By RAY WYCHE
Staff Writer

Editor’s Note: Today’s “Living” page is the third in the five-week tourism series with “What to Do in a Day: Lake Waccamaw.”

People visit Lake Waccamaw and its surroundings for many reasons, some of them not necessarily connected with pure pleasure.

In years past, forestry students from various schools, including some from Scandinavia, have spent time in Waccamaw Forest, that vast tract of timberland totaling more than 138,000 acres located in the Green Swamp south and southeast of Lake Waccamaw. Waccamaw Forest is particularly attractive to budding foresters as usually all phases of timber production, from planting to harvesting, can be viewed at this one site.

Universities in nearby states such as Georgia and West Virginia routinely send their students to the Green Swamp to study the various stages of production in large timber tracts.

Formerly owned by International Paper but now owned by several corporations and individuals, the woodlands in Waccamaw Forest have been an attraction to students of all ages and particularly to elementary pupils who find much of interest in the Nature Conservancy’s showplace of nature alongside N. C. Highway 211 in the Green Swamp.

Here, on about 15,000 acres donated to Nature Conservancy by the forerunner of International paper, Federal Paperboard Corp., an open pine savanna — land covered with wiregrass under the canopy formed by the tops of longleaf pines — youngsters can marvel at Venus flytraps and the way this carnivorous plant captures insects for food in the nitrogen-poor sandy soil.

The Green Swamp and other lands around Lake Waccamaw contain a variety of soil types and habitats, including those classified as savannas, pocosins, dry sand ridges and acidic bay forests.

Each of these different types of communities is rich in plant and animal life suited for these particular environments. Whoever labeled the area “Nature’s Classroom” was right on target, considering the variety of flora and fauna that call the Lake Waccamaw area home.

The waters of Lake Waccamaw are particularly rich in variety, with a reported 52 varieties of fish, 15 species of mussels (shellfish, sometimes called freshwater clams), and 11 kinds of snails.

Waccamaw’s waters have an advantage other nearby bay lakes do not have: an almost neutral acidity, thanks to a limestone bluff on the north shore of the lake and a layer of acid-neutralizing limestone under the bottom of the lake through which springs flow.

Of all the animal life in the lake, several occur no where else in the world including fish, snails and mussels.

Students of varying interests come to Columbus County, particularly the area around Lake Waccamaw and the Waccamaw River, to study wildlife that in some cases cannot be found elsewhere.

Lake Waccamaw is home to several species of mussels, a favorite subject of students of advanced zoology.

And there are plants, while not endemic to the area, that are rare enough to attract people from great distances who wish to learn more about them firsthand. (See above story by Chris Helms)

A short glance will reveal the natural beauty of Waccamaw and adjoining lands. Today’s visitors are not the first to speak of the beauty of the place. John Bartram, one of the nation’s first and most famous naturalists, visited Lake Waccamaw in the early 1700s and labeled it, “the pleasantest place I ever saw.”