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Wild Alachua introduces viewers to the cultural and natural history jewels of North Central Florida, a place of adventure and endless discovery. Here much of the pristine natural beauty that once existed throughout all of Florida still survives, and the footsteps of Florida’s original settlers and explorers can still be followed.

Join a young archaeologist on a bicycling adventure to an 11,000-year-old prehistoric tool-making site. Dive with acclaimed underwater cave explorer Wes Skiles, as he takes us 2,000 feet into an underwater spring to discover the remains of a 50-million-year-old whale that once swam in Florida’s waters. Visit the Greathouse Butterfly Farm, one of the largest butterfly breeders in the country. See the Devil’s Millhopper, a giant sinkhole with waterfalls and fern-covered walls reaching deep beneath the earth’s surface.

In addition to a natural history adventure, this film is an exploration of Florida’s cultural treasures. Florida archaeologist Jerald Milanich narrates dramatized scenes of Hernando deSoto’s historic trek from the Gulf of Mexico through North Central Florida. Moving forward in time, we arrive at the Dudley Farm Historic State Park, a Civil-War-era farm seemingly untouched by time, where mules still grind sugar cane and visitors can pet the descendants of Cracker cattle stock dating to 1513 and the arrival of Ponce de León. And, in a visit to the historic Cross Creek home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling, Gal Young’n, and Cross Creek, Rawlings scholar and actress Betty Jean Steinshouer welcomes us in character to the famous homestead and shares her insights into Florida’s most famous author.

ISBN 1-881448-12-6; VHS format; run time: 26:46

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