Visiting Louisiana is a journey through time and place to when wealthy Creoles controlled the portages across the French Quarter, riverboats traveled the mighty Mississippi, and man continues to fight a continual war against water. It’s known as the ‘Bayou State’ because the largest river in America (Mississippi) drains into the largest swamp (Atchafalaya Basin) and ultimately reaches the ocean in a complex system of 16 different river deltas. All this water creates a unique way of life for the port city of New Orleans, where goods are portages across a thin strip of land to Lake Pontchartrain to bypass the treacherous river delta, to isolated Cajun communities living deep in the swamp.