Introduction
This book began not with research, but with reverence.
I have lived in Okeechobee my entire adult life. Every day, I’ve felt the presence of the lake, not just as a place on the map, but as a living force. I’ve stood beside her in stillness, felt her breath in the wind, heard the herons call at dawn. And I’ve wondered.
Who are you? What have you seen? What stories lie beneath your surface?
That wondering stayed with me for years. It deepened as I worked on another book, one that explored how trees communicate underground through the mycorrhizal network. That project taught me that living systems are never silent—they just speak in ways we have forgotten how to hear. Trees whisper through root and fungus. Lakes, I began to realize, remember through water and time.
Lake Okeechobee does not speak in human language, but her voice carries in the rise and fall of water, the patterns of migration, the scars of flood and fire. Her story is written in limestone and wetland, in sugarcane and algae bloom, in ceremony and silence.
I am not Indigenous to this land. My ancestry traces back to France and Italy. But I have come to believe that we can still listen. We can still learn. We can still honor.
This book is my attempt to do just that.
It is a story told not only through history, but through metaphor. I have chosen to treat the lake and her ecosystem as protagonists, not as backdrops to human ambition, but as living, breathing characters. The people who appear in these pages—from the Belle Glade engineers to the Seminole resistance fighters, from migrant workers to modern conservationists, are part of the story, but they are not the only story.
Lake Okeechobee is.
A note on historical accuracy, mythic metaphor, and storytelling
While the events described in this book are grounded in documented history, the lake’s perspective is offered through poetic license and symbolic framing. Where possible, I’ve drawn from academic research, oral histories, and recorded testimony. At times, I’ve blended timelines and voices to create a more fluid, narrative rhythm. This is not meant to distort the truth, but to reveal deeper patterns—emotional, ecological, and cultural, that often lie beneath the surface of traditional history.
In these chapters, you’ll encounter transformation and tragedy, survival and stewardship. You’ll read about exploitation, resistance, and renewal. And, I hope, you’ll begin to feel the lake as more than a body of water, as a body of memory.
If you have ever stood near her shore and felt something stir, this book is for you.
If you’ve ever wondered what she remembers, this book is your invitation to ask.
And if you are one of the many who have worked, lived, or prayed beside her, then know this: she has not forgotten you.
—Walter Hargrave