New Orleans Lake Pontchartrain: The North Shore

There are some hidden gems across from New Orleans on Lake Pontchartrain.  The towns of Mandeville, Hammond, Covington, and Bogue Chitto State Park.  All four have great year-round American Volkssport Association (AVA) walking events.  We are headed south to walk and eat some of the world's best food.  French-influenced Lousiana Cajun is a uniquely American experience found nowhere else. 

Our base of operations is Fontainebleau State Park, a former sugar plantation on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain located near Mandeville, LA, near the Causeway Bridge.  Which is at 24 miles the world's longest continuous overwater highway.  It cuts Lake Ponchartrain in half and ends in New Orleans on the Southshore.  The first few days, we walked the north shore towns of Mandeville, Hammond, and Covington.  All three towns have an eclectic feel with their own vibe.  

Mandeville is a resort town with a large lakefront park with some great restaurants.  It has laid back feel.  It's a great place to get a bite to eat and enjoy the sunset.  Daily steamboat traffic started in the 1850s; with its lakeshore breezes, Mandeville has always been a place to escape the oppressive heat of New Orleans. 

Hammond, the home of Southeastern Lousiana University, is an exciting downtown to include the founder's gravesite and the Hammond Tree, a large Live Oak.  Under the tree are several graves of him and his family.  His story is an interesting one, a genuinely American one.  

 "Peter Hammond (1798–1870),  a Swedish immigrant who first settled the area around 1818.  Peter, a sailor, had been briefly imprisoned by the British at Dartmoor Prison in Briton during the Napoleonic Wars.  He escaped during a prison riot, made his way back to sea, and arrived in New Orleans.  Hammond used his savings to buy then-inexpensive land northwest of Lake Pontchartrain.  There, he started a plantation to cultivate trees, which he made into masts, charcoal, and other products for the maritime industry in New Orleans.  The goods were transported by oxcart to the head of navigation on the Natalbany River at Springfield.  He owned at least 30 enslaved people before the Civil War.  As Union soldiers raided his property, Peter Hammond lost his wealth during the war."

The Covington walk had an equaling attractive downtown with a 10-foot statue of President Ronald Reagan.  It is also the start of the Tammany Trace, a 31-mile rails to trails project bike trail that runs through Mandeville to Sidel along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. 

Our final walk was at Bogue Chitto State Park is, located on the Bogue Chitto River.  This is a new addition to the Lousiana State Park system opening in 2010.   The walk takes you along the river and gives you a good taste of the Lousiana Mississippi River delta biodiversity.  It includes small streams, cypress-tupelo swamps, and upland and bottomland hardwood forests. 

We took a break from walking to drive the Causeway Bridge over to New Orleans one day.  We visited the National Parks sites.  The Chalmette Battlefield from the War of 1812 and the Jon Lafitte Center in downtown New Orleans.  Afterward, we found a local restaurant with boiled Crawfish and Crawfish Etouffee. Today's Ketch Seafood and Restaurant was the place of my Cajun dreams in Chalmette, LA.   A trip to this area is about Cajun food, oysters, shrimp, softshell crab, and Vietnamese food.  

People might ask why Vietnamese food?  It is Cajun country, after all.  After the Vietnam War, a large population of Vietnamese was resettled in southern Lousiana.  The area mirrored where they came from fishermen from a hot delta climate in the Mekong Delta.  It was replaced with the Mississippi River Delta.  A great addition to the American diaspora.  In Covington, LA, we found a great place, Phở Công Noodle & Grill. 

 Well, it's another excellent trip, walking 25K in 4 days.  The Lake Pontchartrain North shore is something that must be experienced.