POLK COUNTY, FLORIDA—Bay News 9 reports that a canoe estimated to be 1,000 years old was discovered in central Florida’s Lake Hancock by a fisherman. Bartholomew Delcamp of the Lake Wales History Museum said the canoe has been soaking in resin for the past year to preserve it. “[This canoe is] about 21 feet long and we think it would have held about seven Native Americans at a time,” Delcamp said. “They would cut down cypress trees and hold them over fire to soften the bark enough to carve out the canoe shape.” The region’s thousands of lakes would have provided fresh water, fishing, hunting, and a way to travel through the swampy landscape, he added. To read Florida’s Muscogee Nation, go to “Letter from Florida: People of the White Earth.”
