Crackers in the Glade: Life and Times in the Old Everglades

Crackers in the Glade: Life and Times in the Old Everglades by Briggs, Betty Savidge. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780820320663.

Crackers in the Glade is an account of bygone days in the Everglades. The largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the United States, the Everglades holds a unique place among all the worlds wetlands. Through his writings and illustrations, fisherman, guide, and self-taught artist Rob Storter transports us to the remote, half-wild frontier of southwest Florida in the early part of the twentieth century. There, the events of a day could range from a hurricane to a face-to-face encounter with a panther to the arrival of the latest packet from Key West. As Storter recalls his travels through the great swamp and its estuaries, he imparts an old-timers grasp of the fantastic array of plant and animal life the Everglades once supported. Looking back over a life closely linked to the water, he chronicles how mechanized methods eclipsed the more sustainable approach of fishing as the livelihood of locals who were attuned to natural cycles and worked by necessity on a small scale. Crackers in the Glade is also a story of family and community, of daily joys and setbacks.