- NARRATOR: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure-- it's what we share.

Funding also provided by Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Helping hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages get outside.

Out here, fun can't lose.

[theme music] - ANNOUNCER: Coming up on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - There are all kinds of remnants on the landscape that tie back to the Camino Real.

It's the road that lead to the founding of Texas.

- The cove is my favorite place on this specific kayak trail because it's just so peaceful and it's calm.

- It's fun to watch them roll and tumble and do the jump yips and when they go, weeee!

[theme music] - ANNOUNCER: Texas Parks & Wildlife , a television series for all outdoors.

♪ ♪ [playful music] - The Black-tailed prairie dog is considered a keystone species because it maintains a short grass prairie.

It doesn't like anything tall over its head, because it doesn't allow it to see a predator coming in on it.

So, it's gonna keep the brush removed.

It keeps them a little mesquites from growing too tall, but it keeps it as short grass prairie, which to a lot of other species, that's what they need.

That's where they like to feed.

- NARRATOR: Over 150 species of animals benefit from the habitats that prairie dogs create.

[birds chirping] These include many birds, both resident and migratory.

[dove coos] [gentle music] After prairie dogs eat down the vegetation, the fresh regrowth is attractive to many animals, especially deer.

- MARK: You won't see deer laying out in this pasture in the daytime, but at night, this pasture may be full of deer feeding on the short forbs that are growing that the prairie dogs eat off.

- NARRATOR: Some animals make use of abandoned prairie dog burrows, like rattlesnakes, jack rabbits, and a very small owl.

[owl hooting] - MARK: A burrowing owl needs to hole for its nesting and for its cover.

So, you'll see burrowing owls come into a prairie dog town, because they need those holes.

And a lot of species that are declining like burrowing owls is a result of not having those holes to nest in and for cover that they need.

- NARRATOR: Prairie dogs are rodents like squirrels, and as such, find themselves on the menu of a variety of animals.

- MARK: They're are a food source for a lot of predator type animals.

A common one, of course, is a black-footed ferret, which almost all it eats is prairie dog.

Bobcats eat 'em.

Red-tailed hawks are common predators.

And so, the way it's set up is that most of them are not gonna make it.

Out of the five to seven pups they have once a year, they're lucky if one of those seven makes it to adulthood.

- NARRATOR: Originally, prairie dogs range from Southern Canada down through the Great Plains of the United States and into parts of northern Mexico.

It's estimated that before 1800, their population exceeded five billion prairie dogs.

Since then, as settlers expanded westward and altered the landscape, prairie dog populations have been reduced by 95%.

[gentle music] Some people like prairie dogs and have restored them to their property.

- We've heard people say, "Why on earth would you bring those back?

They're nuisances."

Well, they're not nearly as much of a nuisance as you might think.

For one thing, they reproduce only one time a year.

They don't produce litters and litters and litters of baby.

They're very vulnerable, actually, and it's not hard to wipe them out, if you want them gone.

But other things that we hear are, "Well, my livestock is gonna step in a hole and break their leg."

We have livestock that go to the prairie dog towns and choose that part to graze, and we've never had a problem with that.

The mounds are actually above ground.

You can see them.

You're not gonna step in them, and frankly, they don't go straight down.

They go at an angle.

So, I think that's a myth.

- Now, they actually make very beautiful mounds.

They live there, they burrow there, they have different types of burrows.

They have sleeping burrows, they've got nesting burrows where the babies are, and they've got bathroom burrows.

We actually see lots of birds and other animals that come in and eat the scat, because it's actually a probiotic.

Now, the friend of ours that rescues these prairie dogs told us that, and I thought that was a bunch of hooey.

But it's right.

They come in just to eat that scat for probiotic.

[playful music] - AMY: They're very sophisticated in terms of how they live together, and they have sentries that will alert if there's danger.

They're just a lot of fun to watch.

It's very entertaining.

- It's fun to watch 'em roll and tumble and do the jump yipps, and you know, they go wee!

I mean, it's just fun.

[playful music] [prairie dog chirping] [soft guitar music] - DAVE: This morning we're gonna launch.

- Woo, it's cold.

- DAVE: Take a look at the trees and see if we can find some blue herons.

[water splashing] - LIANE: Pardon me.

Coming in, ducklings.

- DAVE: Sun is just starting to peek out from the trees there.

We have about six miles that we can paddle on here, and since it's a lake, you can make it as long or as short as you want.

This time of the morning, it is so comfortable out here.

There goes, yep, blue heron right there.

- KATHERINE: Lake Ray Hubbard's been in my backyard for almost 30 years now, so I grew up on this lake.

A lot of people from Dallas, a lot of people from the Fort Worth area come over here.

A lot of people travel over an hour just to come to this spot.

- We're gonna paddle north past the railroad bridge.

Over the years, I've had a chance to paddle all over North and South America, but the most fun now is paddling with my daughters right here.

- KATHERINE: Isn't it so pretty?

- DAVE: Boy, the breeze is great, this time in the morning.

[soft jazzy music] We're gonna paddle up to where the old Main Street that used to run through Rowlett is, and the lake has submerged a portion of it.

So this is Main Street Rowlett.

It's great for families.

It's an economical way to get started and spend a day out here with nature.

- KATHERINE: Back into the wilderness we go guys.

- Y'all better slow down for the old guy.

[everyone chuckles] Is this your cove, Katherine?

- KATHERINE: The cove is my favorite place on this specific kayak trail because it's just so peaceful and it's calm.

- DAVE: If you're paddling along the lake and you get tired, this is a great place to come in and take a break, slow down and just observe.

[insects chirping] [birds singing] - It feels pretty, like, mythical out here.

- KATHERINE: Isn't it so pretty.

- So I really enjoy being out in nature just because I enjoy seeing the wildlife.

It's definitely a way to get outside of your comfort zone.

I am glad you guys have shown me this area.

And de-stress out on an open lake.

- DAVE: We probably should head back.

One of my favorite things about kayaking out here is it's very relaxing.

- KATHERINE: Going out there and just being able to sit in peace and quiet, I do enjoy that, especially after a long day.

You'd be surprised.

[soft guitar music] - STEVEN GONZALES: The Camino can definitely allow someone to travel back in time.

On the Rio Grande, there are these worlds, these places coming together, and that is what the Camino has always done.

The cultural imprints that the Spanish left in the 1700s are still seen in many of these towns along the Camino.

The Camino Real has always been about interaction between different cultures.

[upbeat music] That trade and travel still takes place at these crossings.

There are still connections there that have lasted for hundreds of years over time.

[thunder] I'm Steven Gonzales.

I'm executive director of El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Association.

El Camino Real de los Tejas is the old royal road that came up from Mexico City to establish Texas in Spanish colonial times.

It's the road that led to the founding of Texas.

[dramatic music] There are many caminos reales that make up the Camino Real.

In times past these roads have different names because of the places that they were going to.

The Old San Antonio Road and the Nacogdoches Road, La Bahia Road and the Laredo Road.

Every Texan of note that we can think of, all the way from Spaniards such as Alonzo de Leon to Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Sam Houston, they all traveled along portions of the Camino Real at one time or another, and it's really elemental to the state's history.

We think about things like the battle of the Alamo and Goliad, and we forget that those troops were actually traveling along roadways, pathways, and those were largely the Camino Real and segments of it.

[traffic passing] So one of our goals is to make the public more aware of it.

Essentially, Spain was establishing this new kingdom in what is now the U.S.A.

They saw the French as a threat.

[military march music] In 1714, the French established Fort Saint Jean Baptiste in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

That is the oldest settlement in Louisiana, and the easternmost part of the Camino Real.

That French settlement alarmed the Spanish, so the Spanish in turn established the first capital of Texas at Los Adaes, in what is now Robeline, Louisiana.

No one could imagine that the first capital of Texas is in present-day Louisiana.

It was essentially these two European powers standing off in what they considered to be the wilderness.

But once that French threat subsided, there was no longer a need for those missions and presidios to be out there.

And so those fortifications and settlements, they fell back and back and back.

There is something about the South Texas landscape that I think more easily evokes the Camino, and travel by Spaniards in times past.

[Tejano music] - Buenos dias.

- San Ygnacio is a very unique community along the Camino Real.

It's essentially an old Mexican village that was built in the mid-1830s, which is being preserved and taken care of by people like the River Pierce Foundation and others there in the community.

- It is the last of its kind in this country.

- STEVEN: It's one of the best places anywhere along the trail to kind of get that vicarious experience of the Camino and what it may have been like in times past.

Another great place to go and experience the Camino in South Texas is Goliad.

There's no better place to go and see what a Spanish presidio would have looked like.

Goliad has two mission sites.

- Mission Espiritu Santo de Zuniga, dating back to 1749.

And we also have Mission Rosario on the other side of the river, beginning in 1754.

The majority of the restoration work took place in the 1930s, but when you walk inside the chapel, you're getting a really good idea what it would have looked like during the 18th century.

[Gregorian chant music] - The Karankawa didn't get along with the Aranama that were already there, so they created another mission.

- STEVEN: Mission Rosario is not restored.

It has got the remnants of the walls there, so it gives you an idea of the architecture before the restoration would have taken place.

When we think of things like Goliad or the missions in San Antonio, we forget that there was a road that connected those things.

If you look at the layout of San Antonio, with the Camino connecting all the missions, you have the plaza at the core with the Spanish Governor's Palace, the seat of government there, and San Fernando Cathedral right there on the plaza, it really does have the layout, it does fit that formula that the Spanish prescribed way back when, and it's still there on the landscape today.

[traffic passing] Thirty-five really became the superhighway that it is because of the travel along the Camino Real here in Central Texas.

[traffic] [soft music] Following the foot of the escarpment, they would have come to these beautiful springs.

Unlike us flying down a modern highway, they were moving at a much slower pace so they had parajes or campsites every basically 10 to 20 miles.

The towns here in Central Texas essentially pop up along the springs.

There are many archives in the state that have great maps and other historical records related to the Camino Real, one of them being the General Land Office in Austin.

[beep] [door opens] - ALEX CHIBA: This is the 1833 map of Austin's Colony.

- That is impressive.

They have great maps, property deeds and other things that document the Camino, like boundaries of the old Stephen F. Austin Colony.

- The Old San Antonio Road is pretty much the northwestern boundary here.

- STEVEN: Yeah, so it almost looks like where it's crossing the Colorado... There's the historical record, so we look at the written record from the Spanish... Hard to see what that is.

...From the French, from early Anglo settlers that refers to the trail.

Where we have our archeological project going on is right in here.

Another thing that we can do is discover the trail through archeological efforts.

- SERGIO IRUEGAS: It's like peeling an onion, very slowly.

- STEVEN: Currently we're working on our Rancheria Grande archeological project in Milam County, near the community of Gause.

- SERGIO: These stones were purposely placed here.

- STEVEN: Working with private landowners, we've actually been able to document numerous village sites... - So this would be a defining wall of the structure.

- So we know that in all probability, what we're dealing with is one of the circular style homes.

- STEVEN: The Rancheria Grande was essentially a conglomeration of 22 Native American tribes.

- Mission style points were found up on this area, so right there we know these domestic structures date to the Spanish colonial period.

- STEVEN: Some of the earliest maps do depict the Rancheria Grande and label it there in that general area of what is now Milam County.

It's more extensive back in here, all these petroglyphs within the rock.

It's just a place like no other I've seen in Texas.

It really is this place where there is this huge human history that has occurred over centuries.

[traffic passing] In East Texas there are some great places that are publicly owned that you can see and experience the trail.

One of the best is Mission Tejas State Park.

It's still one of the rare places where you can go and hike along the actual Camino and walk in the footsteps of Spanish explorers and early American settlers.

[crickets chirp] Mission Tejas State Park also contains a commemorative structure of the first mission in Texas, and that's mission San Francisco de los Tejas, established in 1690 by the Spanish on their first expedition to East Texas.

So it's a great place to see and experience the trail.

[birds sing] Right next door to Mission Tejas State Park is Caddo Mounds State Historic Site.

The Caddo people built mounds there at the site, ceremonial mounds.

[Native American drum music] - TONY SOUTHER: This is the Caddo grass house.

It was built last summer.

- STEVEN: It has a great remnant of the trail there as well, in the form of a swale, with some great signage, I think it gives you that impression of distance when you are standing there at the Caddo Mounds site.

- TONY: El Camino Real was surely a Native American trail before it was a Spanish royal road, and the Caddo in this area were actually known to have taken the Spanish, guided them across these roads, so they were well-traveled.

- STEVEN: The word Tejas is a Caddoan Indian word the Spanish took to mean as friend.

So we wouldn't have the name Texas without that Caddoan Indian word Tejas.

Communities along the Camino are very proud of the trail and its history.

Nacogdoches is one of the oldest communities in Texas.

The first mission in Nacogdoches was established in 1716.

You see on Main Street, it's called El Camino Real just off the plaza.

[acoustic music] We are the first national historic trail organization to actually own a piece of a national historic trail.

And that is the Lobanillo Swales.

- We're here in Sabine County at the Lobanillo Swales.

The East Texas term for that is wagon tracks.

When it was wet, this would get boggy, so what they'd do, they would just move over a few feet and start another one.

- Right now it's in a raw form.

There's no development, there's all kinds of undergrowth.

[pounding] - SURVEYOR: Right there, right there.

- STEVEN: We're working with the National Park Service, Sabine County and others... because it does take a combined effort to help develop the trail.

- Thank you, Judge.

- JUDGE MELTON: Appreciate it.

- STEVEN: In Sabine County, not far from our property, the Gaines-Oliphint House is on the banks of the Sabine River.

- Gaines ended up here in 1812.

We can pretty well prove that it was built in 1818.

- STEVEN: And is it true it's the oldest Anglo-American structure in Texas?

- WELDON: Log structure, yeah, log structure.

- STEVEN: It's a place that is really deep in Texas history and which essentially every Texan coming from the east would have crossed through at one point or another back in the 1800s.

[water lapping] So we've traveled from the Rio Grande, and now we're here on the Sabine River at the Texas-Louisiana border.

Historically, the trail would have continued on to the first capital of Texas at Los Adaes, which is in present-day Louisiana.

But here we stand on Toledo Bend.

This is the end of the road in modern-day Texas, before heading on to Natchitoches, Louisiana about 60 miles away.

The Camino has always been a place that has bridged borders.

It has brought together people, cultures, and places, and helped to create the state of Texas that we know today.

And that's why it's worthy of its designation as a National Historic Trail.

- NARRATOR: Next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife... - I'm obsessed with birds.

They've taken over both my art practice and my life and honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

- I don't want people to ever feel like they don't have the opportunity to do something, or they can't do something because of barriers that are in place.

- So, I don't buy this argument that people aren't enjoying the outdoors anymore.

I think they're just enjoying it in different ways.

- NARRATOR: That's next time on Texas Parks & Wildlife.

[majestic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [majestic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [majestic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [majestic music] ♪ ♪ [crickets chirping] - NARRATOR: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure-- it's what we share.

Funding also provided by Academy Sports and Outdoors.

Helping hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts of all ages get outside.

Out here, fun can't lose.