Best Place to Canoe

Some experiences just can't be topped, and a canoe trip on the Loxahatchee River in northern Palm Beach County is one of these. With a friendly and reasonably priced canoe livery just feet from its scenic banks, a long or short trip down Florida's oldest designated Wild and Scenic River is a sure-fire way to remember why we all moved here in the first place. In just a day, you can paddle the watery, sometimes narrow, winding, coffee-colored path that opens majestically as it makes its way through Jonathan Dickinson State Park to the pickup point, where a bus will haul you back to your car. Along the way, you can stop by the abandoned fish camp of renowned Trapper Nelson, the Wildman of the Loxahatchee, who was found dead of a gunshot wound in 1968. Murder or suicide? No one knows. If you're up for only a couple of hours in a boat, paddle to a small spillway, have a picnic, and head back upstream. The current is gentle enough for the most confirmed couch potato. If you've been putting off a trip, don't wait. Thanks to an inexplicable action of the all-powerful South Florida Water Management District, the cypress trees that provide a cool canopy for canoeists on hot days are rapidly disappearing. Hurry before water managers destroy yet another of South Florida's irreplaceable treasures.