The Everglades and Ten Thousand Islands were home to the Seminole and Miccosukee long before the first cracker pioneers ventured into the area. They used their dugout canoes made of cypress to traverse the vast waterways transitioning from freshwater to brackish and then to salt where the pines and sabal palms became intertwined with cypress and mangrove trees along with the occasional Poinciana tree. Small camps and villages could be found scattered throughout the region on tree islands or other high ground. Based solely on his general historical knowledge of the area, Brad set about capturing such a scene on canvas only to find out from a tribal matriarch long after he’d completed the painting that it was a nearly exact replica of a camp called “Lost City” which lay hidden deep in the mangroves and accessible only by a narrow channel unseen due to the tree canopy. It had remained a hidden oasis until the use of airplanes became more widespread and someone flying overhead spotted the flaming red foliage of the poinciana tree in the midst of the emerald green below.