Red River National Wildlife Refuge

The Red River drains a watershed older than human settlement here, and in 2001 the federal government began buying it back. The Red River National Wildlife Refuge protects a 120-mile corridor between Colfax and the Arkansas line — eventually 50,000 acres of forested wetlands and river, though only 16,000 acres had been acquired as of the last public accounting. Land purchase targets four focus areas: Lower Cane River, Spanish Lake Lowlands, Bayou Pierre Floodplain, and Wardview, the last of which spans Caddo and Bossier parishes. Over 200 migratory bird species use the corridor. The refuge headquarters maintains five miles of hiking trails and a visitor center that opened in January 2012. What you're walking is a working acquisition — federal preservation proceeding in parcels, buying back floodplain that was drained, logged, or farmed, then letting the river reclaim it. The trails thread through what the Red River looked like before we tried to fix it in place.