Civilization Springs Forth

12 Sept 2009

Civilization At Last

      By world standards the United States is not a crowded country, but it is crowded nonetheless. That is why I came to this river. I wanted to see a natural environment unspoiled by man. The first 20 miles of the River mostly met that standard. You might as well be cruising up some tributary of the Amazon or Congo for all the wildness that surrounds you. We drove all those miles in a single day. We will explore this area in earnest as we descend the river on the trip back to the Gulf. For now we continue upriver.
       Upriver is Civilization. The Suwannee is still a backwater; there is still plenty of natural beauty up ahead. It is just that now you see occasional waterfront homes, some old Florida and charming, a few modern and seemingly out of place. Civilization and land development marches forth.
       Development sadly is not new to the river. Truth be told, the Suwannee has been home to agriculture, logging, and extractive industries pre-dating the Civil War. Steamships used to cruise the river as the lifeblood of trade. Some parts of the river are less settled now then they were a hundred and fifty years ago. Nature is resilient and returns where it is allowed to do so.
       What lies ahead is spotty - spots of homes, spots of nature, spots of farms, spots of small towns and villages, and spots of history. Blotches of civilization such as it is abounds. It is part of the landscape and we will explore that too, especially if it contains a tavern.
       Florida is a coral reef. Long ago when the oceans were deeper the State was underwater. Corals built up in the shallow sea. These corals form the limestone base upon which the state of Florida rests. As Rain falls it penetrates the porous limestone melting it over thousands of years. The result is that Florida is honeycombed with underground rivers which eventually surface as springs. These springs burst forth all over the state. The largest concentration of these springs lies along the banks of the Suwannee.
       As we sit at anchor at the mouth of Manatee springs we took the dinghy to the State Park dock and had a look around. The clear waters of this first magnitude spring boil out of the ground and flow cleanly to the Suwannee 1200 feet away. It was near dusk as we walked through the Cypress forest lining the spring’s run. A small herd of deer danced slowly away upon our approach. We of course forgot our camera.