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00:01New Orleans
00:05New Orleans
00:10You're gonna get everything that you need
00:17Down in New Orleans
00:21This train, the train they call the city of New Orleans,
00:25left Chicago 8 o'clock yesterday, and in a very short time,
00:30we'll be coming into the city they call the city of New Orleans.
00:42The Great American South.
00:47From the Atlantic to the Gulf,
00:49and a few points in between in a runabout sort of way,
00:53come with me, exploring its rich, its wondrous,
00:56and, let's face it, its sometimes troubled history.
01:01Rejoicing in the spiritual.
01:05And the creative.
01:06Now I have faith in welding.
01:08Wrapping myself in legend and myth.
01:11That's like a sort of American Gothic novel.
01:14Stuffing myself with southern food.
01:16And what is your secret?
01:18Me.
01:20Me.
01:25I want to explore America where the crawdads sing.
01:29By land, by air, by water.
01:33It promises to be uplifting, exciting, and very beautiful.
01:37I'm going with Griff.
01:39Yes, ma'am.
01:40The Great American South.
01:42I've changed my mind!
01:43Ours for the taking.
01:44Safe travels.
01:45I'm heading now as south as south could be, really.
02:04And we're crossing into Louisiana.
02:07And even the name of the state takes you back to colonial times
02:10because it's named for a French king.
02:14This train began running here in the 1940s.
02:18It's been scheduled every day since, leaving Chicago in the evening
02:23and arriving in the afternoon on the following day
02:27to the place nicknamed the city that care for God.
02:30New Orleans, a place with such a convoluted history,
02:36it's a positive gumbo of cultures.
02:43New Orleans sits in the middle of a gigantic swamp.
02:48The true Mississippi Delta.
02:51The land it sits on is only 2,000 years old
02:57because it was created by the silt of the river.
03:07Well, I have arrived, like millions before me,
03:10who came here to make their fortunes by trade or by gambling
03:14or by any other means, refugees from the Haitian Revolution
03:19or Irish or Germans and later Italian, Jewish and Asians.
03:23By the late 1800s, this was the third largest port in the US.
03:29An exit door for produce ferried down the Mississippi.
03:33It's been a wild town, too, since its early days.
03:37I wonder if it's still naughty.
03:39This hotel seems an appropriate place to find out.
03:42Welcome to jail.
03:44Well, thank you very much.
03:46What a great idea.
03:47So tell me, am I going to stay in a cell block?
03:49You are going to stay in cell block B, in fact,
03:52which was the male cell block back when the property
03:54used to be an old jail.
03:55And when was that?
03:56So it was constructed in 1902.
03:59It was a jail all the way up to kind of the mid-60s.
04:02It was never a big, you know, penitentiary.
04:04There was no barbed wire and, you know, big walls outside.
04:08But yeah, they had police officers, patrolmen,
04:10and then they had a few cell blocks upstairs
04:13and a drunk tank lock up over here.
04:16Do you get old convicts coming back and saying,
04:18well, I had such a good time here, I must stay here a little bit longer?
04:22There's a lifter, Uber driver out there in New Orleans
04:25that has been locked up here.
04:27And he's had to, you know, he's dropped off plenty of people
04:29from the airport or from in the city.
04:31And he's come in and he's told them all about their stay.
04:33And I love when this guy comes back.
04:35That's such a funny idea.
04:36Yeah.
04:37I think he loves every time it pops up
04:38that he has to drop somebody off at the old jail.
04:42All right, so Griff, you are in cell block B.
04:45Okay, I get my main meal pushed in for a little...
04:48Yeah, yeah.
04:49Bread and water.
04:50All right, great. Thank you very much.
04:51Oh, and listen, Griff, while you're in New Orleans,
04:53you know this is the big easy.
04:54Yes.
04:55All right, just remember, relax, chill out.
04:59Take things easy.
05:00Yes, of course, I'll take that as my challenge as I languish in my cell.
05:08Relax.
05:10And that's probably the most difficult challenge that I've ever had
05:13because I'm an uptight little Welsh person
05:15and with a tendency to manic behavior.
05:18But I'm prepared to have it a go
05:20because New Orleans is big easy.
05:25And it also has a bit of a sort of...
05:28well, a rakish reputation.
05:32It all dates from the 1940s
05:35when hundreds of thousands of sailors and soldiers
05:40came to this city and partied.
05:42And it got notorious.
05:44But that reputation is one of the reasons
05:48that tourists flock here.
05:52Anyway, I can't waste any time at all.
05:55I've got to get out there and be relaxed.
06:03But from my very first step outside,
06:06the streets become a circus of music and dance and people.
06:10Is this some sort of touristy put on?
06:13Not really.
06:1418 million visitors come to New Orleans each year
06:17and one of the main reasons is that this place
06:20does a street parade like nowhere else on the planet.
06:24It seems to be the home of Mardi Gras.
06:28Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday.
06:32And traditionally it's the Tuesday before Lent
06:35when fasting begins in the calendar of religious observance
06:40and everybody starts eating all the fatty food.
06:44Or it shrove Tuesday, so we tend to eat pancakes.
06:48But here in New Orleans,
06:50it's traditionally celebrated by an enormous festival.
06:53Everybody starts parading around
06:55and what are known as crews take floats out and make a carnival.
07:00And they do that for days on end.
07:03Now, this isn't the Tuesday in March that that happens.
07:09This is the first Sunday in December.
07:13But on that Sunday, this crew have a special parade.
07:19Rene?
07:31Yes, sir.
07:32Hello, I'm Griff.
07:33Hey, man, how you doing? Nice to meet you, man.
07:34I'm very pleased to meet you.
07:35You're looking magnificent.
07:36Oh, man, thank you. I appreciate it.
07:38That's really good.
07:39So, all your crew, is this your crew here?
07:43Yes, this is Dumas Street Gang Social and Pleasure Club.
07:46Why are you going out today?
07:50Well, today is our actual parade.
07:52We've been parading almost 27 years on today.
07:55Mardi Gras was, as you can imagine,
07:57originally a European and rather white event.
08:01This neighbourhood joined the parade more recently.
08:04Talking about the decorum that we wear,
08:06the white dove that's on their shoulder signifies
08:09the pioneers that have passed on,
08:11people that have passed on,
08:12have paved the way for this second-line culture.
08:14It's a resemblance of them.
08:16And somebody said to me
08:17there are nearly a hundred different festivals
08:19in New Orleans.
08:20You have a lot of different festivals.
08:21You have simplest from a jazz festival.
08:24Yeah.
08:25About all jazz to as small as a chicken festival.
08:28Right.
08:29New Orleans is all about being festive
08:31and having a festival.
08:32So, what's the day hold?
08:34What's going to happen?
08:35Long day.
08:36This will be the most exciting four hours
08:40that you've possibly ever witnessed or ever seen.
08:43And everybody, come out and have a good time.
08:55The Dumaine Street Gang's parade
08:58honors people who have passed away.
09:01WHISTLE BLOWS
09:02WHISTLE BLOWS
09:03WHISTLE BLOWS
09:04WHISTLE BLOWS
09:05WHISTLE BLOWS
09:06WHISTLE BLOWS
09:07WHISTLE BLOWS
09:08WHISTLE BLOWS
09:09WHISTLE BLOWS
09:10WHISTLE BLOWS
09:11WHISTLE BLOWS
09:12These so-called second-line parades
09:14began in black neighbourhoods
09:16as funeral processions.
09:18But they borrowed heavily
09:19from the city's Mardoe Grass celebrations
09:21and now are used for everything,
09:23from weddings to community gatherings.
09:26And this is just the beginning.
09:38They've got a long way to go.
09:41WHISTLE BLOWS
09:42WHISTLE BLOWS
09:43WHISTLE BLOWS
09:44WHISTLE BLOWS
09:45WHISTLE BLOWS
09:46This is no tourist jaunt.
09:49This parade will be a regular Sunday affair
09:51across months to come,
09:53with purpose and meaning.
09:55A bit like going to church.
09:57ORCHESTRA PLAYS
10:03WHISTLE BLOWS
10:05COME BY ME
10:08WANT PINCHE PINE
10:10WE'RE NEW ORLEANS
10:12UNTIL WE DIE
10:14WANT PINCHE PINCHE
10:15Well, I feel like a relaxed breakfast now.
10:17Maybe creole or cajun,
10:19maybe gumbo, jambalaya, mufaletta, etouffee,
10:23or po-boy.
10:25just some of the choices in new orleans each with their own story i'm on a street car now and
10:35people use this they're not just here for tourists we're going down the main street and
10:41in 1929 there was a there was a famous strike it lasted for a long time and that strike still
10:48resonates today in the form of a new orleans stapled the po boy sandwich a local restaurant offered
10:56free food to the striking streetcar workers and every time somebody came in um they would say look
11:04here comes another poor boy and they would split open a piece of bread and fill it with food and
11:10hand it to them the strike is long forgotten but the po boy continues as a culinary delicacy here in new
11:20orleans but search no more i found what i'm after can you tell me can i get a po boy here so you've got
11:37an alligator playing boy here yeah oh wow well i bet you know i better try an alligator i think i'm
11:43gonna all right let's try the alligator all right okay and i can carry it out yeah you can carry it
11:49all right okay and i can eat as i go along all right that suits me great thank you very much thank you
11:56po boy originally it was food for people who had no money at all and they were filled with fried
12:05oysters because oysters were cheap now my alligator po boy is gonna cost me a bit more about 23 dollars
12:18get me some alligator and make it snappy
12:20in truth new orleans is a pick and mix of culture the state of which it is the capital originally
12:38stretched from the mississippi mouth all the way to the canadian borders first it was claimed a spanish
12:45territory then french then spanish then french again but this city had a key difference to other
12:54southern cities it operated under french law which meant that enslaved people here were allowed to earn
13:02their freedom so there is a distinct african influence as well and you'll see this in the wonderful mix
13:10represented by the word creole generally many people think creole is a racial mixture it is not
13:19necessarily um creole is a portuguese word in origin that means native to this land um and it was used
13:25to differentiate people coming from europe coming into the new world and being born here so you could
13:31have two african parents two portuguese parents two spanish parents um and be born here and be a creole
13:37person it just meant that you were born here within a specific time frame so if you were born in
13:43louisiana prior to 1803 you're a creole person if you were born in louisiana after 1803 you're a creole
13:49descendant now the year 1803 is significant that was when napoleon decided to sell louisiana to the united
13:59states for 15 million us dollars in order to fund his european wars but despite the sale new orleans
14:08maintains its french connection but what's interesting for somebody who comes here is how the french idea
14:18has continued in your i mean the americans arrived in well 250 years ago and it's been kept alive
14:26partly by those natives those creoles yes france very actually did little for the development of the
14:32city uh spain developed new orleans more than france did but we are french loyalists oh we uh for the
14:39longest time even i i'm very young uh i consider france to be the motherland for some that's extraordinary
14:45kim is a an amazing passionate advocate for the idea of the identity of creole people and the nature of
15:00new orleans this is a city that is not as laid back easy going fun loving as some people might like it
15:13to be it's got a complicated history and a history in which people of color and creoles have played an
15:21enormous inventive part ever since the europeans arrived it's hardly been laid back at all it was
15:34it was the third busiest port in the whole of america people came here for work from all over the world
15:44italians irish and interestingly quite a lot from canada from another french part nova scotia they're
15:53called the arcadians when people talk of cajun stuff they mean canadian stuff canadian french speaking
16:01food and influences there's no relaxing for me in this heady mix down in new orleans
16:16yeah it's right this way another great french tradition to explore is a simple game they call
16:24which evolved into what we now call poker yeah i got room for two more i got my buddy griff here wants to
16:29play hey you got cash i got some cash uh you got room for two right yeah cool yeah uh would you deal
16:38me in for 300 please my friend c has invited me to a friendly game of chance they're playing one three
16:45no limit hold them cash so you see for you like poker was a sort of hobby wasn't it when i'm playing
16:56poker i'm not thinking about work not thinking about the wife not thinking about bills it's an escape
17:02man you can make some money out of it too so if you get lucky three dollars
17:09okay i'm folding yeah i see i'm doing surprisingly well here but the truth is now this is a game of poker
17:18which is completely different to games of poker that i play i mean essentially we're still playing
17:22poker we're still trying to get the same hands but there are certain conventions like the way the
17:27anti is done and this blind has passed around which completely new to me so let me match this
17:33you guys how often will you play poker once or twice a week up to every day some people like it
17:42like it so much some people professional yeah yeah c considers himself a semi-professional player
17:49last year i made uh let's say i made seventeen thousand dollars that's probably not going to be
17:55a trend it's going to go up and down from there but yeah last year was really good
18:00opening bets down we begin
18:04uh yeah i'll get five c's bought his a game not giving anything away interesting 15. 15. and i can tell
18:13he's got his eye on my pot of money i'll raise you whatever that is uh i'm all in oh boy here we go
18:24he is all in which means c stakes everything he has he doesn't know what i have in my hand and i
18:30have no idea what's in his this is called and now he's raising you for the rest if you wish to continue
18:38for the rest already or maybe maybe the filming budget it's a moment of truth with the turn of
18:45the cards will i lose my shirt as well i'd love to see what you have
18:53oh yes a hidden pair of kings wins me the day yeah i called c's bluff and took home the pot
19:00yeah but i go on to win two more hands oh buddy you killed it good job so uh it was beginner's
19:07look and it's never good poker etiquette to leave a table mid-game so i spread the winnings around
19:12the tip was about 50 was it if you decided yeah that's fine and if everybody wants a drink
19:18that's probably a good idea thank you for bringing me here i've had a great great time yeah i bet
19:24bye bye have a really good next 15 hours that's all right because i know this these games are never
19:32short i know see you buddy
19:39all right well over the last year i've consistently started playing poker again
19:43and those were the best hands i've had ever so as you can imagine that hasn't relaxed me that's just made me
19:58rather alarmed bourbon street and just to emphasize the french influence here engineer adrian
20:22de puget laid out the streets of new orleans in 1721 he chose one to carry the name of the french
20:30royal family ruling at the time it sits in the heart of the french quarter and they've been dancing in
20:38the street here just about ever since we're experiencing a sort of rival cacophonies of noise computing for
20:48our attention as we walk our way down through the french quarter at night but the point is
20:56that this was big easy for jazz musicians originally they called it big easy because it was a place where
21:06they could relax and play music and it's the home of jazz the foundation of everything we understand
21:15from syncopated rhythm and and and blaring trumpets was established right here in these clubs on these streets
21:33so does that jazz as easy still continue is this still a place to play what you want earn what you want
21:40and get what you want hello guys bye hi so now you come from a tradition uh of italian jazz players
21:51correct correct so tell me about that well my grandfather papa jack had two boys frank and freddy
21:56and they ended up creating the dukes of dixieland which was the number one jazz band in the country
22:00played on ed sullivan three times they were the first white group they ever played and toured with
22:04lewis armstrong i mean lewis used to come to our house as when i was kids i've got pictures of all of
22:08us kids sitting on lewis's lap and things like that when he came in everybody was just just a fun
22:12time and there's no pretensions whatsoever they were just good friends and i've been going around
22:18new orleans trying to find out if it's true that big easy means laid back and and sort of you know
22:26relaxed and cool but the truth is traditional jazz is quite an agitated music isn't it what i mean by that
22:34is it's quite a lively music oh it's very upbeat for sure the old style back in the 20s and the 30s
22:40may have been a little more slow movement but as it's progressed and jim will probably attest to this
22:45is that it picked its pace up and more groovy more double timed it and just sparked it up a bunch as
22:51it got you know the younger guys got into it did it start in new orleans i think i think yes i think
22:57that most historians will say that it started new orleans for one big reason right new orleans was a port city
23:02just after the turn of the century most important port city probably in the south you had so many
23:07people coming in you had the french you had the italians you had africans every ethnicity coming
23:13and they brought their music and that's how the music evolved now correct me if i'm wrong but i
23:18understood that jazz had some of its origin in the sort of music that was played in parades that followed
23:24funerals is that true in a second line they'd do a dirge and then they'd obviously break into the
23:29the happiness and the joy and to celebrate the life they will join in together on the streets
23:34and perform as one unit even though they've never seen the person they're playing next to before many
23:38times you don't know the person until you shake hands on the bandstand was that military as well
23:43do you think they would recycle their instruments from what i've read about every 10 years especially
23:48the naval academy the band so those musical instruments would end up in pawn shops and people
23:54would go and they'd pick up a horn for five bucks six bucks and to quote the great ellis marcellus
23:59they'd go out on the street and they'd play they'd learn to play because music was always a good
24:03street hustle you could get a couple of pennies thrown in the head if you could carry a tune and
24:07play well if you graduated you'd get into a bar and you join a band that's exactly how that works
24:15yeah that's how lewis got in there that's exactly right i'm gonna hear you guys now i hope this is one
24:21of the places where i can hear it hey man that's right time to get nice that's on and where's my
24:43quite hanky you may have noticed in some of the previous episodes that i've i've joined in
25:02whenever a bit of music has been played but here in big easy i'm afraid what these guys do is
25:10is far from easy
25:27well it's pretty quiet now in the french quarter and i thought it never got quiet here but
25:34it's night and spirits are abroad new orleans is known as a center for voodoo partly because of
25:45films like james bond and pirates of the caribbean but partly because the local tourist board thought
25:52they'd encourage the whole idea in the 1960s so how authentic is the voodoo or hoodoo hereabouts
26:03i thought i'd go and see the local priestess to find out
26:17welcome welcome welcome so what brings you here well i'm traveling through new orleans
26:35and i just um thought it was there's so much there are so many stories there's so many films that feature
26:42voodoo in louisiana and i thought it was important to come and find out a little bit about it okay a
26:47little bit more of the truth about it possibly yeah because james bond movie stuff exactly double
26:53o voodoo yeah so tell me what sort of voodoo do you do you practice so well yeah so you've got new
27:00orleans voodoo and obviously that's a focal point for us i'm from new orleans born and raised
27:06but the path that voodoo took to get here you start in africa and when the enslaved were taken to the new
27:17world you have new orleans becoming part of that story they brought their traditions with them clung on
27:25to those traditions to survive for a while it had to be a fairly secret very much part of the world the
27:33practice was masked behind the catholic practice the slaves were forced to practice catholicism so a
27:43slave master would come in and see catholic imagery and representations looks like they were just
27:49practicing catholicism but they were really honoring their own spirits
27:54we often associate voodoo with hexes and curses but practitioners decide whether they administer
28:04white magic or black is that true about your following voodoo rituals in order to achieve things
28:12for yourself let's say you come to me like i got a crappy boss and i want to hurt him so we always say
28:19well you point the one finger out and how many are pointing back at you more so it's a boomerang
28:27what you put out is going to come back to you and that's us that's not how everyone's going to
28:32practice somebody said you know they went to to see a voodoo priest to see if the football team could
28:37do a little better uh we do we do that we love our scent we love the known saints no shame in our game
28:45okay i mean i don't have a crisis but if i were to say to you what what what blessing could you give
28:50me what help could you give me can we can we do something together the first thing we really need
28:54to do is introduce you to the spirits and then we're going to get a feel for what is going to best
29:01serve you this evening so it all starts with us pouring libations and talking to spirit right and
29:08that's what we're going to do do i need to be naked for that or just uh no wait wait libations
29:13yes he does yeah libations sound like i need to have things poured over me but but what should
29:19i do i'll take my coat off yeah please get comfortable yes i think that's not a bad idea
29:24comfortable but not exactly relaxed how easy is this gonna be and we're gonna do a little cleansing
29:39for you give the cigar and where there's smoke he needs a fire he needs he needs passion all right
29:53you need to go through the fire yeah this is definitely not a very soothing or relaxing experience
30:14hey mama ocean hey mama ocean so how do you feel i feel good a little bit damp but i was just nervous
30:28that i might suddenly catch into flames but no no no but anyway thank you very much bye y'all bye bye safe
30:36travels thank you all right we got some more voodoo to do later y'all well i'm cleansed and weak
30:44of perfume and alcohol rather like one of those ladies of the night on bourbon street
30:56now new orleans is clearly an endless city of parades and parties for visitors
31:02for those who live here day in day out ever present is the very real threat that this is not an easy
31:10natural environment to put it mildly my destination the ocean is about 30 miles in that direction but
31:24sometimes the ocean is about 20 feet in that direction because more than half of the city of new orleans
31:38is actually below sea level this can be a catastrophic problem when one of the regular big hurricanes hits home
31:49in 2005 hurricane katrina tore through here 80 percent of new orleans was underwater and this
31:57whole suburb was flattened
31:59one of the most recent charities like rebuilding together started rebuilding homes straight after
32:05the storm and 25 years later they're still at it this is a strong spirit of community and something
32:13to appreciate when katrina came the the flooding control systems failed was that the big engineering
32:21failure yeah 200 000 homes flooded yeah can you say within an area around here there are still
32:27how many houses that new people need work there's about 20 000 homes that are still blighted uh from
32:32the 20 000 yeah about 10 of the homes that flooded never came back uh we have about 800 homeowners
32:38currently on our waiting just with this house yeah what are you retaining or have you nothing so you've
32:48started all over again yeah so this is a very traditional new orleans design yeah and so essentially
32:55we've just driven the piles 30 feet to the sand strata which is essentially how to make sure that the
33:00foundation is solid and we've tied the the framing system directly into the pierce and are you reasonably
33:07confident that if the levees go or the pumps fail this house the water might even rise above this level
33:15we're built a foot of above the base flood elevation so essentially we're building above
33:20when katrina happened take me to meet anthony right so yeah the man taking possession of this house is
33:26anthony his original home was destroyed by katrina and he's been displaced ever since just storms
33:34one after another came through the hurricane the first one was the big one was yeah katrina oh man
33:39the whole house was gone gone the katrina didn't take it completely out it was really a hard time then
33:46and then a few years later i went on i started trying to get some help somehow or another they got me
33:52on on board i don't know what happened they got me on board they said we'll build you a new house
33:58i'm glad i stuck it out because now look what i got
34:03and this house is going to be secure again this is where i'm going to be here until i go
34:07till i leave this early come high winds or weather or storms right right this is going to hold up
34:15what's your favorite spot going to be the porch my real porch this is where i'm going to be it's
34:20nice and included hit away yeah nobody i know i'm nice and quiet yeah and my sister lives next door
34:27i'm planning on cutting the gate in here yeah so that she can just come on in you know right yeah yeah
34:32i love meeting anthony what a great man and um what a great house but uh but it it's another reason
34:45not to be too relaxed isn't it this can be quite an unsettling place
34:59in louisiana you have to get a boat it's a big part of belonging and the best way to get out of new
35:07orleans and into the bayou and in the bayou you sleep all day and the catfish play according to roy
35:15alberson it's the ultimate laid-back easy-going hinterland of swampy louisiana look at this
35:23this is the largest body of water in louisiana it's called lake ponchertrain
35:32this bridge is crazy
35:37this bridge just goes on and on and on it takes about 30 minutes to cross it this is a great
35:45experience though it's got a sort of bailout point so you get here you go i don't know i can't be
35:52bothered to cross anymore on this bridge i'm tired of it i'm just gonna i'm gonna turn around and go
35:56back and there's one turn around and go back point halfway across what is the longest bridge over water
36:06in the entire world it's almost 24 miles long and an example of american can do engineering in as much as
36:18it probably cost the gdp of belgium to build there we are coming to the end now i feel like you know
36:27a pirate going land ho anyway we've made land we're here and it's here that i'm picking up my lift to get
36:40down to the bayou proper the swamp world at the edge of america i'm intrigued i've no idea what the
36:48legendary place really feels like is this the south's shangri-la crystal hi hello here we are good
36:57hard push on the bow out copy griff if you could just push that bow off beautiful pull our fenders up
37:05and we're up these waters were formed by thousands of years of mississippi river shifting its course
37:17creating vast bodies of water like this well we're out on the lake now on the poncho train lake but i'm
37:26heading for a sort of margarita moment i'm heading to the bayou the lakes the smaller channels the boggy
37:37swamps home to alligators and birds and fish and reptiles and adventurous people like crystal
37:47so crystal to all these creeks do they silt up um not really the bayou got has a lot of movement to it
37:53so it tends to stay pretty deep in the middle you come in the summer this is all gators in the spring
37:59at night you can shine a flashlight and you see just a bunch of tiny beady red eyes from all the
38:04little alligator babies it's a little scary sometimes here um deer swim across which is always pretty
38:11funny to see right you don't expect that with the gators they're here now they're just hiding because
38:17it's cold we've got gators turtles lizards snakes but there are extensive lakes and bayous around here
38:24that you can just endlessly go to there is a lot of gator there's a gator oh yeah look at him
38:32that's a little guy he's come out because he's seen this temperature he's trying
38:37you've been advertised to me as being a looper who's gone around and done an incredible journey by
38:42boat strangely enough yeah so we bought a boat like outside of chicago and came all the way down
38:47the river system popped out into the gulf of mexico and then each summer because it gets too hot here
38:53we go from north carolina up to block island which is off the coast of rhode island beautiful place
38:59and then when it starts to get cold we come back down but it's beautiful you're literally migrating
39:04like birds yeah and then you come back beauty of it is we work on the boats too so we work on boats here
39:10we go up there we work on boats there what what are you seeking nothing i don't know i found it
39:18but you're like a nomad yeah and quite a lot of time just at sea with nothing but the boat and david
39:26yeah yeah they're sometimes called sleeping waters because they're slow moving no fast rushing streams in
39:40okay thank you it's been wonderful despite the alligators and the snakes crystal seems to embrace
39:47the sleepy bio vibe can i cheerio enjoy bye-bye night is coming on it's time to try my hand at a local
39:59diversion and what if an alligator you can't shoot alligators wait a minute we're not shooting alligators
40:05all right okay that's not the season okay how could you not love this it's just the most bizarre thing
40:14i've ever done setting off into the darkness propelled by a giant propeller
40:21i'm going windy night fishing in shallow waters we level off the odds by giving me a bow and arrow
40:34but in this shallow swamp first we've got to employ our giant fan
40:39many of the waterways of the south now contain invasive species like asian carb
40:56now you're ready to shoot now you just hold on to the bow bow fishing was legalized as a sport
41:01as one way to control them conditions are ideal at night you want to be aiming low about six inches
41:08below the fish i understand all right so now we're just cruising looking for them keep an eye out keep
41:16an eye out from the boat front right keep an eye on the front right okay there are fish swimming
41:26everywhere swimming for their lives but they're all small fish all right front left come over here front
41:34left over here over here there he is oh that's close not good enough okay not a bad shot you saw just a
41:46little high little high i should have tried to go lower not a bad shot
41:52one came off on the left one came off on the left could be on either side
42:02oh oh no he swam away keep an eye out up here we're gonna turn around make a little spin this is like
42:12being in a fun fair where despite the encouragement on the right on the right cat big cat big cat fish
42:18shoot him i actually have no chance of winning the fluffy toy oh low high i came right at the boat
42:26i think we have a combination of three things here we have angling archery and incompetence
42:35and the incompetence is definitely winning
42:40somehow when i came along originally i thought this was going to be like shooting fish in a barrel but
42:46this fish will all live to breed or or do whatever they do another day frankly these fish would survive
42:56in a teacup with me firing at them so i guess that's bow fishing for you just to say
43:04no fish were harmed during the making of this program
43:08well we stayed out all night we've caught nothing so decided to try and catch the dawn instead
43:19we're going all the way down to get to the end can we actually get beyond the miles and miles of swamp
43:26through the half land the estuarine mix of louisiana to meet the whole sea and to look out at the gulf ahead
43:38and virtually to the very edge of the bayou here i've left new orleans way behind me what an
43:51incredible town i think it's virtually impossible to relax there not only does it live on a sort of
43:59precipice with a hurricane dew virtually every year that might devastate it but it's also a place that
44:06that parties on and it enjoys itself there's no doubt about that but you need to put a huge amount
44:14of commitment into staying up till three in the morning playing music or parading around the town
44:21here i can finally relax
44:30and i think i understand what big easy really means in louisiana it means easy going it's an open
44:39toleration of different cultures influences backstories and food they're easy about all that stuff
44:49where the crawdads sing and so am i griff can you bring that sail in okay i'm bound for charleston
45:00the old south cheerio i don't know what i expected to unravel the history that's made that place
45:07what it is what it is today
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