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BLUE CYPRESS LAKE
AN AUDUBON FLORIDA SPECIAL PLACE
By Juanita N. Baker
Blue Cypress Lake has magic…
The lake is large. Even in a canoe
it does not take long to be by ourselves in the beauty surrounding.
It can restore our sense of balance,
feeling of peace …
How good it is to put aside the burdens of home and work.
Out here alone with the sun reflecting on the water’s surface,
trees displaying their unique loveliness,
grasses moving in rhythm,
birds flying purposefully,
the world seems manageable.
With anticipation we paddle out in early morning before dawn on Blue
Cypress Lake in Indian River County. The water is calm, still, the Barred Owl hoots,
bullfrogs sound eerie, crickets are chirping, and the Osprey complains as we paddle
by its nest. Don’t miss the sunrise, often spectacular, the light ever changing, the sky
and reflections reveal nature’s grandeur.
One can imagine being one of the first natives discovering this magnificent
headwaters to the St. Johns River—water seeping underground emerging at Lake
Hellen Blazes on its meandering St. Johns waterway 310 miles north to its mouth at
Jacksonville. How abundant the fish, butterflies, and frogs, sharing the lake with
hundreds of nesting birds. In those days the cypress trees were 500–600 years old
and were massive testaments to the ancient forests that provided habitat for the
Ivory-billed Woodpecker, nesting sites for Wood Storks, and darkened skies from
great flocks of passenger pigeons and chattering parakeets. All long gone—
including the giant cypress trees—now cut; huge stumps remain from the great
1915 cutting when an old timer remembered that as a boy he walked on floating
logs, 4.8 miles from one end to the other, as the logs were readied for hauling by
train to build vastly expanding communities along the coasts.
Today, the only way to see Blue Cypress Lake is by boat. There are no trails;
only a fish camp, where one can camp free and use the facilities, at the end of the
only road to the lake. The Middleton Fish Camp’s boat launch—long known to avid
fishers seeking largemouth bass, specks and catfish—is across one of four canals
where about 90 vacation homes and cabins sit. Recently photography and boat
tours draw visitors. Quickly we get away from any sign of human activity, silently
paddling in and out of the shade amongst the forest of cypress and tupelo trees.
Why aren’t wealthy homes and docks crowding around the lake like most of
Florida’s burgeoning developments that cover edges of every bit of water? The lake
was platted for homes in 1913. The swamp all around did not stop engineers from
trying to drain it, build a canal to the Atlantic Ocean and empty surrounding lands
for farming pineapples, tomatoes, and sugar cane. Yet the annual big rains came and
farmers, stranded by the floods, abandoned attempts at draining Blue Cypress Lake.
In the 1970s the St. Johns River Water Management District, with foresight,
recognized how important it is to protect the source of water for so many millions of
Floridians and to manage it for flood control. It bought up much of the land
surrounding these headwaters and reverted the former agricultural lands back to
larger water-holding and filtering areas by 1998.
The lake, largely untouched, still needs to be constantly monitored for
invasive plants, pollutants and a water level that is too low in drought time. Yet we
enjoy seasonal changes: varied flowers; hundreds of migrating vultures, ibis and
ducks finding refuge; and Limpkins, herons and over 300 Ospreys nesting in the
picturesque cypress.
Marvel at the cycle of life…
Nest building, courting, chasing,
stealing fish, dropping fish, diving for fish,
exclaiming over their territory.
Protecting young, raising fledglings,
scaring others away
screeching in protest.
Leaving,
nests falling apart from disuse and storms,
cypress turning fall colors,
the sun rising and setting.
The Osprey…will go on for centuries,
long after we live our lives
Fortunately, Blue Cypress Lake is preserved for us today, allowing us to
appreciate what real wilderness in Florida must have been like.
This column is one in a series from AUDUBON FLORIDA. Juanita N. Baker, Ph.D. with
Richard H. Baker, Ph.D. wrote Reflections on Blue Cypress: Photographs, History, and
Poems of the Headwater Lake of the St. Johns River published by and donated to Pelican
Island Audubon Society. For more information about Blue Cypress Lake visit
http://www.pelicanislandaudubon.org
http://www.middletonsfishcamp.com/index.php
For more information about AUDUBON FLORIDA and its “Special Places” program
visit www.FloridaSpecialPlaces.org. All rights reserved for Florida Audubon Society,
Inc.
Photo by Juanita and Richard Baker
Photo by Richard Baker
Photo by Juanita Baker