Traveling with Kids Florida's Southwest Coast
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If there is one place in the whole gulf region (or in all of the lower 48 states) to experience a primeval environment, Southwest Florida is it. The cypress and mangrove swamps along the state's Gulf Coast offer a wonderful opportunity to see the land and the wildlife that existed here long before even the earliest Native Americans arrived after their long trek from Siberia. Whether exploring the Everglades, or the swamps that lie just north of the River of Grass, the visitor is overwhelmed by a feeling that this is a timeless natural environment, where life is as it should be: a cooperative ecosystem where interrelated worlds are like a finely-tuned orchestra, all in perfect pitch and guided by the wizardly composer and conductor who have collaborated to produce as perfect a natural system as exists anywhere in the world. Because there is no continuous history of human habitation in the area, the real natives are the ancient cypress, twisted mangroves, palmettos, and sedges, along with the alligators, crocodiles, herons, snakes, manatees, and turtles, all of which been here from the beginning of recorded time.

Swamps and Islands

For anyone who has not experienced the perfection of a well-made swamp, the very word causes shudders. Swamps reek, and the fetid waters harbor dangerous animals like alligators and crocodiles. Warm swamps have lots of mosquitoes, and it's hard to hike through swampy places. Because the wildlife is mostly hiding in the water, muck, and thick vegetation, birds and animals are sometimes hard to spot. There are lots of plausible reasons for avoiding these difficult places. Swamps are not for the faint of heart, nor are they particularly useful to those who have only a limited amount of time for exploration. At least, that's what we tend to believe.

But with the proper attitude, and a reasonable amount of time spent in looking under the odoriferous and murky exterior, Florida's southern swamps become wonderlands of life that offer superb recreational opportunities and life-affirming adventure.

While we have consigned the amazing mangrove islands of Everglades National Park to another chapter, there are five other natural places, close to the southwestern tip of Florida, that must be seen for one to truly appreciate the dichotomy between the timeless, unchanging natural environment of the South Florida swamps and the transient nature of the barrier islands. Big Cypress National Preserve is part of the Big Cypress Swamp, a northward extension of the Everglades. It is a landscape characterized by slowly moving and still water, and slightly-raised cypress hammocks. Collier-Seminole State Park, where the Tamiami Trail curves northward, is a relatively small protected area of the same swamp, offering hiking and camping, as well as boating and canoeing access to the coast and the Ten Thousand Islands.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary contains the nation's largest stand of virgin bald cypress. Located due east of Marco Island, owned by the National Audubon Society, the sanctuary occupies 11,000 acres of the Big Cypress Swamp, with trees estimated to be as old as 700 years and growing to a height of 130 feet. A boardwalk leads through the swamp, providing access to more than 700 species of plants and animals.

History: The Calusa

It is thought that the first human occupants of South Florida were the Calusa, a resilient and highly structured society that established communities on the barrier islands of the Gulf Coast, particularly on Pine, Marco, Sanibel, and Captiva. They also built an inland community, called Mayaimi, located at the edge of Lake Okeechobee, largely as a trading center for interaction with the Tekesta who lived along the Atlantic Coast. The Calusa were the southernmost tribe of natives living along the peninsula's western shores.

Other cultures included the Apalachee of the northern Panhandle. The Timuca, a confederation of as many as 15 separate groups, lived on the northern section of the peninsula. On the western shore were the Osochi, Utina, Ocale, Freshwater, and Yustaga. The Tocobaga occupied territory around Tampa Bay. The Timuca shared the coastline south of Tampa Bay with the Calusa. Other tribes occupied the southeastern coastal regions.

Finding their way to South Florida some five-to-six thousand years ago, the Calusa were about 20,000 strong when Ponce de Leon arrived from Spain in 1513 and claimed (and named) La Florida. They were more sophisticated in their culture and structured society than the other native groups, establishing permanent towns and living by means other than agriculture. This was a strong, often ferocious nation which exercised power over neighboring tribes, particularly the groups that occupied the Lake Okeechobee and Atlantic Coast regions to the east.

The Calusa and other native groups traveled along the Gulf Coast and to the Caribbean islands in huge dugout craft, made of cypress. These boats held as many as forty men, carrying trade goods, plants, animals, and tools for building their unique community structures. While the northern groups lived in enclosed structures, the Calusa built chickees, open-sided buildings perched on stilts above the land or water, protecting the communities from high tides and flooding by torrential rainfall. Chickees had no walls, permitting breezes to flow through, as a mosquito and gnat prevention measure. Like the other groups, the Calusa celebrated during feast periods with elaborate ceremonies and much dancing. Artisans carved clan masks denoting the spirits of birds and animals, including wolves, deer, cats, turtles, and bears, among others. Finely detailed and highly colored cypress figurines were carved, representing animals and half-animal, half-human totemic creatures. Wooden and sandstone plaques were carved, with images of animals, birds, insects, and human body parts. From looking at these remarkable pieces of art, one can grasp the intense relationship with Nature shared by the Calusa. Artifacts from the pre-Spanish period are found in several museums in southwestern Florida, including the Museum of the Islands in Bokeelia on Pine Island.

Throughout recent history, beginning with Ponce de Leon's first visit in 1513, the native peoples of the Florida peninsula were in almost constant conflict with the newcomers: European and American colonists; Spanish conquistadors; English and Spanish pirates; land-based thugs and profiteering slave traders; and Jesuit missionaries, who subjugated the South Florida natives as virtual slaves on work farms; all came into conflict with the Timucua and Calusa, as they proclaimed their divinely-given right to preside over the natives with absolute authority. With the Europeans came physical abuse, plus diseases formerly unknown to the native groups. During the seventeenth century, the native population was almost totally decimated by typhus, measles, yellow fever, and smallpox.

When de Leon arrived, Florida natives numbered more than 100,000. In less than 20 years, the total native population had fallen to less than 11,000, and most of those lived in the northern part of the peninsula, as members of the Creek Federation. By the time the pestilences, Indian wars, and deportation of natives to reservations in Arkansas were over, there were no more than 70 Calusa remaining in their Everglades sanctuary: less than 1.5 percent of the number of Calusa living in southern Florida when the Spaniards began colonization. Soon there were none.

The saga of the Florida native peoples is appallingly similar to the story of the changes made to the landscape of South Florida by colonizers and developers. The Creeks and Calusa were "reclaimed" in order that their lands be used for settlement and development purposes by the conquerors. In this case of human reclamation, death and deportation was the outcome.

Following the final truce in the war between the United States and the Florida native people, the remaining members of the formerly independent groups of the Central Florida Creek Federation were merged by the white conquerors into one tribal group, becoming known as Seminoles. Two Seminole reservations are located north of Interstate 75 in the Big Cypress Swamp. In pre-Spanish days, the South Florida native people occupied and farmed the most productive land in the state. Their current home is the least productive.

The Miccosukee&emdash;Lower Creeks who were originally known as Mikasuki, speaking the Hitichi language&emdash;were given tribal status in 1962 following an international campaign. The fight for recognition embarrassingly (not to the Miccosukee) involved Fidel Castro, who among other international leaders recognized their nationhood. The Miccosuckee occupy a reservation straddling Interstate 75, with a small tribal headquarters area along the Tamiami Trail (Highway 41), next to Everglades National Park.

Whether there is Calusa blood in any Seminole or Miccosuckee is not known. What we do know is that once there were more than 5,000 productive Calusa, living their lives in their own highly developed communities in Southwestern Florida. Today, their culture is embodied in a few fragments of masks, figurines, and sandstone plaques, displayed in museums, and their former towns are remembered by the remains of community mounds and raised middens on barrier islands, and hammocks in the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp with the chickee their sole lasting material contribution to American society.

Big Cypress National Preserve

South of Lake Okeechobee and north of Everglades National Park sits the Big Cypress Swamp, covering more than 2,400 square miles of South Florida. The swamp is a large part of the watery ecosystem that includes the Everglades.

Of the total swamp region, 740,000 acres lie within Big Cypress National Preserve, a partially protected tract that is closed to most commercial activity but doesn't have all of the restrictions of a national park. Hunting is allowed, a few homeowners and cattle grazers occupy property within the boundaries, and oil exploration continues. While airboats are banned in Everglades National Park, they are permitted to run through the preserve, providing employment for the Miccosukee and Seminole natives who live near the edges of the preserve and offer swamp tours to visitors.

The swamp area has, like the Everglades, been a target for development since the proclamation of statehood. Most of this activity has gone on in the western portion of the swamp, close to the Gulf Coast and the Tamiami Trail highway. Land developers have made several attempts to plan subdivisions in the western swamplands, but to little avail. While some of the swamp near the town of Belle Meade has been cleared for home building, large tracts sit idle, victims of the basic swamp environment: too much water to clear, and the projects too expensive to justify their completion.

Swamp Ecology

Lying just north and west of the glades, the Big Cypress swamp differs from the Everglades in its slightly raised terrain, and also by the standing water that covers much of the area&emdash;unlike the Everglades' slowly-moving flow. The same crumbly limestone bedrock which underlies the glades, also provides a base for the cypress and hardwood hammocks of the swamp. Hammocks are a Florida phenomenon. These are areas of land ever so slightly raised above the water level, providing a base for trees that cannot put their roots directly in standing water, encouraging forest understory vegetation, and making a home for dryland species of animals and birds. Most of the swamp's hammocks are raised only a few feet above the stagnant water. Between the hammocks are vast reaches of sawgrass and dwarf pond cypress, with the higher land holding groves of royal palms, orchids, and air plants. Fresh water does move through the swamp, mainly in three major sloughs in the southwestern section&emdash;Lostmans, Disons, and Gum&emdash;allowing a flow of water from the western Lake Okeechobee area to filter down to the Gulf through Everglades National Park.

The swamp gets its name not from the size of the trees, but for its enormous area. Giant (bald) cypress grew throughout the swamp until the 20th century when lumbering operations cut down all but a few. These are now seen in isolated groves, including the Bear Island area in the northwestern portion of the preserve. The dwarf cypress, not suitable for housebuilding, remains to cover about one-third of the swamp area, found along the edges of the wet prairies and on cypress domes.

During the wet season, abundant rains fall (almost daily) to flood the swamp; the sloughs are high as water begins its slow flow towards the Everglades. When most tourists arrive, during the dry season (May to November), much of the water evaporates or flows slowly downstream, leaving pools in the depressions and some water in the sloughs. Congregating in these low spots are the varied wildlife species: egrets, herons, ibis, and wood storks, among the water birds; red cockaded woodpeckers and turkeys; plus alligators, deer, and mink. Bald eagles are overhead throughout the year. The dry period serves to concentrate wildlife next to the accessible water.

As a result of the building of the Tamiami Trail, from the 1920s, and in a more concentrated way from the 1960s, development efforts reduced the flow of water through and from the swamp, and environmental concerns heated to the point that portions of Big Cypress were protected, including the federal preserve and the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve which lies to the west of the federal lands. Collier Seminole State Park is a smaller piece of land linking the Gulf of Mexico to the far western portion of the main swamp.

By far the largest and most important of the environmental protection projects is the Big Cypress National Preserve, open for some commercial activities, but banning large-scale development of the type that has taken place on the eastern and far-western sides of the swamp. Current water restoration projects will eventually bring back much of the flow of water deemed necessary for the swamp and the Everglades to recover.

How to Get There

Two major highways run east to west across the Big Cypress preserve: the Tamiami Trail (U.S. 41) that runs across the southern part of the swamp; and Interstate 75 (Alligator Alley), leading across the northern portion. The Tamiami Trail provides access to most of the preserve's attractions and services, including the main visitor center and roadside parks that offer picnicking and short nature trails, in addition to four car campgrounds located within the preserve boundaries. The Tamiami Trail is the more southerly route across the peninsula, running from Miami to Naples. Interstate 75 leads from the Fort Lauderdale area and the Atlantic Coast to the Naples area and Fort Myers. Route 839 is a gravel road running north to south through the western side of the preserve. My favored access route is the Tamiami Trail, not only offering access to the preserve visitor center but to the nearby Shark Valley site in Everglades National Park.

Driving Routes

The major route through the southern part of the preserve is the Loop Road Scenic Drive (County Road 94), leading from Monroe Station&emdash;east of the visitor center&emdash;for 26 miles, before rejoining the Tamiami Trail at the Tamiami Ranger Station, at the eastern edge of the preserve. The drive offers access to the Florida National Scenic Trail, three campgrounds, the Tree Snail Hammock Nature Trail, and an environmental education center. This is a gravel road suitable for two-wheel-drive vehicles, and is passable year-round. Visitors visiting the preserve during the rainy season should watch for water flowing over the road, and pot holes. You'll be able to see wildlife from the car, including deer and otter, and birds and other animals at stopping points along the way.

The Tamiami Trail offers views of water birds in the canal which runs to the north of the highway across the preserve. You may also see alligators sunning themselves beside the canal. Parking is difficult, however, and drivers should be careful to pull completely off the highway to avoid encounters with other, fast-moving vehicles.

Turner River Road (#839) and Birdon Road provide a 17-mile loop drive leading north from the Tamiami Trail, through Copeland Prairie. Birdon Road is found in the village of Ochopee, across the highway from Dunes Drive. Turner River Road is to the east, providing access to the H.P. Williams Roadside Park, a picnic area.

For a longer trip through varied ecosystems, take Turner River Road north from the Tamiami Trail, through Airplane Prairie, under Interstate 75, and into East Hinson Marsh, with access to the Bear Island campground. This is a gravel route, suitable for all types of cars.

Off-road Adventure

Airboats and off-road vehicles, including swamp buggies, four-wheel-drive automobiles, and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), are permitted within the preserve, offering opportunities to explore the swamp interior. Native guides are available to take you on swamp excursions from several locations along the Tamiami Trail. If you have your own motorized vehicle, you'll need a permit from the National Park Service, available at the visitor center. The annual fee for an off-road vehicle permit is $35.00. The permit covers all-terrain vehicles as well as airboats and swamp buggies.

The major area for off-road vehicles is a designated trail system north of Interstate 75. This network of trails is accessed from the end of Bear Island Road, via Turner River Road. Primitive campgrounds are located at the south and north end of the area. There is no direct access from I-75 to Turner River Road or any of the trails. Those wishing to use the trails should take Turner River Road from Highway 41 (Tamiami Trail).

Another prime off-road recreation area is located near the southwest corner of the preserve, in the Lostmans Pines area, fronting on Gum Slough (to the north), and backing onto the boundaries of Everglades National Park. This is primarily an airboat area, with all-terrain vehicles allowed in the north-central and central portions. Airboats are permitted over almost all of the wet areas of the preserve, with airboat-only boundaries and off-road vehicle trails identified with special airboat and trail markers. Airboats and off-road vehicles are not permitted to enter Everglades National Park. The area enclosed by the Tamiami Trail and the Loop Road is not open to motorized vehicles, nor is the Deep Lake area on the western side of the preserve. For complete information on current trail conditions and closings, visit the preserve visitor center on Tamiami Trail.

Florida National Scenic Trail

This path runs from the Loop Road (County Road 94), south of the Tamiami Trail (U.S. 41), for 38 miles in a south to north direction. The most popular part of the route is the portion just west and north of the Oasis Visitor Center. The part least affected by off-road vehicle use is the most southerly stretch, between the Loop Road and U.S. 41. Off-road uses are prohibited in the area south of the Tamiami Trail. The best time to hike on the trail (the driest time) is March, although the preferred hiking season extends from early January through April. We cover the trail in three sections, to provide information for making choices as to how long you wish to spend hiking, and on loop and other routes offering the best day hikes or backcountry experiences.

South Section

If you're concerned about parking in unprotected and remote areas (and you should be), it's a good idea to arrange for a shuttle to the south trailhead, and to park your car at the Oasis Ranger Station, at the main visitor center on U.S. 41. This caution holds true for parking at the north end of the trail, beside I-75.

The south section of the trail is accessed from the trailhead beside the Loop Road, 15 miles from the eastern junction of this road with the Tamiami Trail. The eastern eight miles of the Loop Road are paved, with an additional seven miles of fairly rough gravel surface, often pitted with potholes. You'll find the trailhead with an orange blaze (the color for this section) plus a standard trailhead sign. This section of the hike, from the Loop Road to U.S. 41, covers a distance of 8.3 miles. The first three miles follow the track of what used to be Sawmill Road, with much exposed limestone surface. Leaving the old road, the trail leads north for two miles to Roberts Lake Strand. The route turns left and shortly turns right (north), coming out to meet U.S. 41 after another 2.5 miles.

This part of the Florida Trail is devoid of vehicle tracks, but offers wildlife tracks instead. You'll see many signs of wildlife that have crossed the trail, along with spring wildflowers, willows, bayberry, and the unusual glade lobelia along this part of the trail.

Central Section

As mentioned above, the most-used portion of the trail within the preserve is that part leading north from the visitor center and U.S. 41. That's because parking is available, and this part of the trail offers two handy loops via the main trail and an alternate trail. The longest of the loops covers a distance of 26.4 miles, with the shorter loop reducing the round-trip to 15.9 miles.

The trail picks up, heading north from the west corner of the parking lot of the Oasis ranger station, leading through a fairly open swamp area for a half-mile. But the path soon enters the forest, with cypress and saw palmettos. After 2.9 miles, a trail blazed with blue leads to the left. This is the alternate trail which makes the loop route. Continue to the right on the main trail (orange blaze) for another four miles, until reaching Seven-Mile Campsite. This is one of two campgrounds on the trail with tenting sites and well pumps. Drinking water should be boiled.

So far, the trail has passed through mostly swamp with few raised areas, but offering lots of opportunities for seeing swamp life, including many water insects, turtles, spiders, and large bugs with gossamer wings (damselflies). There are deer in this section of the preserve, along with foxes, frogs, raccoons, and turkeys. You may see or hear the pileated woodpecker (looking like Woody). Although Florida panthers have occupied the central part of the swamp, you will probably not see one. They are very endangered and those who are in the swamp tend to be in the non-hunting areas, to the west, where their primary prey (deer) are more plentiful. Here too are alligators, wallowing in depressions during dry seasons. Hikers should be aware of snakes, particularly the cottonmouth, and the pigmy rattlesnake, both poisonous and seen along the route. They are rarely interested in biting humans, but one should be aware of their presence.

Just north of Seven-Mile Camp, a 2.3-mile trail (blue blaze) leads west, connecting the main trail with the alternate route. Turning here to reach the alternate trail provides the shortest of the two loop hikes, and a return to the Oasis visitor center and ranger station. The walk north, along the main trail to the north end of the alternate trail, covers an additional 7.1 miles. If you're turning south to return to the visitor center, you have 12.4 miles of hiking before reaching U.S. 41.

North Section

After passing the alternate (blue) trail, the main trail leads north for 2.7 miles to the second campsite, with well. Interstate 75 is another 13 miles past the campsite. The terrain changes on this final section, entering an area of hardwood hammocks, and areas with cabbage palms. The trail passes through the Bamboo Strand, one of the dampest sections along the entire route. This is an area with much off-road vehicle usage, and the closer you get to I-75, the more disturbance of the trailside you'll see. The trail exits the preserve between mileposts 38 and 39.

Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve

In the Big Cypress Swamp, water flows through long sloughs, created by the erosion of the limestone bedrock that underlies the swamp and the Everglades. The drainage sloughs or channels contain layers of organic material on which the cypress forests grow. The local term for this type of long swamp area is "strand."

Although this western part of the Big Cypress is not within the federal preserve, it is reached by driving through the preserve on State Route 29. The access road is reached from either I-75 (north), or from the Tamiami Trail (U.S. 41), south of the preserve. If you're coming from U.S. 41, drive to the junction at Carnestown. Drive north on SR 29 for 2.3 miles, to the village of Copeland, and then turn west (left) onto W.J. Janes Scenic Drive, the access route through the state preserve. The preserve office and information center is three miles along this road.

At the end of the road is a startling view which serves to illustrate the ironies inherent in trying to develop swamp areas for human use. It's a stark picture of man's inhumanity to Nature (more about this later).

If traveling from the north, drive along I-75 and exit at State Route 29, driving south past Deep Lake and Jerome, to the state preserve road. Turn right and drive three miles to the information center. This route offers the benefits of touring Miles City Prairie (just south of I-75) and Rock Island Prairie. The state route then passes west of Deep Lake Strand, with prominent pineland areas.

The preserve contains a magnificent stand of royal palms, located on the western boundary, near a series of hardwood hammocks, about seven miles from the road. This preserve is also a protected home of the Florida panther, plus many of the species found in Big Cypress National Preserve: hawks, woodpeckers, owls, raccoons, turtles, and deer.

The Scenic Drive ends at a canal, but you can explore old paths that remain from earlier development days. Look beyond the canal and you'll see just about the worst of what man hath wrought, the ultimate in unbuilt townsites, a suitable testimony to Florida developers and their incessant efforts to drain the swamps and tame Nature by building suburbs in the wilderness. For economic and other reasons, the huge tract of canals and roads has not been fully developed, and lies there as a monument to futility.

Collier&endash;Seminole State Park

One of the great benefits of visiting this park, and even camping here, is the chance to see and walk through a wonderful grove of royal palms. The park is located eight miles south of Belle Meade, and 17 miles south of Naples, on U.S. 41, the Tamiami Trail. It offers just about the perfect base camp for exploring the Big Cypress Preserve and the western section of Everglades National Park.

The property was owned by railway magnate Barron Collier who, in the 1940s, wanted to donate a sizable piece of the western Everglades to the federal government for use as a national park. When the government refused the offer, Collier donated the land to the state for park and preserve purposes.

Things to See and Do

The park's 6,423 acres not only provides a water route to the Ten Thousand Islands and the Gulf Coast, but also offers recreational activities and varied ecosystems including mangrove and cypress swamps, hardwood hammocks, piney woods, and that grove of royal palms. A tropical hammock houses trees and other plants typical of the West Indies' coastal forests. As salt water mixed with fresh water, salt marshes harbour an abundance of wildlife. Although their numbers are fast declining, the park sees West Indian manatees from time to time.

The park is open to recreation, while a major section, covering 4,760 acres, is devoted to wildlife preservation. This area of mangrove swamps may be toured by a limited number of visitors each day. A canoe route of 13.6 miles offers superb paddling through the wilderness preserve, while boat tours are available from the park concession: an easy way to view the mangrove wilderness. Boat and canoe rentals are available, for exploring the park, or for going farther -- to the Ten Thousand Islands, or to the Wilderness Waterway of Everglades National Park. The park interior is linked to the Gulf Coast by the Blackwater River, and boat plans must be filed with the park ranger office. Park facilities include a boat ramp.

Canoe Route

This is a park of incredible beauty, and one of the best ways to explore the wilderness interior is to take the canoe route through the mangrove swamps. If you decide to spend a day doing this trip, you must register, at 8 a.m., at the park entrance office. A fee is charged, and you'll be provided with paddles and life jackets or seat cushions. The park stipulates that you return for check-in by sunset, unless you plan to stay overnight in the mangrove forest. Those who don't return are subjects of a search by a park patrol. Part of the registration package is a map of the route, and it's always helpful to ask the ranger about current conditions and hints on navigation. The route is identified by a series of nautical markers, starting at marker 56, with the real beginning of the route at marker 47.

When reaching marker 56, turn right, away from the Blackwater River. Mud Bay provides great views of wildlife including ibis, egrets, and herons, plus sandpipers and plovers (especially at low tide). The route leads to the south of the large island in the bay. The cypress campsite, Grocery Place, is 3.5 miles from the formal starting point of the route (marker 47). This is an ideal place to begin a two-day paddle of the route. At this point, you're about an hour's paddle from the Ten Thousand Islands.

After leaving Grocery Place, the trip leads into Palm Bay, and the route runs along the bay's left side, veering east beyond the forest. At this point, the saltwater fish appear. This is a tidal area and it's best to consider this when navigating through the bay and along the coastal area.

At marker 13, you're at the mouth of the Blackwater River, the return route to the park facilities. Stay to the left , heading north, and you'll pass markers 14 to 18. There is then a stretch of unmarked river, and before reaching marker 23, you'll notice the river becoming narrower, as the mangroves get closer and the atmosphere thickens. The end of the canoe route is marker 47. If you keep to the right, you'll soon return to the marina, retracing the first part of the trip through the northern part of the park.

Walking and Hiking

Two walking trails lead through the principal land-based features. A short nature trail, found next to the visitor center, features boardwalks and an observation platform overlooking the salt marsh. A 6.5-mile hiking trail offers a fine day hike through cypress and pine flatwoods. Guided walks are given at 10 a.m. on Saturdays, from early December through April. In addition to manatees, park wildlife species include crocodiles, the Florida black bear, Big Cypress fox squirrels, red-cockaded woodpeckers, bald eagles, brown pelicans, ospreys, and wood storks. The roseate spoonbill and other wading birds are seen in large numbers. Salt water fish available at the end of a line include redfish, snook, and mangrove snapper.

Camping in the Park

Collier-Seminole contains two campgrounds, one having sites located in a wooded area. This area is popular with tent campers. The other campground consists of more than 100 sites suitable for trailers and RVs. One primitive campground offers nighttime accommodations for canoe-trippers. It's called Grocery Place, and the nightly limit is five canoes. For information on campground availabilities, and to make reservations for campsites, call the park office at (941) 394-3397, or write Collier Seminole State Park, 20200 East Tamiami Trail, Naples FL 33961.

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Owned and operated by the National Audubon Society, this popular preserve is located north of Collier Seminole State Park, and south of the town of Estero. The sanctuary is found by taking the Tamiami Trail (U.S. 41) to David Brown Highway (County Road 846). Drive east on CR 846 for 18.9 miles to County Road 849. Turn north (left) and drive 1.6 miles to the sanctuary entrance. You can also get there by taking Interstate 75 south from Fort Myers or Estero, exiting at County Road 846.

If you didn't see bald cypress in Big Cypress National Preserve, you'll certainly see them here. The 11,000-acre sanctuary is home to the largest remaining stand of the old-growth cypress trees. The campaign to save the cypress groves dates back to 1911, when the society moved to protect the area not only for the cypress, but against plume hunters who had moved into the region in behest of the millinery trade, and proceeded to kill great quantities of great egrets, and wood storks. The first 6,000 acres were purchased in 1954, by the society and affiliated groups under the umbrella of the Corkscrew Cypress Rookery Association. The remainder of the sanctuary lands were bought in 1968.

A visitor center provides sanctuary trail information and other materials on its mission. A wildlife-viewing walk along the 1.7-mile boardwalk trail is aided by a trail booklet. The trail heads out from the sanctuary headquarters, through a grove of slash pine and palmetto, and then crosses a damp prairie, leading into the cypress. Epiphytes (air plants) grow on the limbs of the trees. On the floor are ferns of the swamp, including leather, Boston, and strap. Birds and animals are seen from the observation platform, while unusual vegetation including water lettuce is seen floating on the small ponds, with turtles and frogs nearby. The nests of the wood stork are located high in the cypress trees. Thirty species of orchid grow within the sanctuary, although you may spot four or five along the boardwalk route. This is a walk that requires an illustrated field guide, and the Audubon Society Guide-Wetlands (Houghton Mifflin) is about the best available for this type of terrain.

Fraser Bridges

The material in this feature was adapted from the book "Natural Places of the Gulf Coast - from Florida to Texas, by Fraser Bridges, published by Prima Publishing.