Indian River, Dominica

Where it sits. The Indian River is the widest river in Dominica, entering the Caribbean at the southern edge of Portsmouth, the island's second town, between the town proper and the village of Glanvillia on Prince Rupert Bay. Its lower reaches are slow, brackish and tidal, running between banks of swamp bloodwood — bwa mang — whose flying buttress roots arch over the water and lock together into a green tunnel. The mouth is a five-minute walk from Portsmouth's waterfront, and the boat landing sits beside the bridge on the main road, about 45 minutes north of Roseau by road and within sight of the Cabrits peninsula.

The story behind it. The name records the Kalinago, the Indigenous people of the island, who used the river as a route inland and whose descendants still hold territory on Dominica's east coast — the only substantial pre-Columbian Caribbean community left in the eastern islands. Prince Rupert Bay outside the river mouth was one of the great anchorages of the colonial Caribbean, contested by France and Britain through the eighteenth century, and the British garrison built Fort Shirley on the twin volcanic hills of the Cabrits above it. The river's lower course is one of the few sizeable freshwater wetlands on an island otherwise made of steep volcanic slopes, and it functions as a nursery for fish, crabs and shrimp as well as a refuge for herons and kingfishers.

On screen. The Indian River supplied the Pantano River in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) — the sequence in which Will Turner and the crew are rowed through overhanging swamp forest to find Tia Dalma. The precise credit matters, because the location is frequently described as the site of Tia Dalma's shack: the shack itself, inside and out, was built at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, and the bayou set was designed to match the real river the production had chosen in Dominica. Gore Verbinski brought the unit to Dominica on 18 April 2005, drawn by the island's remoteness, and filming across the island continued until 26 May. The 500-strong crew was large enough to occupy most of Dominica's road network at once, and the shoot alternated between torrential rain and heavy heat. Other island locations from the same production included the Pelegosto sequences and the forest portion of the Isla Cruces battle; the ruined church, graveyard and mill of Isla Cruces were built at Vieille Case in the far north.

What a trip is like. Boats are rowed, not driven — engines are banned above the river mouth, which is why the trip is close to silent. Licensed guides from the Portsmouth Indian River Tour Guides Association work a rota at the landing, and the standard outing takes about 90 minutes upstream and back, ending at a clearing where a rustic bar serves rum punch under the trees. Along the way the guides point out land crabs, hummingbirds, green herons, egrets, iguanas and the occasional boa. The tunnel of bwa mang roots is the visual signature: pale grey buttresses two or three metres high, dropping straight into black water that mirrors them exactly on a still morning. Hurricane Maria stripped that canopy bare in September 2017, and the regrowth since has been fast enough that most visitors would not guess how recently the river ran through open sky.

Around it. Cabrits National Park, ten minutes north, contains the restored eighteenth-century Fort Shirley, dry forest and a marine section covering Douglas Bay; the garrison there was the site of a 1802 revolt by enslaved soldiers of the 8th West India Regiment that led directly to their emancipation. Portsmouth has a fishing beach, a market and the Ross University campus. The Waitukubuli National Trail, the Caribbean's first long-distance walking route, passes nearby on its way down the island's spine, and the whale-watching boats that work Dominica's leeward coast go out from Roseau and Portsmouth in search of the resident sperm whales.

Getting there and timing. Douglas–Charles Airport is about an hour away by road; Roseau is 45 minutes to an hour on the west-coast highway. Cruise calls at Portsmouth put a surge of demand on the river in the middle of the day, so a morning start gives quieter water, better light and more wildlife. The dry season, December to April, is the most comfortable; the wet months bring heavy afternoon downpours and can raise the river. Fees are set by the tour-guide association and paid at the landing. Bring insect repellent, sun cover and cash, since card facilities at the landing are unreliable.