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Calendar Photo and Story For November 2008 |
| I had known about the Peace River most of my life because, in his youth, my father helped to build a bridge over it, and because our family crossed that bridge near Arcadia every time we went to our cabin on Lake Okeechobee. |
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I got to know the river personally when I found Gardner Landing pictured above and met a friend who I'd keep for life. We camped on the river for the best part of two years and in that time got to know its many moods. As pictured above, it is as low as I've ever seen it. I've also seen it in flood many times when the water rose way above the roots in the foreground. |
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In an aerial photograph (boat ramp is near the center) you can see that it was once actually a bridge many many decades before when the area was more vital and seemed as likely to grow as any other. Instead the population dwindled and the need for the bridge passed and it was never rebuilt after it collapsed in a major flood. |
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The river rises around Bartow and flows south to Arcadia then more westerly to reach the Gulf of Mexico between Punta Gorda and Cape Coral in the Charlotte Harbor estuary some 110 miles away. In the early to mid part of the 20th century, because it flows through many major phosphate mining operations and there were many spills, the river was polluted to the point that it literally could not sustain life. By the time I camped there in 1979-1980, because of massive conservation efforts, it was almost fully recovered, not only for fish populations but also birds and predators as I often discovered. It was not uncommon, while swimming, to disturb an alligator lounging near the bank or beneath a fallen tree or branch! There is much to be said for the experience of living simply and so far from towns and highways that the only sounds and sights are natural. Gardner Landing was such a place and I am richer for having spent so much time there. |
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