Part Six:
Everglades Flora, Fauna, People, & Places
There is plenty to be curious about when paddling the areas we describe. “Where did this river get its name?” or “What is this fish that’s trying to jump into my boat?” In these pages, where topics are listed in alphabetical order, you may find your answer. Here, we offer small bits of information about some of the flora and fauna, as well as the human history, that you may encounter or wonder about along your route. Then, if you’re still curious, you may want to consult Appendix 6, Suggested Reading, and learn more when you return home.
Note: If an item in this glossary is specific to a particular paddling locale described elsewhere in this guidebook, we provide a cross-reference.
AMERICAN ALLIGATOR
Alligator mississippiensis lives in fresh water but can travel through brackish and occasionally salt water. The Spanish called the animal el lagarto, meaning “the lizard.” You may distinguish the alligator from its American crocodile cousin by the alligator’s rounded snout and nearly black color (see next entry for comparative features).
AMERICAN CROCODILE
Crocodylus acutus can tolerate fresh, brackish, or salt water but prefers salt. The Everglades is the only place in the world where crocodiles and alligators can sometimes be seen in the same body of water. You are most likely to spot the American crocodile on the Buttonwood Canal near the Flamingo Marina. While their numbers are said to be increasing, viewing this endangered species remains a rare opportunity. Unlike the American alligator, crocodile snouts are elongated, and their bodies are gray.
Many of the world’s species of crocodile, as dramatically depicted on TV, are aggressive attackers. The American crocodile is a more docile species, even somewhat shy.
BROMELIAD
A relative of pineapple and Spanish moss, Tillandsia is the bromeliad genus you will see perched in the trees, particularly along narrower waterways.
These air plants attach to trees but are not parasitic. Instead, holding rain in the cups of their leaves, they take their food from the nutritious soup of rainwater that drips down from the host tree canopy. Salamanders, snakes, lizards, insects, and snails all drink from the bromeliad’s natural reservoirs, and some lay their eggs there or even take up residence.
BUTTONWOOD
You can expect to see this tree throughout your paddles. Named for its spherical flowers and fruit, buttonwood (Conocarpus erectus) grows in association with mangroves. You can spot the buttonwoods among the mangroves by observing their narrower leaves, often with scatterings of reddish leaves among the green and yellow. Dead buttonwoods display beautiful, often twisting forms, sometimes bleached almost white by the sun. For a time there was a thriving industry in the Everglades that cut buttonwood for firewood or burned it to make charcoal, and buttonwood branches have often been sold as driftwood in the tourist trade.
BUTTONWOOD CANAL
In order to provide a water connection between Flamingo and Whitewater Bay, the Buttonwood Canal was dredged from limestone bedrock in 1956 and 1957. However, because of the negative environmental impact of salt water coming up the canal into Whitewater Bay, a dam (called “The Plug”) was built in 1982 near the Flamingo Marina. The dam prevents direct travel from the canal into Florida Bay.
CABBAGE ISLAND
Located near the Rodgers River Chickee, this island was named for its cabbage palms, also called sabal palms (Sabal palmetto). It is one of the few palms native to Florida and is the Florida state tree. The cabbage palm provided a source of food for early pioneers. Its heart, or bud, is still eaten today, but cutting it out kills the palm.
CALUSA
Known as the “fierce people,” the Calusa inhabited southwest Florida for approximately 2,000 years. Unlike other Native Americans of Florida, they rarely hunted or farmed; rather, they lived primarily off the rich bounty of the sea, creating sizable middens from immense numbers of mollusk shells. They dug canals, built seawalls, wove fish traps, fashioned pottery, and crafted intricate wooden masks and carvings of deer, alligators, and panthers. Evidence of this early culture was recorded in a 1575 written account of the Spanish shipwreck survivor Hernando d’Escalante Fontaneda, who lived with the Calusa for 17 years. Following the European arrival, the Calusa were decimated by diseases, such as smallpox and measles, from which they had no immunity, and they were attacked by Creek raiders; the “fierce people” disappeared from Florida by the mid-18th century. Current archeological digs continue the investigation into the fascinating Calusa culture.
CHEVELIER BAY
Jean Chevelier, who lived for a time near the bay that bears his name, was the most famous of the Everglades plumers, who hunted birds for their feathers. Some of his specimens made it to museums. In one season he was reported to have brought in 11,000 skins and plumes of Florida birds. Known as “Old Frenchman,” he may have come from France, though others believe he hailed from Montreal. In addition to pluming, he hunted for lost Spanish gold and is reported to have left buried treasure on one of the islands, but no one has ever been able to find it.
CHICKEE
The Calusa people were the first to create these open-sided, cypress log frames with palmetto thatched roofs. Later, Seminoles built them for use as homes or shelters on the hammocks and islands of the Everglades. The word chickee means “house,” and chickees historically functioned as sleeping, cooking, and eating platforms—as do the contemporary versions, constructed for today’s paddlers.
CHOKOLOSKEE ISLAND
For more than 4,000 years, Chokoloskee was home to the Native Americans of the Glades culture, then to the Calusa. Constructed by these early inhabitants from millions of empty mollusk shells, the island rises 20 feet above sea level, is 10 miles long, and is about 2 miles wide. Its name comes from Seminole words meaning “old house.”
In the 1870s, several U.S. Civil War veterans settled in Chokoloskee, and in 1886 C. G. McKinney came in search of good health. When he petitioned for a post office, he called the place Comfort. But within a year it was decided that Comfort was a poor name for a place with so many “swamp angels” (mosquitoes), and it became Chokoloskee.
After a century of a fishing, farming, and trading economy, traditional sources of income became less available in the 1970s and 1980s. Enterprising residents turned to marijuana smuggling, and for a time enjoyed quite a reputation for their talents. Today Chokoloskee is a quiet place, a destination for fishermen and crabbers. Many of the locals are knowledgeable guides, and ecotourism is rapidly becoming a main source of income.
COOT
coots (Fulica americana) are dark-gray swimming birds with white bills and lobed toes (rather than webbed feet), and they resemble ducks. They congregate in groups called rafts and feed on vegetation that grows in fresh water. Unfortunately, construction of the Buttonwood Canal in 1956-57 caused an infusion of salt water into Coot Bay, and the great rafts of coot are gone. Lesser numbers do appear in the Glades, and Coot Bay still carries their name.
CUTHBERT LAKE
If you embark on the overnight South Everglades outing West Lake to Alligator Creek, you will pass close to Cuthbert Lake, important in Everglades ecological history.
In 1903 Guy Bradley, the newly appointed game warden for the Everglades, led Arthur Cleveland Bent and the Reverend Herbert K. Job through narrow mangrove channels and open lakes to Cuthbert Lake to view Cuthbert Lake Rookery.
Bent described it this way in his Life Histories of North American Marsh Birds: “The afternoon was well spent when we emerged on the open waters of Cuthbert Lake and saw ahead of us the object of our search, a mangrove island, about a mile distant, literally covered with birds. It was a beautiful sight as the afternoon sun shone full upon it; hundreds of white and blue herons, and a score or two of beautiful ‘pink curlews’ could be plainly seen against the dark green of the mangroves, like feathered gems on a cushion of green velvet.”
But by 1904, Cuthbert Rookery had been “shot out” by plume hunters. In 1905 Bradley was himself shot dead in the line of duty, as described in the Johnson Key excursion.
DOLPHIN
Although bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncates) are saltwater mammals, you are apt to see them on most paddle routes described in this book.
As members of the Cetacea family, dolphins are small whales and, like their larger cousins, travel and fish in groups called pods. They locate their prey by emitting sounds (echolocation) through their blowholes, and they also vocalize and use body language (leaps and tail slaps) to communicate with one another. If you get a sense that they are observing or interacting with you, you are probably right, as they are intelligent and curious creatures. Their diet consists primarily of fish, shrimp, squid, and crabs, and you may see them herding such prey up onto mudbanks.
FLAMINGO
After first considering End of the World as a name, the six families who lived here in 1893 chose Flamingo. While that distinctive namesake bird is not native to Florida, flocks visited the area from their natural range in Cuba and the Bahamas.
At the town’s height, around the turn of the 20th century, 50 families lived in Flamingo, and they fished, farmed, and made buttonwood charcoal for trade in Key West. After Everglades National Park was established in 1947, Flamingo’s few remaining residents were relocated, and now the area serves as a gateway to the Wilderness Waterway and Florida Bay.
In 1959 a 103-room hotel opened and became a popular lodging destination for visitors to the park until the lodge and cabins were destroyed by Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma in 2005. As of this writing, the National Park Service (NPS) has plans for rebuilding facilities, and a café is open for business.
GUMBO LIMBO
Look for this stout-limbed tree on the Bear Lake Canoe Trail or on Sandfly Island.
“You can take a limb of it and plant it as a fence post and it will grow,” reports Rob Storter in his memoir, Crackers in the Glade. Known for its copper-colored, flaky bark, the gumbo limbo (Bursera simaruba) is often called the “tourist tree,” reminiscent of the red, peeling, sunburned skin of Florida’s visitors. Gumbo limbos can be found throughout the Caribbean and deep south Florida. The Haitian people make drums from the wood, and in the United States, carousel horses were traditionally carved from gumbo limbo. The resin is used for varnish, glue, incense, car air fresheners, and, historically, to treat gout.
HAMMOCK
If you find yourself in a place that is slightly elevated from surrounding wetlands, where broad-leaved hardwood trees create shade for a complex understory, where bromeliads perch and hang in branches, and where ferns grow from the damp duff, you can be sure that you are in a tropical hardwood hammock.
Most of the trees in deep south Florida hammocks are of West Indian origin, their seeds having floated on the waves, flown with hurricane winds, or ridden in the bellies of birds. Gumbo limbos, mahoganies, pigeon plums, and wild tamarinds mix with oaks and cabbage palms. If you smell a musky (some say skunky) scent, you are in the presence of white stoppers, an almost omnipresent hammock understory tree. These hammocks (also spelled hummocks) are preferred residences of barred owls. Listen for their “who-cooks-for-you?” call from the canopy . Hammocks have given refuge to wildlife and humans alike through the centuries. Noble Hammock offers a fine example.
HARNEY RIVER
Serving in Florida during the Seminole Wars, Lieutenant Colonel William S. Harney tracked the Seminoles deeper into the Glades than white men had previously managed to do. In 1840 he followed the war chief Chekika to his hiding place. Harney commanded his force to dress and paint themselves as Seminole warriors. They conducted a surprise attack, killing Chekika and capturing many of his band. All of those captured were hung. Returning to Fort Dallas, Harney intended to lead his men along an easier route than the one they had taken into the Everglades. His intent was to take Shark River to the Gulf, but he missed the turnoff, discovering another route, the river that is now called Harney.
IBIS
Probing the mudflats with their long, down-curving bills, the American white ibis (Eudocimus albus and pronounced “EYE-bis”) search for frogs and crustaceans. The adults are white with black wingtips visible in flight, while the juveniles are brown or splotched brown and white with a white belly. After feeding in various places during the day, chains of ibis fly back to join others to roost for the night. The noted biologist Archie Carr wrote in his book The Everglades, “As the little, dark green islands received their birds they flowered, as if with magnolia blooms.”
LIMESTONE
A sedimentary rock made of calcium carbonate, limestone formed as billions of seashells and other plant and animal parts fell to the seafloor and coalesced. Underlying most of the Wilderness Waterway, the Tamiami Limestone Formation, laid down 6 million years ago, is the oldest of the six formations of south Florida. Near Flamingo, the 1956-57 construction of the Buttonwood Canal exposed areas of bedrock that are part of the Miami Formation, which is younger, at about 100,000 years old. You will also see limestone under the water on the Nine Mile Pond day trip.
MANATEE
Formally named the West Indian manatee, Trichechus manatus swims near the mouths of the Everglades rivers, in Chokoloskee Bay, and in the Gulf. Watch for the spots, called footprints, that are created by the paddle stroke of their tails. As slow-moving creatures, manatees are frequently injured or killed in encounters with boat propellers. Like elephants, their close relative, manatees are vegetarians. While you are paddling on the water’s surface, they are grazing beneath you on 60–100 pounds of water plants each day.
MANGROVE
Mangrove comes from the word for “mangle” in the language of the Arawak people, who were natives of the Caribbean. In the Everglades, the mangrove ecosystem is amazingly productive, with its constant “rain” of vegetation. In addition to providing shelter and food for marine organisms, the mangrove tangle (sometimes called a mangle) afforded shelter for Seminoles and settlers during hurricanes.
Three different types—red, black, and white—live in the Glades. Those closest to, and actually in, salt water are the red mangroves, Rhizophora mangle. Their arching prop roots and spreading growth habit led the Seminoles to call them “walking trees.” Red mangroves also send down aerial roots, hanging from the branches like vines, until they reach the ground and become rooted. The red mangrove has yellow waxy flowers, with seeds that germinate before they leave the tree and become those “string bean” propagules (seeds) that drop and float off to start new mangrove islands.
The black mangrove, Avicennia germinans, sends up pencil-like breathing tubes called pneumatophores. Black mangroves can tolerate the tide rising regularly above those tubes but cannot survive prolonged submersion. Their leaves secrete salt water and taste salty if you lick them. You can spot the black mangroves by their slightly gray-green leaves.
The tallest of the mangroves, white mangroves (Laguncularia racemosa), grow farther from the water, on higher ground. In 1960 Hurricane Donna destroyed 50%–75% of the mature mangroves along the Everglades’s Shark River, one of the tallest stands of mangroves in the world. There are still some tall white mangroves along the Shark River—to an extent that you almost have a sense of paddling through a valley.
MOSQUITO
You will encounter “swamp angels” just about anywhere in the Everglades, primarily in the evenings. The good news is that while there are 43 species of mosquitoes in South Florida, only 13 species bite. And it’s just the female that bites, using your blood protein to produce her eggs.
History relates some ingenious mosquito repellents: the Seminoles coated their skin with fish oil or mud. Both Seminoles and pioneers burned black mangrove wood in smudge pots, producing smoke to thwart the insects. And palmetto leaves made excellent fans for dispelling the creatures. In Flamingo, settlers’ houses had an entry room called the loser where people brushed themselves off to “lose” mosquitoes. For more modern tips on dealing with mosquitoes, see “Insects,”.
As annoying as mosquitoes can be, they serve vital functions in the ecosystem. Their larvae, which grow in water, are food for small fish, which in turn are food for larger fish. Adult mosquitoes are prey for bats, frogs, insects, birds, and lizards.
MULLET
What is that fish that looks like it will jump right into your boat? It’s a striped mullet (Mugil cephalus). Why this torpedo-shaped fish jumps is subject to speculation: To avoid predators? To rid themselves of parasites? To communicate with fellow mullet? For aerial respiration? To clear their gills of mud? To rid themselves of gas? Because they are happy? Scientists still don’t know the answer.
Mullet feed on algae and decaying plant and animal matter called marine snow, and they are a major food source for other saltwater fish and for the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. The latter catch them by “fish kicking,” hitting the fish with their tail flukes and tossing them into the air. Humans catch them with cast nets, as this fish shuns baited hooks.
NICKERBEAN & NICKERNUT
You will surely see the thorny nickerbean vine, Caesalpinia bonduc, at the Picnic Key Campsite. The vine produces two seeds, or nickernuts, in each of its prickly pods. Smooth, round, and luminous, these seeds are called sea pearls. Named after a Dutch clay marble, a nickernut is quite durable and buoyant and can survive months at sea, sprouting in soft sand where it lands. On Caribbean islands and in Mexico, nickernuts are strung as bracelets, necklaces, and rosaries, and they are used as tokens in a game called oware, an island version of the game mancala. Pioneer children of South Florida sometimes used the seeds as marbles.
THE NIGHTMARE
No one seems to know exactly when or how The Nightmare got its name. This narrow, winding route between the Broad River and the Harney River, connecting the north and south channels of the Glades, was not named at all on maps in William G. Truesdell’s first edition (1969) or second edition (1985) of the Guide to the Wilderness Waterway. It appears now, however, on both NOAA and Waterproof charts, and the name has entered the historical lore of Waterway paddlers.
It was in the mid-1960s that ranger Richard “Dick” Stokes spearheaded the search for an inland passage that would link north and south. After several failed attempts, he and his fellow searchers finally located a barely passable channel. Following his retirement in 1981, Stokes wrote an open letter to the media, in which he said: “As far as I could find out, none of the locals had ever been through this waterway. No one knew of it nor did it show on any of the modern navigation charts. There was no sign of the creek ever being used within modern times. I strongly suspect that the only use was by the Calusa.”
ONION KEY
Paddling the Wilderness Waterway section 8/N, you will pass the key that local memoirist Totch Brown claims was named by settler Gregorio Lopez because he ate his last onion here. In another story, related in historian Charlton Tebeau’s Man in the Everglades, an unidentified man chose this solitary spot to homestead with his wife and grow onions. In its earliest known human history, the key was a Calusa settlement. In 1925 the key became the field headquarters for the real estate development company Poinciana Mainland, and later still, an NPS wilderness campsite. After a multistoried past, the key is now off-limits to the public.
OSPREY
Also known as fish hawks, Pandion haliaetus build massive stick nests on the tops of poles or trees, and you are likely to see them anywhere in your paddles. You might hear their “kee-uk” call and see them dive to grab fish from the water with their powerful talons. After catching a fish and resuming flight, the osprey turns the prey’s head forward, avoiding drag.
OYSTER
Eastern, or Atlantic, oysters (Crassostrea virginica) are bivalve filter feeders that settle on sandbars and create oyster beds that lie across the current. As the oyster colony is bathed in the incoming tide, a tube called a siphon sucks in nutrients from the water. Oysters trap sediment, which gives mangrove propagules (long, string bean–shaped seeds) a place to anchor and form new mangrove islands. They are also an important food source for birds, fish, and marine invertebrates. In short, oysters are a keystone species, cleaning water, stabilizing shorelines, and playing vital roles in the complexity of the Everglades ecosystem.
PLATE CREEK
You will paddle this creek on Wilderness Waterway section 7/O. Local memoirist Totch Brown, whose tales of the Everglades capture much of settler history, tells the story that the 19th-century settler and river namesake Gregorio Lopez named this creek when he lost a plate in the water here. (Yes, it’s reminiscent of Señor Lopez’s last onion on Onion Key, as described previously.)
RODGERS RIVER (BAY)
Rodgers River was named for Colonel S. St. George Rodgers, a member of the Florida Mounted Volunteers in the Third Seminole War, who traveled with 110 men from Fort Myers to what he called Chokoliska Key in 1857. You’ll paddle the Waterway here in sections 10/L and 11/K and may stay at the Rodgers River Chickee. At the turn of the 20th century, several pioneer families were established along Rodgers River, but now all the homesteads are gone and you are in the heart of the wilderness, surrounded by bays and the ever-present mangroves.
ROSEATE SPOONBILL
If you see a pink bird flying overhead, chances are that it is a roseate spoonbill (Ajaia ajaja), not the nonnative flamingo. If you see a number of these birds, you may notice that some are pinker than others. The degree of pink depends upon age and diet. For the first 2 years, roseate spoonbills are quite white. In adults, the pink color is enhanced when their diet is rich in shrimp and other crustaceans. During the plume rage of the early 20th century, these birds were prized for their colorful feathers. Whole wings were used to make fashionable feather fans.
At the water’s edge, spoonbills sweep their flattish bills, filtering out small food items from the water. Like their ibis relatives, roseate spoonbills fly with necks outstretched and with rapid wing beats. Watch for their startling beauty as you paddle various Everglades routes, and look for them at Alligator Creek Campsite.
SEAGRASS
Seagrass meadows waving in the clear waters of Florida Bay constitute an extremely productive ecosystem. Two types of seagrass predominate here: the broad-leaved turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum) and the cylindrical manatee grass (Syringodium filiforme). Many marine species feed on seagrass, its detritus, or the single-celled algae that grow on its leaves; other marine species take shelter among its blades or prey on the animals that feed or hide in these meadows. The meadows also serve as nurseries for many sport and commercial fish and for other marine life important to Florida’s economy. In addition, seagrass stabilizes the seabed and helps maintain water clarity by filtering debris. The grass releases oxygen into the water so quickly that one can see air bubbles escaping from its leaves. Enjoy the seagrass vistas out in Florida Bay.
SEMINOLE & MICCOSUKEE
Following the Creek War of 1813-14, the Seminoles (who called themselves the “free people”) moved south from Georgia into northern Florida. After the Florida territory was transferred from Spain to the U.S. in 1821, a series of three Seminole Wars (1835–1858) drove the “free people” deeper south into the Everglades. Although many were killed, captured, or forced to move west to Arkansas, about 100 Seminoles remained in the Glades, never having signed a peace treaty with the U.S. Their descendents live here today on reservation land and maintain their tribal culture and traditions. A separate tribe, the Miccosukee, separated from the Seminoles, forming their own tribal government on lands just north of Everglades National Park.
SHARK RIVER
The Shark River Slough (pronounced “slew”) is a wide wetland depression that carries fresh water in its slow flow southwest through the Everglades to the Gulf of Mexico. One of the primary channels that this water takes as it nears the Gulf is the Shark River. The land along the Shark is very low, and there have been few attempts to homestead along this river. In the early 20th century, the Manetta Company did try operations for extracting tannic acid and lumber from the mangrove forests, but the business ceased when a 1920 Category 4 hurricane destroyed its structures. Yes, bull and hammerhead sharks do visit the Shark River.
SMALLWOOD STORE
C. S. “Ted” Smallwood settled on Chokoloskee Island in the 1890s. He farmed in his early years, including the first few years after he married his neighbor’s daughter, Mamie House. Then the couple opened a store in their home to supplement their income. They saved up money until they could afford to buy lumber, and Smallwood built a trading post. In 1906 he became postmaster, with the post office inside the store, and eventually passed that position on to his daughter Thelma.
That first store was built on ground level at the water’s edge but was severely damaged by a hurricane in 1924. Smallwood rebuilt, elevating the store on high pilings. Since then, the Historic Smallwood Store has weathered multiple hurricanes. Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, the store is now a museum, still under the auspices of the Smallwood family.
SNOWY EGRET
You will see Egretta thula almost anywhere on Everglades adventures. Easily identified by their black legs and bright yellow feet (often referred to as “golden slippers”), snowy egrets are small, all-white-bodied herons that feed throughout the Everglades and along the Gulf shore. These birds sometimes use their golden feet as fishing lures, flying over the water and skipping their “slippers” to entice fish to the surface, where the egrets then can snatch them with their beaks. Snowy egrets were almost hunted to extinction for their aigrettes, the spectacular lacy plumes they display during breeding season. Their populations have not fully recovered, but numbers have increased considerably.
SWALLOW-TAILED KITE
Soaring above the Waterway with distinctive V-shaped tails, swallow-tailed kites (Elanoides forficatus) are raptors. As hawks, they capture insects, snakes, and lizards out of the air and the treetops while in flight. They have been known to snatch up a nest with baby birds and, holding the nest like a drinking bowl, consume the contents. They are constant fliers, rarely landing except to nest. Energy-efficient, they seldom flap their wings, but rotate their tails to turn as they drift in the air currents. Because they are migratory, you are likely to see them only February–August.
TABANIDAE (yellow flies)
Yellow flies, particularly notorious in Florida for their biting power, can set your arms and ankles stinging wildly. But deerflies and horseflies give a mean bite too. Be alert for the entire Tabanidae (pronounced “tah-BAN-ni-dee”) clan, particularly in the hours around sunrise and sunset and when the air is still.
Especially watch for them in the shade, where these flies tend to lurk. They locate prey primarily by sight and are drawn to dark colors, but they also recognize prey by scent. You can make yourself less attractive to them by wearing light clothes and scenting yourself with lemon eucalyptus oil or other insect repellent. But keep the Benadryl cream handy.
Although these species are similar in appearance, yellow flies are more golden yellow than the other two, and horseflies are a little larger than either yellow flies or deerflies. Sometimes, however, all of these are referred to locally as deerflies.
TABBY
Known as coastal concrete, tabby is made of equal parts lime, oyster shell, sand, and water. The mixture is poured into molds and hardens into a building material that is extremely durable. Weather-strong, it was often the building material of choice in pioneer southwest Florida. Tabby fragments of homes, cisterns, and other structures remain as evidence of human habitation on a number of islands along the Waterway, including Lopez River Campsite, Darwin’s Place, and The Watson Place.
TARPON
Known as the “silver king” in Florida waters, tarpon (Megalops atlanticus) are primarily inshore fish. They feature silver sides covered with large scales, and they have a modified swim bladder that enables them to gulp air at the surface. In addition, they have a short dorsal fin with a threadlike trailing edge, but when they swim near the surface, the tail sticks out of the water and can resemble a second fin. Tarpon feed both day and night, and they spawn offshore May–October.
TURNER RIVER
Captain Richard Turner, a U.S. Army Seminole War scout, guided an expedition up “Chokolisca Creek” in 1857. In 1871 he returned to establish a homestead on a Calusa shell mound 0.25 mile up what is now known as the Turner River. He and several other families farmed there for a number of years.
When you paddle the Halfway Creek/Turner River Loop, look for regular rows of mounds constructed perpendicular to the riverbanks and extending 0.5 mile away from the channel. Due to heavy subtropical vegetation, it may not be easy to see them from a kayak or canoe, but you may be able to spot them if you look behind the mangroves. If you miss them, know that they are there and that you’re paddling through a place where ancient, and then pioneering, people had a thriving culture.
WORM ROCK
Often confused with corals or with the Sabellariid worm reefs that lie off Florida’s Atlantic Coast, worm rock is a strong structure created by snails—not by coral or by worms. One such worm rock reef can be found off the Picnic Key and Tiger Key area. Known as the worm snail (Petaloconchus varians), this mollusk attaches itself to a hard substrate and forms a wormlike shell that twists and coils, interlacing with the shells of thousands of other gastropods to form extensive rocklike reefs. Although worm snails are still present in the Gulf, they are no longer forming new reefs.