La Bayou Society Keeping The Lifeblood Flowing

The story of St. Martin Parish is inseparable from the story of the water that flows through it. Life here has always moved along water, carrying culture, commerce, cuisine and language with it. Seen from above, the network of waterways running through the parish resembles a giant living organism. Two great spines— the Atchafalaya River to the east and Bayou Teche to the west—divide the parish into long vertical ribbons of land and water, and from those two great spines extend hundreds of smaller arter-ies—

bayous, canals, and

backwater channels branching through swamp, prairie and forest like so many blood vessels, water flowing through them like lifeblood.