This weekend, 20,000 people will descend on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation - IN THE MIDDLE OF THE EVERGLADES - to attend the annual Langerado Music Festival. The festival was inspired by the Phish Millennium Concert that attracted 75,000 thoughtless concert goers to the center of the most imperiled wetland in the United States.
Langerado concert promoters have a GREENING link on the official website that presents shallow, benign suggestions that would make the festival seem environmentally friendly. It's not.
"Langerado Music Festival aspires to be as clean and as green as the tropics that surround Big Cypress." Huh?
"Looking at the pristine land that hosts Langerado with the Atlantic Ocean on the horizon, this is naturally the only choice." Maybe I'm splitting hairs but the Atlantic is 50 miles away. And choose Arkansas.
"Langerado chooses to promote what is best for the preservation of the environment just like we choose to promote the finest and freshest musicians." The best for the environment would be to hold this at a stadium. Not in the middle of a wetland. And the Beastie Boys and R.E.M. may by good bands, but they ain't fresh.
They say they promote sustainability and they will attract 20,000+ people to the middle of the state! No amount of car pooling will offset that waste.
They are offering "Park City Icewater - Water the Way Nature Intended it" which apparently comes from a melted glacier over a mile underground in Utah. What the hell are they talking about? They shipped thousands of gallons of water across the country in unrecycleable plastic packages to promote eco-friendly practices in a place where salt water is intruding upon the landscape from rising sea levels and fresh water supplies have been depleted from the aquifers? Good thinking!
They are also building the Greenerado Sustainability Village where concert goers can learn about how they are presently destroying the environment. THIS VERY MINUTE!
One of their goals is to increase the amount of recycling. Last year they recycled 15,000 pounds. This year they want to recycle more. How about using less?
They claim this is a "Leave No Trace" event. Carry in what you carry out. Unless they don't poop for three days -this thing could get awful messy.
One of the downsides to the "green" movement is that people will use the principles of greening more for promotional advantages than for genuine care for the environment. This is called greenwashing. We can only hope that this crowd, like crowds at most festivals will save water by not actually washing.
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Showing posts with label Seminole. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seminole. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Trail of Tears - Trail of Ostriches
My mom always said "you're only disappointed by your expectations". As an Everglades guide, the Seminole Nation to me has always represented perseverance and the 3000 member tribe has always had my respect for their ability to adapt and thrive in the inhospitable Everglades. A trip to the famed "Billie Swamp Safari" on the Big Cypress Indian Reservation (Click for satellite view) chipped away at that notion and I'm left wondering about what is being sold to the public in the middle of the Everglades.
The Seminoles haven't always inhabited this area. They actually descended from several tribes belonging to the Creek Federation of tribes that traditionally lived in the Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia areas. During the early 1800's President Andrew Jackson used the Indian Removal Act, a shameful piece of legislation, to forcibly remove Native Americans from their tribal lands. While many Seminoles were forced to reservations in Oklahoma, hundreds fled into northern Florida where they were pursued by the US Army. Over the course of three Indian Wars (the last ending in 1858) the US Army spent many millions of dollars pursuing and battling Seminoles throughout the state. The US Army ceased hostilities, leaving them to starve in the swamps of the Everglades, with the expectation that the remaining 300 Indians would eventually become extinct.
They didn't. They survived, thrived, were the first tribe to have legal gambling in the US and just recently purchased the Hard Rock Cafes for 964 million dollars, becoming the first indigenous tribe in the world to buy a global corporation.
It's not outlandish to say they have on one hand been wildly successful and on the other hand suffered a culture crash all at once. Which brings me to my latest adventure in the middle of the Everglades. At work I am constantly reminded that the biggest, baddest and most adventurous trip you can take is at Billie Swamp Safari on the Big Cypress Reservation. So, on my trip home from Fort Lauderdale on Monday I drove 25 miles off of Alligator Alley to see what everyone is talking about. Over the course of the many years I have guided in the Everglades, I have created an elaborate Indian village in my head, with Cypress Swamps and Alligators surrounding the Chikee huts the natives live in. I was wrong. Instead I found what looked like a Fort Lauderdale suburb plopped in the middle of the swamp. Normal homes, ATVs and Hummers parked in the driveway. The swamp is not supposed to look like this! To assure the complete destruction of my image, I took my first Swamp Buggy ride. A Swamp Buggy is like a super-sized ATV for 20. It can go through 6 feet of water and mud and so we did, but what we encountered was far from the Everglades experience I expected.
Our guide slowed the buggy and exclaimed with faux shock at the sight of a Red Deer from Europe!
I don't know what the heck this is, but it doesn't belong in the Everglades. (edit - It's an Eland - from Africa)
Ok this was amusing. As the guide barked at the bird, it became enraged, causing legs and neck to turn bright red. Ostriches in the Everglades...why! WHY!
I was the only one, or so it would seem, that was annoyed by the guide passing up the native Glossy Ibis for one of the more destructive little beasts in Florida. There were pigs with babies and more babies with pigs and babies and babies and mothers and babies. Pigs everywhere. Just what we need. The people were delighted.
This I can handle. Bison once roamed the plains of Florida. Actually not that long ago. The last Bison was killed in Florida sometime in the mid-1800s. There are 300 of these roaming the mud holes and sloughs of the reservation now.
The Seminoles haven't always inhabited this area. They actually descended from several tribes belonging to the Creek Federation of tribes that traditionally lived in the Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia areas. During the early 1800's President Andrew Jackson used the Indian Removal Act, a shameful piece of legislation, to forcibly remove Native Americans from their tribal lands. While many Seminoles were forced to reservations in Oklahoma, hundreds fled into northern Florida where they were pursued by the US Army. Over the course of three Indian Wars (the last ending in 1858) the US Army spent many millions of dollars pursuing and battling Seminoles throughout the state. The US Army ceased hostilities, leaving them to starve in the swamps of the Everglades, with the expectation that the remaining 300 Indians would eventually become extinct.
They didn't. They survived, thrived, were the first tribe to have legal gambling in the US and just recently purchased the Hard Rock Cafes for 964 million dollars, becoming the first indigenous tribe in the world to buy a global corporation.
It's not outlandish to say they have on one hand been wildly successful and on the other hand suffered a culture crash all at once. Which brings me to my latest adventure in the middle of the Everglades. At work I am constantly reminded that the biggest, baddest and most adventurous trip you can take is at Billie Swamp Safari on the Big Cypress Reservation. So, on my trip home from Fort Lauderdale on Monday I drove 25 miles off of Alligator Alley to see what everyone is talking about. Over the course of the many years I have guided in the Everglades, I have created an elaborate Indian village in my head, with Cypress Swamps and Alligators surrounding the Chikee huts the natives live in. I was wrong. Instead I found what looked like a Fort Lauderdale suburb plopped in the middle of the swamp. Normal homes, ATVs and Hummers parked in the driveway. The swamp is not supposed to look like this! To assure the complete destruction of my image, I took my first Swamp Buggy ride. A Swamp Buggy is like a super-sized ATV for 20. It can go through 6 feet of water and mud and so we did, but what we encountered was far from the Everglades experience I expected.
Our guide slowed the buggy and exclaimed with faux shock at the sight of a Red Deer from Europe!
I don't know what the heck this is, but it doesn't belong in the Everglades. (edit - It's an Eland - from Africa)
Ok this was amusing. As the guide barked at the bird, it became enraged, causing legs and neck to turn bright red. Ostriches in the Everglades...why! WHY!
I was the only one, or so it would seem, that was annoyed by the guide passing up the native Glossy Ibis for one of the more destructive little beasts in Florida. There were pigs with babies and more babies with pigs and babies and babies and mothers and babies. Pigs everywhere. Just what we need. The people were delighted.
This I can handle. Bison once roamed the plains of Florida. Actually not that long ago. The last Bison was killed in Florida sometime in the mid-1800s. There are 300 of these roaming the mud holes and sloughs of the reservation now.
Ironically, the caged animal is one of the few natives on display here at Billie Swamp Safari; the Florida Black Bear. It's not dancing because it's happy.
I'm now disenchanted. Where is the true culture of the Seminoles? Where is the true representation of the Everglades! This is what people are spending their money on! This is my competition! And they call this an Eco-tour! ACK!
Of course this is only a part of the reservation. I have yet to visit the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum. Soon enough.
Not a very funny blog today. Hope you weren't disappointed. But what did you expect?
Monday, August 27, 2007
Jungle Pete and the Canoes of Antiquity
The cypress log jutted from the water's surface, stuck in the mucky bottom of Lake Trafford. In June, the lake had receded to the lowest levels in recorded history. Partly due to lack of rain, partly caused by the dredging project. But here was the anachronistic log. Out of time and out of place. There are no cypress trees for miles and no streams or rivers flow into the lake; only out.
The airboat captain slowed enough for me to get a good look and sped off without a word. Later he would tell me that the log was most likely a Seminole Indian canoe from their time living in this area over the last 2 centuries. Lake Trafford is in Immokalee, a town whose name is Seminole for "My Home" and was just that in the not so distant past and here was a potential remnant of their lives, exposed by the lack of water.
Cypress wood is relatively rot resistant and Seminoles had learned from their Calusa predecessors how to hollow out the logs and make 12+ foot pole boats for pushing about in the swamps and marshes of the Everglades. Here was history, but the presence of it was being kept quiet. If anyone were to find out, they may stop the restoration project here and the lake could lapse into a state of anoxia (no oxygen) which would kill most life in the lake.
It's not unusual for me to repeat lines in my head from my favorite movie Raiders of the Lost Ark - and here I found myself saying "It belongs in a museum". I understand the consequences but certainly reasonable people could compromise here and we could save the canoe and protect the lake.
My next trip out on the airboat we noticed two more canoes sticking out of the mud. One only a few feet long with obvious tell-tale burn marks and another nearly 5 feet with parts obscured by muddy water.
I called a rep for the Collier County's Historical & Archeological Preservation Board later that week, knowing I could jeopardize the restoration project and potentially my job. The state investigated and my next trip out, there were at least 7 sites marked off. Instead of zipping by, the airboat driver carefully navigated closer to one and explained that he had been asked to mark the sites! So everyone was on board with protecting the canoes. But these were not just Seminole canoes; these canoes are estimated to be over 2000 years old and belonging to the Calusa themselves! The state is currently in the process of doing carbon dating to get a more precise date, but this find is now forcing historians to rethink many of the theories of the Calusas. (For more info CLICK HERE)
Apparently they navigated from the ocean, through the Corkscrew Swamp and inland to Lake Trafford where the inhabited the area for quite some time. Long enough to generate a shell mound near the lake that will be investigated soon.
Before the state could get out to the canoes, one of them had disappeared. Thinking it was one of theirs, the Seminoles, with their proud cultural heritage grabbed it in the dark of night! The state asked for it back and soon enough it will be in a museum. Indiana Jones would be proud.
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