I recently came across a book titled: WEIRD AMERICA - A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States by Jim Brandon written back in 1978. There are quite a few places of interest near me and I am curious to check them out. This is the first one I have visited.
The Calusa Heritage Trail is located on Pine Island, Florida which is near Fort Myers. The reason it has been included in this book because of the mounds made of oyster and conch shells and canals of unknown origin. One of the mounds is estimated to cover over 10 acres at a height of 25 feet. Another is 35 feet tall with a bas of 200 feet in diameter. An even larger sand mound with dual peaks is a quarter mile distance from these that are close to the water. There is a canal that ran between them and it was 5 miles long when it was in use stretching the entire distance of the island. Most of that has been filled in for development now. The sand mounds are noted that the grains of sand are strikingly homogenous in size to each other.
The history books tell us the Calusa tribe lived on southwest Florida for thousands of years before the Spaniards came, while some experts claim that they may have been there much longer; maybe 10,000 years or so.
I was just going by what the WEIRD AMERICA book so I was a little disoriented as I parked on the road by the first mound we saw. It turns out the official entrance is a little further down the road. I noticed a pier near where we parked so we walked over there and noticed this rock celebrating the life of a "lovely lady".
This pier goes about 50 feet out into the water.
View looking north from the end of the pier.
This is the view looking south. We noticed a strong, pungent smell coming from the water. I discovered that this smell is from sargassum, a type of seaweed.
I saw an osprey looking for food perched on a post out in the water.
After a brief visit to the stinky water, we ventured across the street and walked up the first mound. This is the view at the top facing back towards the water.
The top of this mound is flat and open.
Stairs to climb down from this mound and join the trail.
The pictures coming up (which were all taken with my Samsung Note 20 Ultra) are of the trail that we walked until we made it to the next mound. We paused frequently along the trail to imagine and feel what it was like to live here 10,000 years ago. It is a very peaceful space I am grateful to have visited.
It starts out paved with a lot of open space.
It changed from paved to grass for most of the trail.
We saw this squirrel playing in this mango tree. He may have been a little tipsy as a lot of the mangoes were fermenting on the ground.
There are a lot of these trail maps making it easy to know where you are.
The vegetation is very lush in this area.
This nice wooden walkway leads to another one of the mounds here. This one is called Smith mound and is thought to be a Calusa burial mound.
A sign sharing a little of the history about this mound.
It's not easy to make out in the picture, but this is the first view you get of the burial mound.
There is a trail going all the way around the mound.
These berries are beautiful.
And shiny!
This must be part of the canal that hasn't been filled in.
This is the view looking across the canal at the burial mound.
You will always spot a lizard on a walk on Florida.
The vines have taken over the old trees.
Back on the grassy trail to see the next mound.
The trail was narrow in some areas.
Not sure if this was part of the ancient canal system, but it was dry this day.
I love this tree with the big vines growing on it.
Looking up from directly underneath the tree.
This is the nice lookout area at the top of the last mound we explored.
The view overlooking the area.
This tree also has beautiful red-orange flowers and these enormous seed pods.
I hope you enjoyed this walk exploring part of "Weird America". This is a peaceful location to visit. We spent time connecting with the spirit of the peoples that lived here long ago. We felt a strong sense of community and respect for each member of the tribe. These are energies we strongly desire to bring to the world and see all of our brothers and sisters thriving together as opposed to the division we currently have.
