The Beauty of Sapelo Island

A spit of land off the coast of Georgia, Sapelo Island is a time capsule of Southern history. Still only reachable by boat, its 16,500 acres of pristine coastline and maritime forest have seen societies rise and fall, from the native Guale people to Spanish colonizers, and from plantation owners to today’s Gullah-Geechee community of Hog Hammock. A new coffee table book shares both that far-reaching past and the island’s present-day beauty. In Sapelo: People and Place on a Georgia Sea Island, author Buddy Sullivan, a Georgia native who spent twenty years managing the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve, explores the history, culture, and ecology of a place that has captivated him. “People who have worked on Sapelo or who have lived there all their lives don’t want to be anywhere else,” he says. “Sapelo is in my blood.”