Holman and her husband. He cruised much of the lower reaches with Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette. And he talked and sailed with dozens of other experts, informants and all-around characters.
In “Down the Wild Cape Fear,” Gerard recounts the experience, while stopping off to describe the Cape Fear’s history, wildlife, ecology, economics and possible futures.
It’s similar to the strategy that fellow UNCW faculty member David Gessner used in his book “My Green Manifesto,” turning a cruise on Massachusetts’ Charles River into a debate on the future of environmentalism. (Gerard generally cites Gessner in his text.)
Well, the Cape Fear is more than 200 miles
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