Okefenokee Swamp Lures You in With Its Peaceful, Haunting Beauty

The tannin-stained water of the Okefenokee is dark and reflective and is coffee-colored because of decaying vegetation. The swamp, on the border of Georgia and Florida with most of its 700 square miles in Georgia, is the largest blackwater swamp in the U.S. Mary Ann Anderson/TNS

By Mary Ann Anderson From Tribune News Service

Call it what you will — primordial, mystifying, daunting, backwater or, above all, magnificent in that swamp sort of way — the Okefenokee Swamp is one of Georgia’s most beloved treasures. Covering some 700 square miles in southeastern Georgia and the very northern reaches of Florida, the Okefenokee, whose name means “Land of the Trembling Earth” in the Creek language, is now part national wildlife refuge and part privately owned park that is widely known for harboring an incredible cache of biological and ecological wonders.