The National Park Service is asking members of the public to share their thoughts about a potential National Heritage Area designation in the region of the Great Dismal Swamp, a massive swath of ancient, forested wetlands stretching from Southeastern Virginia to the uppermost parts of North Carolina.
National Heritage Areas are “lived-in landscapes” that are “representative of the national experience through the physical features that remain and the traditions that have evolved in them,” as defined by the Park Service.
The Great Dismal Swamp is an environmental and cultural treasure, home to dozens of species of animals and, at one time, groups of Native Americans and formerly enslaved people who used it as a pathway to freedom.
The important details of where the conceptual boundary of the Great Dismal Swamp’s National Heritage Area would lie and who would manage any conservation, recreation and education opportunities remain unanswered questions at the moment.
Sometime in 2026, the Park Service plans to submit a feasibility study to Congress that will answer those questions. Congress will have the final say on whether the region is suited for the federal designation.
There are currently 62 designated National Heritage Areas in 36 states and territories. The unique federal designation does not result in any land transfers, local zoning changes or easements.
A canal running through the Great Dismal Swamp (Photo courtesy of the Camden County Tourism Development Authority, Byrd’s Eye Photography and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)The entire state of Tennessee is a designated National Heritage Area, and the rights of landowners are not affected by the designation.
“A lot of people fear government overreach…” said John Warren, Communications Specialist at the National Park Service Northeast Region.
“There’s no such federal footprint in a National Heritage Area. It is entirely something that the local community takes on and runs itself.”
Any federal funding for the proposed National Heritage Area would come by way of congressional appropriation.
“A lot of those National Heritage Areas may receive up to $1 million annually, but others get a lot less,” said Warren. National Heritage Areas must receive matching funds from non-federal sources as well.
The role of the National Park Service is to be a partner and advisor to the actual manager of the Heritage Area, called the “local coordinating entity,” an organization within the community chosen to interpret the history and traditions of the area and manage the conservation, recreation and education goals laid out by the project.
Creating a National Heritage Area
During virtual meetings held last week, members of the public shared their ideas on the Great Dismal Swamp National Heritage Area’s potential location, its coordinating entity, and the natural, cultural and historic resources the region has to offer.
The current study area for creating a Great Dismal Swamp National Heritage Area (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)The public was also asked if opportunities exist for improving the quality of those resources through conservation, recreation and education. Comments are encouraged to be submitted in writing online, by mail or over the phone until May 19.
The public comments are not meant to be a vote, said Warren, but “a way to collect information.”
“The study has 10 criteria, and the answer to all of these has got to be ‘yes’ for us to be able to give a favorable conclusion that, yes, this qualifies as a National Heritage Area,” said Warren. “So it’s a high bar.”
Warren said that anecdotally, over the last ten years only about half of the National Heritage Areas that were applied for ended up receiving the designation from Congress.
As part of the study, the National Park Service staff has also spoken with potential state and local partners as well as possible coordinating entities. Chesapeake City Council has voiced interest in assuming the managing role, said Julie Bell, cultural resource project manager for the Park Service.
Nonprofits, universities, and state and local governments are some examples of coordinating entities that were chosen to manage other Heritage Areas around the nation. Any entity outside of the federal government is allowed to assume the role, including Indigenous tribes, said Bell.
The Great Dismal Swamp National Heritage Area will involve coordination across state lines since the Virginia-North Carolina border slices directly through the swamp.
In 2003, the Northern Neck National Heritage Area was established along with six others around the nation. The designation was Virginia’s third National Heritage Area to date.
Two other possible National Heritage Areas have completed their feasibility studies and are currently awaiting a decision from Congress: the Finger Lakes Region in New York and the Kentucky Wildlands.
The story of the swamp
An 1862 painting of the Great Dismal Swamp titled “Slaves Escaping Through the Swamp” by Thomas Moran (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)The National Park Service is developing themes that are present in the Great Dismal Swamp region to tell a nationally distinctive heritage story. One theme is “a place of refuge” and another is “a field of conflict.”
Based on artifacts found in the Great Dismal Swamp dating back over 5,000 years, the Nansemond, Meherrin, Yeopim and Lumbee people were likely stewards of the swamp long before European colonists arrived, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
After colonization, the role of the swamp for local communities changed. About 50,000 self-emancipated African Americans, called maroons, along with free Blacks, Indigenous people and Europeans lived in the swamp in search of refuge.
Some used it as a pause point on their journeys north, making the swamp an official water-based rest stop on the Underground Railroad, but others settled permanent communities there up until the end of the Civil War.
Today, the Great Dismal Swamp is protected by a 113,000 acre National Wildlife Refuge managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. What is now a vast, uninhabited landscape is actually just a remnant of its former self.
The once enormous swamp covered over 1 million acres, roughly the size of Delaware, but was drained over the years, first by a young George Washington in 1763.
Washington and other investors initially aimed to create land in the swamp that could be sold for profit, then to dig a canal to transport goods across the swamp. Enslaved people were forced to provide the labor for these early economic ventures.
One of the most successful business opportunities in the swamp turned out to be logging. The now globally rare Atlantic white cedar was in high demand, and gaining access to the trees required digging ditches to drain the swamp. By the 1950s, the last of the virgin timber in the Great Dismal Swamp was gone, according to a National Park Service story map.
The future of the swamp
On George Washington’s birthday in 1973, about 50,000 acres of swamp land was donated to the Nature Conservancy and then handed over to the Fish & Wildlife Service, thus creating the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.
“We have discovered that swamps actually play a vital role in our environment and that they are necessary,” said Warren. “You know, they’re not just places that we want to avoid because they have a lot of mosquitos or something like that. They’re places that are useful to the environment.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service says the swamp serves as a permanent and migratory home for roughly 50 species of mammals, 200 types of birds and 100 species of butterflies. The diverse ecosystem ranges from bald cypress to red maple and Virginia’s last historic refuge of native Atlantic white cedar.
In addition to the habitat the swamp provides to wildlife, it also prevents floods and improves water quality in nearby communities with a combined population of nearly 1 million people, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
A 2017 project to re-moisten the peat soils of the swamp served to benefit the surrounding population, including in Suffolk, by restoring a more natural water regime in the area. The Fish and Wildlife Service and its partners installed adjustable dams in key places to regulate the amount of water leaving the swamp, improving the environment’s ability to provide its once inherent benefits.
The re-moistened peat is now able to absorb stormwater more efficiently, acting like a sponge to reduce flooding during severe weather such as the storms and hurricanes that are common in the region. Healthy peat also stores more carbon, a valuable tool in combating global climate change.
“This is a region that has already changed a lot,” said Warren. Creating a National Heritage Area “may have some influence on that, or it may not.” Those decisions would be left to the local community and the chosen coordinating entity.
This report was first published by the Virginia Mercury, which like NC Newsline, is part of the national States Newsroom network.
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