Everglade City & Chokoloskee

The island of Chokoloskee is located on the southwesternmost part of Florida, just past Everglades city. The modern settlement of Chokoloskee Island started in 1874, with farming and fishing. It is part of the 10,ooo islands off the coast of Florida. Farming was possible on the islands until such time as the land was salted by hurricane ocean surge and then the land would be unusable for growing crops.

Smallwood's Store, in operation since 1906, was a important trading post and post office for the area. It remained active until 1982; now it's being operated as a museum filled with a lot of old, interesting stuff from that time frame. What I found fascinating was that most of the trade was done via the water side.

The dock behind the store.

http://www.florida-everglades.com/chokol/smallw.htm

The landing beach next to the store. While we were here we saw a couple of kayaks pull up and since they had coolers in the kayaks, it looked like they had been out awhile.

Everglade City is a good introduction to the Everglades.

Highway 41, the Tamiami trail, between Miami and Naples was completed in 1928. It divides the Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park. Alligators are a common sight in the canal on the northern side of the trail. It is only one lane in each direction and has no fences to keep wildlife from traversing it.

We didn't see alligators during our ride through the glades. Our airboat captain said that it was because there hadn't been any rain and the water on the glade side was brackish and alligators don't like salt water. Crocodiles are apparently the salt water fans and they are much farther south. There are very few American Crocodiles left in the Everglades.

These pathways through the everglades were originally carved out by the indians. The local airboat operators keep them clear today. The islands of the everglades are basically held together by the roots of mangrove trees. The roots of the red mangrove was used by the indians for red dye and the black mangrove was used for buttons.

I've attempted to put together a little video of our ride through the glades. So much fun!