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hen considering the history of Nola, Jackson Square plays an essential role. French colonials originally named the park Place d’Armes, translated as “weapons square”. This park served as the spot for public executions of criminals and rebellious slaves, and the heads of the hanged criminals were often placed on the city’s gates. In 1803, this park saw Louisiana made United States territory in accordance with the Louisiana Purchase. 12 years later, Place d’Armes was renamed Jackson Square, following the vital victory under Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson, in which American forces held off the city from a British attack and only suffered 70 casualties, compared to the British forces’ 2,000. Today, street artists, palm readers, and voodoo witches surround the square’s fence line, creating a lively atmosphere and unique entertainment.

30 miles southeast of the Big Easy sits Hopedale, built in between the winding channels of brackish water that serves as transportation systems for the guides and crabbers that inhabit this small town. I remember travelling to Hopedale for the first time in 6th grade and seeing the eye-opening conditions these blue-collar Louisiana natives live under. Hundreds of people lined the roads, fishing for redfish and speckled trout in the runoff trenches, not knowing that saltwater fish had no way of getting into these drainage systems, nonetheless living in them. Our group packed 12 people into two doublewide trailers, which proved to be a pain at 4:45 in the morning, with people scrambling around to find PFG shirts and Costa sunglasses before the Cajun guides left the docks. With lines in the water before daylight and fish striking lures faster than you could reel them in, we’d be worn out and ready to make the thirty-mile trek back to the docks around 3:00 in the afternoon.