The River Styx

In Greek mythology, the River Styx, or River of Hate, was one of five rivers separating the underworld from the world of the living.  The others were Acheron, Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Lethe, or Woe, Lamentation, Fire and Forgetfulness, respectively.   Although Ovid's Metamorphoses puts the ferryman Charon [Kharon] on the banks of the Styx, all Greek and most other Roman accounts have Charon and his dragon-tailed dog Cerberus ferrying the souls of the dead across the River Acheron.  Nonetheless, Styx was the principal river of Hades, circling it nine times before draining into the Stygian marsh.

In Alachua County, the River Styx flows from a swamp in the Longleaf Flatlands Reserve to Orange Lake.  It is part of a conservation ecosystem known as the Lochloosa Connector, linking Newnans Lake in the north through Paynes Prairie to the River Styx and Orange Lake. In the summer I don't think I could afford enough mosquito repellent to keep me alive for an hour on the Styx, but on these glorious, mosquito-free, North Florida winter days a paddle up the river is far more like Paradise than Hades.

Towards Orange Lake

The best place to put in is at the bridge over County Road 346 in Micanopy.  It's an ugly, aging concrete slab bridge but it does have a wonderful view.  Just over the bridge is a pull-off where you can park your vehicle and carry your boat down to the river. Go downstream and you will ultimately end up in the spacious waters of Orange Lake.  Turn upstream and the water carries you a mile or so into strand swamp before the vegetation becomes impenetrable.  You may start out under blue skies but it gets darker and darker the further you paddle.  You skirt towering bald cypress with buttress roots and hear creatures plopping into the water, hoping turtle not gator.  You wouldn't be surprised to see Bigfoot.

The area includes the Micanopy Cypress wood stork rookery and is known as the home of nesting pairs of these threatened birds as well as Florida black bear and river otter.  Craig and I have never seen anything so remarkable on our paddles, but even the usual wildlife is stunning.  Bald eagles are common, as are ducks and all manner of wading birds including herons, egret, ibis and limpkin.  Anhinga are rampant.  These beautiful birds swim submerged in the water with only their long, S-shaped necks above the surface, giving them their other name, Snakebird.  They are often seen resting with their wings stretched out to dry.  They are all over Florida but I've never seen so many in one place as on the Styx.

In mythology, the poisonous waters of the Styx could confer invulnerability to the gods but were toxic to mortals.  (Achiles' mom dipped him in the Styx as a baby, but the heel of his foot where she held him stayed dry, hence Achiles' heel.)  The water was so corrosive it could only be contained in a horse's hoof.  It is now believed that the real life Styx is a stream called Mavroneri (Black Water) in the Peloponnesian mountains. Even now, locals avoid drinking the water and say it corrupts drinking vessels.  Recently researchers at Stanford have proposed that the Mavroneri may have contained a lethal bacteria-produced poison, calicheamicin, and more, that water from Styx/Mavroneri might have been used to poison Alexander the Great.

Heading upstream

The water of our River Styx is stained mahogany red and has the faint but unmistakable odor of Cypress swamp.  So far as I know it is neither poisonous nor corrosive, but it does have magical powers.  A shaft of sunlight through the trees can turn dark water into gold, and a heron rising from the weeds can make your heart fly.





A few follow-ups on earlier posts:

Elinor is back to her normal sweet self, and egg production exceeds our capacity for egg consumption.

Number 9 is still spending his days with his sandhill crane friends at the Beef Teaching Unit.