Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Environment
Naturalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas called Florida 'a long pointed spoon'
that is as 'familiar as the map of North America itself'. On that map, the
shapely Floridian peninsula represents one of the most unique, ecologically
diverse regions in the world. A confluence of porous rock and subtropical cli-
mate gave rise to a watery world of uncommon abundance and lush beauty,
but this unique ecosystem could be undone by human hands in the geologic-
al blink of an eye.
The Everglades once stretched over some 11,000 sq miles, but today, the wetlands are
less than half the size they were a century ago.
The Land
Florida is many things, but elevated it is not. This state is as flat as a pancake, or as Douglas
says, like a spoon of freshwater resting delicately in a bowl of saltwater - a spongy brick of
limestone hugged by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The highest point, the
Panhandle's Britton Hill, has to stretch to reach 350ft, which isn't half as tall as the build-
ings of downtown Miami. This makes Florida officially the nation's flattest state, despite
being 22nd in total area with 58,560 sq miles.
However, more than 4000 of those square miles is water; lakes and springs pepper the
map like bullet holes in a road sign. That shotgun-sized hole in the south is Lake Okeecho-
bee, the second-largest freshwater lake in North America. Sounds impressive, but the bot-
tom of the lake is only a few feet above sea level, and it's so shallow you can practically
wade across.
Every year, Lake Okeechobee ever so gently floods the southern tip of the peninsula. Or
it wants to; canals divert much of the flow to either irrigation fields or Florida's bracketing
major bodies of water - the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. But were the water to
follow the natural lay of the land, it would flow down: from its center, the state of Florida
inclines about 6in every 6 miles until finally, the peninsula can't keep its head above water
anymore. What was an unelevated plane peters out into the 10,000 Islands and the Florida
