Happy 1st Anniversary Everglades Exploration Network!
The Everglades Exploration Network is one year old today, and I'd like to thank everybody who has helped to make this the go-to place for information and discussion of our South Florida wilderness areas. Over the past year we have grown to 78 members, and together we have built a strong, vibrant community dedicated to the exploration and preservation of our precious wilderness resources, and to sharing our collective information and experiences with others.
For those who have only recently joined us, here's a brief history of how the Everglades Exploration Network came to be...
Last year in February, one of our founding members, Terry, communicated to me a desire to form a 'Friends of the Wilderness Waterway' group, centering around my Everglades Diary website. Because of the many outside pressures on my spare time, I was unable to devote the time necessary to creating a forum on the Diary that would pull together such a group, and the idea was set aside. Later in the year we began discussing trips across the Shark River Slough, and following my own Slough trip in November '08, I discovered the Ning social networking site that provided a free service for creating a forum that was just what we were looking for. In a few short hours I was able to create the basics of the new social network, called 'Everglades Deep Exploration', and the first invitation to join the network was sent to Terry on Nov. 27 2008.
The Everglades Deep Exploration network was originally created with the intention of bringing together those who were devoted to deep 'off-the-trail' exploration of the Everglades and Big Cypress backcountry, and discussion was to be limited to that topic. I had hoped to gather maybe a dozen members at the most, since this is a topic that I believed had a fairly limited audience. Much to my surprise, our membership grew to more than 30 in the first few months, indicating a much greater need for a place to discuss Everglades wilderness paddling and hiking in general. To that end, I changed the name to the 'Everglades Exploration Network', and opened the discussion to any and all things having to do with backcountry camping and travelling. Discussion topics in the forums were still limited to human-powered travel - no motor boats, airboats, or ORVs - but members were now free to dicuss any aspect of Everglades and Big Cypress paddling and hiking.
The response to that change is evident in the many discussions that have since taken place in our forums. We have much to be proud of in assembling a compendium of information on backcountry travelling that is likely to become the most comprehensive on the Internet, and together we represent one of the more knowledgable and experienced groups of Everglades and Big Cypress explorers, but there is still much work to be done.
The primary goal of creating this group - the organization of a formal 'Friends of the Wilderness Waterway' - still eludes us, but I'm hoping that in the coming new year we can get together and make this a reality. We have all talked about the many changes that are coming to the Waterway and what we would like to see in the future, but we lack the cohesive power of numbers in helping to influence those changes. As long as we continue to act as individuals in making our voices heard, we will be just that - a power of one, instead of the power of many. As happy as I am to see the Everglades Exploration Network grow and thrive, it is my greater hope to one day see the representatives of a Friends of the Wilderness Waterway group take their place at the table and begin to make a real difference in shaping the future of the place that brought us all together.
In the meantime I hope that you all will continue to share your knowledge and experience to help each other make the most of their wilderness travels, and I thank you all for making the Everglades Exploration Network the great success and valuable resource that it is!
Keith W
For those who have only recently joined us, here's a brief history of how the Everglades Exploration Network came to be...
Last year in February, one of our founding members, Terry, communicated to me a desire to form a 'Friends of the Wilderness Waterway' group, centering around my Everglades Diary website. Because of the many outside pressures on my spare time, I was unable to devote the time necessary to creating a forum on the Diary that would pull together such a group, and the idea was set aside. Later in the year we began discussing trips across the Shark River Slough, and following my own Slough trip in November '08, I discovered the Ning social networking site that provided a free service for creating a forum that was just what we were looking for. In a few short hours I was able to create the basics of the new social network, called 'Everglades Deep Exploration', and the first invitation to join the network was sent to Terry on Nov. 27 2008.
The Everglades Deep Exploration network was originally created with the intention of bringing together those who were devoted to deep 'off-the-trail' exploration of the Everglades and Big Cypress backcountry, and discussion was to be limited to that topic. I had hoped to gather maybe a dozen members at the most, since this is a topic that I believed had a fairly limited audience. Much to my surprise, our membership grew to more than 30 in the first few months, indicating a much greater need for a place to discuss Everglades wilderness paddling and hiking in general. To that end, I changed the name to the 'Everglades Exploration Network', and opened the discussion to any and all things having to do with backcountry camping and travelling. Discussion topics in the forums were still limited to human-powered travel - no motor boats, airboats, or ORVs - but members were now free to dicuss any aspect of Everglades and Big Cypress paddling and hiking.
The response to that change is evident in the many discussions that have since taken place in our forums. We have much to be proud of in assembling a compendium of information on backcountry travelling that is likely to become the most comprehensive on the Internet, and together we represent one of the more knowledgable and experienced groups of Everglades and Big Cypress explorers, but there is still much work to be done.
The primary goal of creating this group - the organization of a formal 'Friends of the Wilderness Waterway' - still eludes us, but I'm hoping that in the coming new year we can get together and make this a reality. We have all talked about the many changes that are coming to the Waterway and what we would like to see in the future, but we lack the cohesive power of numbers in helping to influence those changes. As long as we continue to act as individuals in making our voices heard, we will be just that - a power of one, instead of the power of many. As happy as I am to see the Everglades Exploration Network grow and thrive, it is my greater hope to one day see the representatives of a Friends of the Wilderness Waterway group take their place at the table and begin to make a real difference in shaping the future of the place that brought us all together.
In the meantime I hope that you all will continue to share your knowledge and experience to help each other make the most of their wilderness travels, and I thank you all for making the Everglades Exploration Network the great success and valuable resource that it is!
Keith W
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