A Walk on the Wild Side in the Big Cypress

Over the weekend, over a hundred intrepid souls ventured into the Big Cypress swamp, going waist-deep into the primordial slough. The donations they made to access the preserve will help thousands of Collier County sixth graders to have the same experience. 

The occasion was the annual Swamp Celebration, sponsored by the Alliance for Florida’s National Parks along with the National Park Service (NPS). Hosted in the swamps behind the Clyde Butcher Big Cypress Gallery, the event is a fundraiser for the Swamp Water and Me Program, or SWAMP. 

Each year, SWAMP sends every sixth-grade student in Collier County – public, private or charter – on field trips to natural Florida habitats, including pinelands, prairie, and of course cypress swamps. As visiting the first two habitat types doesn’t involve plunging into and wading through water under a dense forest canopy, known to be the territory of the alligator and, these days, the Burmese python, the swamp visit is the part of SWAMP that draws the most attention. 

The school program runs from mid-October through the end of March. Many of the roughly 3,000 children who participate each year have serious reservations before setting foot into the water, said NPS Ranger Jay Kissell, and watching them “get” what the swamp is all about provides his greatest satisfaction. 

“The highlight is seeing kids come out of the swamp with big smiles – the ones that were afraid to go in,” he said. Going through the SWAMP experience helps the kids understand the natural habitats and systems that underpin the Florida ecosystem, why it is vital to preserve them, and where humans fit into that process. 

“We ask the students ‘how do you picture the swamp?’ and they think ‘Shrek – smelly – slimy’ and then they see what it’s really like,” said NPS Ranger Lisa Andrews. She founded SWAMP 25 years ago, and still runs the program, which includes extensive background information for students and their teachers before they head into the wild. “The teachers are prepped ahead of time on water quality, soil quality, animals, vegetation and weather – all the elements of earth science.” 

After running the SWAMP team for a quarter century, “if you went to school in Collier County, you went through my program,” said Andrews. 

While Big Cypress is a vast expanse, larger than the entire state of Rhode Island, and is administered by the National Park Service, it is actually not a national park itself but a national preserve. This means that uses not permitted in national parks, including swamp buggies, hunting, private ownership of some of the land, and traditional uses by Native American tribes are allowed while the area is still under governmental stewardship. 

Jamie Diptee-Bay is CEO of the Alliance for Florida’s National Parks, a citizen support group working to enhance all of Florida’s 11 national parks and the Big Cypress as well. She amplified what the rangers said about the effect that visiting and learning about the cypress has on young people. 

 “My niece and nephew, six and eight years old, went in very scared. I could see their faces full of fear. When they came out they asked, ‘When is the next one?’ People who experience the swamp get the realization that there is more to this than just themselves.” The SWAMP experience, she said, helps everyone, adolescents and adults, see the bigger picture and put it in perspective.

“It becomes part of your life, and you pass it on.” 

Guided swamp walks are also available at the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park and are suitable for anyone who is able to walk and wants to try something, well, old – prehistoric, in fact. Wherever you do your walking, a cypress swamp is a beautiful, magical place, with a feeling of peace and communing with nature hard to find in the outside world. The gators won’t bother you if you don’t bother them. Away from the hum of traffic and civilization, the hush in this natural cathedral is profound, and the air is a delight to breathe.

And you might emerge with a new or reinforced belief that the natural Florida is something worth preserving.