The Dismal Swamp Canal Trail occupies a former section of Virginia State Route 17 and now serves as a multi-purpose linear nature trail and park along the Dismal Swamp Canal, offering walking, bicycling, running, horseback riding, and boating through historic and ecologically significant habitat. It extends 8.3 miles north to south beside the canal, with an additional 2.5-mile connection leading north from the North Trailhead to Deep Creek Park between George Washington Highway and the canal. The canal also forms the eastern border of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, established by Congress in 1974 and now protecting more than 112,000 acres considered the heart of the original ecosystem. The trail preserves layers of local history, including a path that began in 1804 and had three lives, the canal itself, dug between 1793 and 1814 by slave labor under brutal conditions in the Great Dismal Swamp, and scattered stone mileposts and the former superintendent’s house associated with canal tolls. Along the route, the swamp’s wildlife remains a major feature, with elusive animals, more than 210 identified bird species, and dark water stained by peat soil, while the canal’s long-term operation depended on solving an early problem of continuous water supply after its completion in 1805.