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The Opening of the Gateway | 
The Florida East Coast Canal and the Sportsman 
WitTH 
Coast 
the 
the very recent completion of the East 
waterway opened all 
from St. Augustine to Miami and the 
Keys, which must ever remain one 
Canal, a has been 
way 
of the most 
pleasant all-the-year-round waterways in the 
world as grateful to all possible taste of the 
traveler, lover of nature or fisherman, as any 
one region can possibly be. 
[ take up the tale, then, 
“Up North River” and “Down Matanzas Way” 
as published in Forest anp StrREAM some little 
as following those of 
time ago. We take up the tale at Summer 
Haven, This narrow beach over which one can 
throw a stone, if he could find one, and not find- 
ing a stone, picking up a shell, can toss it from 
the river into the sea, extends for nearly a mile 
before it out. 
widens The bass fishing in the 
surf along this beach is fine, and the numerous 

fish in the river afford sport enough to those 
who like to catch either the denizens of the sea 
or of the river. From this point to where the 
canal actually begins, requires just now all of 
a boatman’s skill to keep off sand bars and 
oyster beds by a wise study of the water ahead 
and its various currents and eddies that serve 
to more than daunt any but the most skillful of 
skippers, who, however, seem always able to 
avoid both Scylla and Charybdis. The canal 
dredge will soon relieve all this. 
The little hamlet of Summer Haven is partly 
built upon what was within the memory of men 
By DeWITT WEBB 
still living an island, and partly upon a narrow 
sand ridge that was formed across the Barra 
Chica (Little Bar) Inlet and 
remained, making a peninsula. 
which has since 
Upon the little 
island, thus lying between two inlets, are to be 
found some of the most ancient shell heaps of 
the coast, so old that the shells are largely dis- 
integrated and broken up. This little island, 
lying thus between two inlets, would be most 
easily defended against all enemies. All kinds 
of fish were as abundant then as now and the 
remains from the old hearths’ show how exten- 
sively they were used, as well as the oysters and 
other shell fish, whose remains, so indestructible, 
form the most part of the great heaps which 
tell the story of these ancient dwelling places. 
From Summer Haven we sailed a few miles 
and entered the canal the 
left the DuPont shell mound, and on the right, 
at the mouth of Pellicer Creek, Cherokee Grove, 
the mansion and estate of the late Mr. Cutting. 
Along our left, and close to the banks of the 
canal, runs the unbroken wood of cedar, oak and 
pine, while on our right stretches the broad ex- 
panse of marsh to the distant woods, affording 
in the season abundant refuge for ducks and 
other waterfowl. 
proper, leaving on 
The great blue heron stands 
watching you above the tall grass, and as you 
make a nearer approach, rises on graceful wings 
and sails away. 
all the 
So, too, the white egrets, with 
other birds, some of which grow rarer 
each year, and threaten to disappear altogether 
unless given protection. The present 
laws in Florida, preventing the killing of birds 
of plumage, have done much, but much more 
remains to be done, to again fill up the picture 
As 
on the water every old boat makes a picture, so 
these marshes with the birds flying over them 
make a picture never to be forgotten. 
greater 
of active bird life these marshes once saw. 
Passing DuPont’s home, where river craft of 
all kinds lie hauled up on the shore, and being 
greeted by every inmate of the cottage by the 
shore, the a wide lake-like 
expanse of water, across which I once came as 
the shadows of the short twilight were falling, 
in the face of a wind blowing half a gale, in a 
little boat with a close reefed sail, that at each 
tack seemed as if determined to go over; yet 
we weathered it despite the wind and the shal- 
low water. If we struck or touched the bottom 
we somehow managed to get again into deeper 
water, and finally reached Mr, DuPont’s drenched 
and tired but happy. 
returning from a 
mastodon 
canal soon crosses 
This was several years ago 
search for the remains of a 
whose teeth had been found in a place 
like a quicksand, and where the animal most 
likely met his death by being mired, 
Since then the canal has gone on its steady 
way draining all the region through which it 
passes. The work of the great dredge with its 
scoop has always had a fascination for me, as 

THE 
EAST COAST CANAL—A ROCK CUTTING. 



