Gifts of the sea

The refuge ends at the Gulf of Mexico at a lovely beach of coarse, pale sand. Except it isn’t sand at all, but the tiny remnants of countless wave-worn shells. The queens enjoyed picking among the abundant in tact shells, some as big as grapefruit.

Faster than a speeding bullet

While visitors are welcome to certain parts of the refuge in
specific months, able to do crabbing and crawfish trapping,
only the staff have full access to the 26-mile coastline via
airboats, which are powered by enormous airplane engines.
The Fur Queen arranged for her guests to zip through the
marshland at thrill-ride speed aboard airboats like this one,
which she shares with the Frog Queen.

Guardians of the kingdom

The Fur & Wildlife Queen is a rare queen who represents not just an industry or town but an ecosystem. The refuge that is part of her domain is protected, preserved, and studied by a

team of biologists, including Philip Trosclair—better known as Scooter—who grew up nearby, interned here as a teen, got his degree, and returned for his adult career. At left, he shows an alligator skull found in the mud. The institutional memory rests in the experience of Refuge Manager Guthrie Perry, who has worked here for decades, and written books based on his research. Here, Perry introduces the visiting queens to the refuge, describing the challenges it currently faces.

Home is where the hurt is

The banner at right is hung on the Christmas tree in the children's room of the Calcasieu Women's Shelter, where the Fur Queen was joined by the Frog and Cotton queens for a morning of community service, helping do clean-up, sorting children's toys, and doing small home repairs in the women's rooms. Hearing from a shelter staffer that a woman is abused every 9 seconds somewhere in the country really made an impression. As Brandy, the Cotton Queen (far right), said after meeting several of the families housed there, “I realized how sheltered I’ve actually been.”

Sometimes you feel like a crown, sometimes you don't

A Fur Queen has to enjoy the outdoors, even if she’s never picked up a gun or skinned a wild animal in her life. Lauren Naquin shows both sides of the Fur Queen lifestyle here: dressing up for formal events and dressing down to head into a nature reserve, as shown, where she has swapped her crown for noise-canceling headphones to board an airboat on the day she showed us around.

Cameron Parish: Home of the Fur & Wildlife Festival

Cameron Parish, Louisiana, is the largest of the state's parishes in land mass—1900 square miles—but second smallest in population, with just over 8,000 residents. It’s endless combination of open prairie, vast marshes, and bayous make it a sportsman’s paradise, and the natural home to the Louisiana Fur & Wildlife Festival. Since 1955, the festival has involved skeet-shooting, nutria-skinning, oyster-shucking, and more. But not this year: Hurricane Ike has wreaked so much havor, the January 2009 festival has been cancelled. This week, the Fur queen invited several of her fellow festival queens to come see her Parish anyway, both in its devastation and its natural splendor.

Burn, Baby, Burn: Festival of the Bonfires

Lutcher, Lousiana (population 3,600) is home to one of the state’s most visually arresting traditions: the festival of the bonfire. This weekend, 18-foot tall log pyres will rise alongside the Mississippi levee, and each night, a different one will be set ablaze. This is a prelude to Christmas Eve, when 100 such bonfires will illuminate the levees throughout St. James Parish, a tradition that local legend says grew out of a need to light Santa’s way through the Bayou. The festival period actually started two weeks ago with Bonfire pageant day, when visiting festival queens (including Fur, Cotton, and Cattle, pictured) came from around the state to kick things off.
Photos left and right from Nola.com and Dawn Childs, respectively.