Bayou Vermilion — The River That Flows Backward

The bay dug this river, not the rain. Over thousands of years, Vermilion Bay's tides eroded north through coastal marshes, carving a consequent stream that flows backward from what gravity would dictate. Lafayette exists because this was the one place on the Vermilion you could reliably navigate — the city was founded at that single dependable crossing point. The river still reverses. During heavy rainfall, parts of the Vermilion flow north instead of south. In the 2016 floods, the river ran backward at negative 11,300 cubic feet per second. By the 1970s, the Vermilion had earned a reputation as the most polluted river in the United States. Forty years of restoration work followed. Alligators returned. Herons came back. The paddle trail now runs fifty miles to the Gulf, with kayak and canoe launches at Vermilionville and multiple city parks. You're paddling a river that was carved in reverse, that still flows backward when the rain comes hard enough, that died and came back. Put a boat in at Vermilionville and follow the bay's old work south.