((PKG)) CAJUN CLIMATE
((Banner: Cajun Life))
((Reporter/Camera: Jeff Swicord))
((Producer: Jacquelyn De Phillips))
((Map: Thibodaux, Louisiana; Port Fourchon, Louisiana))
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
My dad is from Ville Platte, Louisiana which is a small Cajun
town in the central part of the state and my mom is from New
Orleans. So, some of my friends call me a Cajun hybrid.
((NATS: Fisherman))
Catching a few?
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
The French, they came down from Nova Scotia from Acadie
(Arcadia) and the English are notorious in history for kicking
the French out of Acadia. The majority of them settled in
south Louisiana and so that’s where the origins of the Cajun
people came from.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Caught catfish by this before. So much of what we’d like to
do in Louisiana is to go out into the Swamps, the marshes
and either fish or hunt or bird watch.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
My dad was a fisheries biologist for the state. When I found
out I could get a degree in fisheries, well that's what I want to
do.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
So for about the last eight years, I've been the head of the
Department of Biological Sciences here at Nicholls State.
Very fortunate to have that job.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Look at that, haha. Look at that. A little yellow bass.
So again, these little cuts here aren’t too bad of a place to
fish.
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
We have a rich diversity out here. If you take a ride on a
bayou, you almost always are going to see something.
Whether it's a fish jumping, a fish splashing or a bird, you
know, an alligator or a turtle. There's so much life down
here.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
We do see the effects of climate change. The land is not as
elevated today as it was several years ago. So, we have
almost like a double whammy. We're losing elevation of our
land and the sea level is rising. And so those two factors
together are really accelerating coastal land loss in
Louisiana.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Land loss will affect Cajun culture, we know that.
((NATS: People gathering on the grass at event))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Cajun men cook. And what's funny is every man down here
who's a cook, he will tell you that he learned from his
mother. You know so, the Cajun women around here can
cook too. The origins, of course, it was the French settlers
that came here first, and so a lot of French style Cajun is
very rustic. We grow a lot of rice in Louisiana, so rice is a
big mainstay. You know, we always think about having the
meat. I get just as excited about the vegetables that we
cook. I use canned corn because I don’t grow my own
corn.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Alright, watch this. It's called a corn maque choux. And
usually the way we do it is we smother down corn with
onions and peppers and garlic and stuff and some kind of a
smoked meat whether smoke sausage or smoked tasso.
I was so fortunate. Our family, we've had some camps and
the purpose to go to the camp is to go hunting, to go fishing
or just to go cook and relax with friends. We sit around, we
cook on these types of stoves. Everybody I know, they have
a stove like this. It’s just a propane stove, two burners.
((NATS: Man))
It’s kind of like background music. It’s nothing…..
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
A lot of the meals take a long time to cook. So, it's not like
there's one person in the kitchen cooking while everybody
sits in the living room. It’s everybody is in the kitchen. And
so, while we’re cooking, we’re in the kitchen stirring the pot.
We’re also socializing. We’re talking to each other.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
So, things are a little hectic when we first start cooking, when
you browning and doing the onions. It's kind of hard to keep
in control of everything. But, once you get everything back
in the pot and it's all set, we've got a special setting on our
stove and it's called drink. And so, you get your stove set,
everything in the pot, you turn it down nice and low and go
sit down, fix a drink and relax. And so, we'll be there soon
enough. And we'll play some music then.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
The traditional Cajun music is what our Cajun ancestors
played starting back in the 1700s, 1800s. The fiddle and the
guitar came about and they would play in dance halls. They
would play at each other's house. You know, there was no
Internet, no TV. And so, what do you do? You sit around
and play music and have a dance on Saturday nights.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Traditional Cajun music is almost always sung in French.
Almost every song, the lyrics are about someone's girl
leaving him or someone dying or he's in prison, he misses
his mama or he's drinking too much or he's hung over.
That’s what the songs are about.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
You can find Cajun music out there. But in the region where we
live, we saw a decline in the music. So, we formed the Cajun
Music Preservation Society, me and a few friends. ((NATS,
MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
We host open Cajun jams so people can learn the music. The
young people can learn the old songs and the community has
embraced us tremendously.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Locator: Port Fourchon, Louisiana))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
When I see water come up like that because of a very small storm
that’s very far away in the Gulf of Mexico, it makes me nervous.
Fifteen years ago, that storm would not have put that much water
in the parking lot at the boat ramps. ((NATS: Quinton))
Alright you guys are going to fill a bucket, right?
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
One of the things that we do with our graduate program is small
scale restoration work. We bring our students to the coast every
fall and we collect the mangrove seeds.
((NATS: Quinton))
So, we can get them here anyway. I think you can go around. I
think you can access them that way. This one is pretty good.
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
And we bring those seeds back to campus and we grow them out
for a year. And then, we bring those out the following year. And
we plant those and we collect some more seeds.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Yeah, so these are some mangroves that we planted last year, in
these little, we call them these deepots. So, we can bring out
these mangroves, straight out here and that’s fifty plants in
there. Bring that out to the beach or the barrier island or
wherever we want to plant them and pop them out, stick them in
the ground. They grow out real easy.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
It’s scary when we look at the land loss projection maps going up
for the next 50 years. They always do a scenario of no actions
taken. But if we do some types of restoration, we won't lose as
much land.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
So much of Cajun culture in the bayou region is the livelihood.
Our shrimpers, our crabbers, our oystermen, they're the ones who
are going to be impacted by the coastal changes. Some people
say that, well, we've lost almost everything there is to lose. I
disagree. I think that there's a lot left to lose for us and we need
to stay strong and we need to continue to use the best
engineering that we can to rebuild and restore our coastal
wetlands.
((NATS))
((Banner: Cajun Life))
((Reporter/Camera: Jeff Swicord))
((Producer: Jacquelyn De Phillips))
((Map: Thibodaux, Louisiana; Port Fourchon, Louisiana))
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
My dad is from Ville Platte, Louisiana which is a small Cajun
town in the central part of the state and my mom is from New
Orleans. So, some of my friends call me a Cajun hybrid.
((NATS: Fisherman))
Catching a few?
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
The French, they came down from Nova Scotia from Acadie
(Arcadia) and the English are notorious in history for kicking
the French out of Acadia. The majority of them settled in
south Louisiana and so that’s where the origins of the Cajun
people came from.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Caught catfish by this before. So much of what we’d like to
do in Louisiana is to go out into the Swamps, the marshes
and either fish or hunt or bird watch.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
My dad was a fisheries biologist for the state. When I found
out I could get a degree in fisheries, well that's what I want to
do.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
So for about the last eight years, I've been the head of the
Department of Biological Sciences here at Nicholls State.
Very fortunate to have that job.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Look at that, haha. Look at that. A little yellow bass.
So again, these little cuts here aren’t too bad of a place to
fish.
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
We have a rich diversity out here. If you take a ride on a
bayou, you almost always are going to see something.
Whether it's a fish jumping, a fish splashing or a bird, you
know, an alligator or a turtle. There's so much life down
here.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
We do see the effects of climate change. The land is not as
elevated today as it was several years ago. So, we have
almost like a double whammy. We're losing elevation of our
land and the sea level is rising. And so those two factors
together are really accelerating coastal land loss in
Louisiana.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Land loss will affect Cajun culture, we know that.
((NATS: People gathering on the grass at event))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Cajun men cook. And what's funny is every man down here
who's a cook, he will tell you that he learned from his
mother. You know so, the Cajun women around here can
cook too. The origins, of course, it was the French settlers
that came here first, and so a lot of French style Cajun is
very rustic. We grow a lot of rice in Louisiana, so rice is a
big mainstay. You know, we always think about having the
meat. I get just as excited about the vegetables that we
cook. I use canned corn because I don’t grow my own
corn.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Alright, watch this. It's called a corn maque choux. And
usually the way we do it is we smother down corn with
onions and peppers and garlic and stuff and some kind of a
smoked meat whether smoke sausage or smoked tasso.
I was so fortunate. Our family, we've had some camps and
the purpose to go to the camp is to go hunting, to go fishing
or just to go cook and relax with friends. We sit around, we
cook on these types of stoves. Everybody I know, they have
a stove like this. It’s just a propane stove, two burners.
((NATS: Man))
It’s kind of like background music. It’s nothing…..
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
A lot of the meals take a long time to cook. So, it's not like
there's one person in the kitchen cooking while everybody
sits in the living room. It’s everybody is in the kitchen. And
so, while we’re cooking, we’re in the kitchen stirring the pot.
We’re also socializing. We’re talking to each other.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
So, things are a little hectic when we first start cooking, when
you browning and doing the onions. It's kind of hard to keep
in control of everything. But, once you get everything back
in the pot and it's all set, we've got a special setting on our
stove and it's called drink. And so, you get your stove set,
everything in the pot, you turn it down nice and low and go
sit down, fix a drink and relax. And so, we'll be there soon
enough. And we'll play some music then.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
The traditional Cajun music is what our Cajun ancestors
played starting back in the 1700s, 1800s. The fiddle and the
guitar came about and they would play in dance halls. They
would play at each other's house. You know, there was no
Internet, no TV. And so, what do you do? You sit around
and play music and have a dance on Saturday nights.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Traditional Cajun music is almost always sung in French.
Almost every song, the lyrics are about someone's girl
leaving him or someone dying or he's in prison, he misses
his mama or he's drinking too much or he's hung over.
That’s what the songs are about.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
You can find Cajun music out there. But in the region where we
live, we saw a decline in the music. So, we formed the Cajun
Music Preservation Society, me and a few friends. ((NATS,
MUSIC))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
We host open Cajun jams so people can learn the music. The
young people can learn the old songs and the community has
embraced us tremendously.
((NATS, MUSIC))
((Locator: Port Fourchon, Louisiana))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
When I see water come up like that because of a very small storm
that’s very far away in the Gulf of Mexico, it makes me nervous.
Fifteen years ago, that storm would not have put that much water
in the parking lot at the boat ramps. ((NATS: Quinton))
Alright you guys are going to fill a bucket, right?
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
One of the things that we do with our graduate program is small
scale restoration work. We bring our students to the coast every
fall and we collect the mangrove seeds.
((NATS: Quinton))
So, we can get them here anyway. I think you can go around. I
think you can access them that way. This one is pretty good.
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
And we bring those seeds back to campus and we grow them out
for a year. And then, we bring those out the following year. And
we plant those and we collect some more seeds.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
Yeah, so these are some mangroves that we planted last year, in
these little, we call them these deepots. So, we can bring out
these mangroves, straight out here and that’s fifty plants in
there. Bring that out to the beach or the barrier island or
wherever we want to plant them and pop them out, stick them in
the ground. They grow out real easy.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
It’s scary when we look at the land loss projection maps going up
for the next 50 years. They always do a scenario of no actions
taken. But if we do some types of restoration, we won't lose as
much land.
((NATS))
((Dr. Quenton Fontenot, Head of Biological Sciences,
Nicholls State University))
So much of Cajun culture in the bayou region is the livelihood.
Our shrimpers, our crabbers, our oystermen, they're the ones who
are going to be impacted by the coastal changes. Some people
say that, well, we've lost almost everything there is to lose. I
disagree. I think that there's a lot left to lose for us and we need
to stay strong and we need to continue to use the best
engineering that we can to rebuild and restore our coastal
wetlands.
((NATS))
