It seems certain that Isle de Jean Charles will, at some point, cease to exist. But the island’s last residents don’t plan to leave anytime soon.
Edison Dardar has spent his whole life on Isle de Jean Charles, La., where he fishes daily:"I don't think the island's going nowhere." Over the last six decades, more than 98% of Isle de Jean Charles has vanished into the Gulf of Mexico, leaving a frail strip of land just two miles long and a quarter-mile wide.With each high tide and with each hurricane, a little more of this historic Native American land sinks below the surface.
Construction is scheduled to begin this year. But the prospect of rebuilding this sinking community seems increasingly unlikely as tribal leaders who spearheaded the effort have accused the state of hijacking their project and are now urging residents not to move. Edison Dardar is one of the island's few residents still living almost entirely off the land and water.
Clockwise from top left: Edison Dardar lives almost entirely off the land and water; Chris Brunet has lived on the island his whole life; fisherman Hilton Chaisson resides on the island along with many relatives; and retired carpenter Johnny Tamplet still lives on the island, although he is not Native American.
Many residents eyed the causeway with suspicion, fearing it would bring outsiders who would try to wrench them from the land.As it turned out, there was a far greater threat: the vast network of flood-control dams and levees the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was erecting along the Mississippi River. When Isle de Jean Charles became an island is a matter of debate, as the changing marshland around it made the edges difficult to define.
The oyster shacks that once lined its banks have been torn down. The only business is a small marina selling bait, fishing lures and Michelob Ultra. Chief Albert Naquin visits some of the homebound residents who still live on the Isle of Jean Charles, where he administers Catholic communion to them. Some of the older residents still converse in Cajun French, just like their parents and grandparents, but many of their grandchildren do not understand them.“It feels like a ghost town,” Erica Billiot, 37, said as her 6-year-old son, Tristan, played on the edge of a broken wooden bridge over the bayou.Tristan Billiot is one of the last children remaining on the island, lives with is mothers and grandmother. Many of this friends have moved away.
But as she mulls the state plan and the thought of losing her family’s weathered clapboard home, she leans toward staying put a while longer.It was about 20 years ago when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers first approached the chief with the idea of relocating islanders.But as the barrel-chested Army veteran contemplated the island’s fate, he changed his mind.
“This here can’t be remade some place. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, a setting away from the world.”In his vision, the community would be not just a safe place for island residents but also a gathering point for the 600 members of his tribe now scattered across coastal Louisiana. In a decision that remains a major sticking point with Naquin’s tribe, the state went on to invite both tribes to the table as “stakeholders” with the aim of rebuilding the island’s “unique” culture.
The tribe balks at those conditions, complaining the deal gives native islanders fewer rights than the cluster of outsiders who have second homes or fishing shacks on the island. State officials counter that those people are not getting new $170,000 houses.
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