Shrimp boats, a carillon and an old Cajun cemetery

What is smaller than a village? A hamlet?

With its population of 1883 I think Delcambre, Louisiana qualifies as a hamlet. And it is unusual for its size. It has almost no old, half-empty downtown like I’ve seen in other small rural towns I’ve visited on this trip. A church and small grocery store are the entirety of “downtown”.

I probably would not have even stopped there except that I glanced over the side of a bridge as I drove over it and saw boats tied up along the side of a canal. It turns out that this canal, the Delcambre canal, empties into the Gulf and the boats tied up along it are shrimp boats.

Also lined up along the canal are shrimp processing plants and wholesale operations.

So I took a few photos and was ready to leave when I heard the distinctive sound of a carillon playing and followed the song to Our Lady of the Lake church and discovered an old cemetery beside it. Hearing a carillon in such a small community is surprising! And the church seems very large for such a hamlet. (I think I am missing something, but not sure what.)

Our Lady of the Lake sounds very Arthurian to me, but the lake nearby is Lake Piegneur–Trapper’s lake–a name that reflects the Acadian heritage of the area. And the cemetery only confirmed it: almost 100% of the names on the graves were of French origin.

Here are a few photos.

I’m writing this post from an AirBnB condo in the Garden District of New Orleans. It’s early morning and I am going to try to catch up on posts, but imagine that today I’ll be busy adding more photos and observations. I instantly fell in love with New Orleans!!