Exploring Florida's Pine Island
By David G. Molyneaux
After decades of research about the Calusa Indians, Florida has opened an interpretive pathway that allows visitors to walk among shell mounds and remnants of an ancient canal. The site, in Pineland on Pine Island, was a Calusa Indian village for more than 1,500 years.
Signs with text and artwork tell the Calusa story.
The trail, an easy walk, is open daily, with a 90-minute guided tour each morning at 10 from January through April.
At the top of the mounds of seashells, you'll catch sea breezes from Pine Island Sound. When the tide is out, you can see how the Calusa arranged shells for beds to trap oysters. Fish would roll in with the tide and be caught in the beds as the tide went back out.
Florida is still researching the fate of the Calusa, who seemed to disappear after soldiers from Spain waged war on the locals in the 1600s, though folks at Randell Research Center at tiny Pineland believe that some of the Calusa eluded capture into the early 1700s. A few ended up in Cuba, said researcher Jennifer Jennings, and there is some hope of finding a Cuban with Calusa heritage.
You can tour the Calusa site as part of a stop on the Great Calusa Blueway or by driving to Pine Island over a bridge from Cape Coral. As the bird flies, it's only a mile or two from the Sanibel Bridge to the bottom of Pine Island, but it's a drive of at least 45 minutes by car through Fort Myers and Cape Coral to the Pine Island bridge.
Quiet Pine Island is not one of Lee County's busiest tourist stops, as travelers bent on beaches will not find anything close to the sands of Sanibel and Fort Myers.
But Pine is a fine island for poking around olf fishing villages that still look like the Florida of the 1950s, exploring from Bokeelia in the north to St. James City in the south. Bokeelia Tarpon Inn, a bed and breakfast, sits on the northern tip of the island.
Make a stop at Pineland not only to check out the Calusa Indians, but also for a fine dining lunch on the screened porch at the Tarpon Lodge. The lodge has meals and rooms. My lunch of grilled snapper, served on a bed of spinach, feta cheese and roasted red peppers, was terrific ($15). Contact the restaurant at 239-283-2517 or the lodge at 239-283-3999 or go to www.tarponlodge.com.
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