- [Announcer] Funding for View Finders was provided by-- - [Woman] Let's imagine what outside can be.

- [Man] Outside is important.

- [Woman] It's musical.

(woman laughs) - Together, we can create an outside with space for everyone.

- [Announcer] Funding for View Finders is provided by Troncalli Subaru, located on Highway 9 in Cumming.

Visit Troncalli Subaru or find out more online at TroncalliSubaru.com.

(cheerful, upbeat music) - [Man] At Terrapin Beer Company, we make beer for life's adventures, be they far from home, or right in your own backyard.

Terrapin, good everywhere, best outside.

(cheery, electronic music) (fingers snapping) - Over 430,000 acres in size.

- One of the world's largest, naturally driven, fresh ecosystems.

- The largest blackwater swamp in the United States.

- This the Okefenokee Swamp, I'm Jason.

- I'm Chris-- - [Together] And we're the View Finders.

(upbeat, country music) (cheerful, strumming music) ♪ Let the river take my soul on down, watch you roll ♪ - So we've made it to the Okefenokee Swamp and we have 25 miles of paddling ahead of us.

- [Jason] And neither one of us paddle a lot-- - At all-- - So uh-- - True.

- (laughs) I mean a lot insinuates that we paddle some.

- Yeah.

- We don't paddle at all.

- Yeah.

- We float sometimes.

We floated on the Chattahoochee.

- It's gonna be fun.

There is some color in the Cyprus that's here at the swamp and I think it's gonna be a gorgeous day tomorrow.

It's gonna be interesting.

Neither one of us has done anything like this.

There's over 10,000 gators that live here in the swamp.

So we just hope we don't meet one personally.

- It's a beautiful day to everybody who's not a photographer.

There are no clouds in the sky.

We're here for a sunset shoot before we head out in the canoes tomorrow, but we've both kind of looked at each other when we got here and we're like, "This is gonna be tough."

Like, this isn't easy photography, at least some of it isn't because there's not a whole lot of just obvious subjects, like, oh, that tree, that mountain, that beautiful stream, and so it's gonna take us some time to probably find compositions we're happy with.

(peaceful, piano music) (camera clicking) (peaceful, piano music) (birds chirping) (peaceful, piano music) - From the bubbling and burping waters of the Okefenokee, that's the methane bubbles up, the water trembles, the land trembles and the Okefenokee got its name from the indigenous communities that lived here who knew this place as the Land of the Trembling Earth.

The Okefenokee, what we see today, wouldn't be here, the Cyprus, the pine forest, the black gum, wouldn't be here without the work of individuals.

Early on, in the late 1890s to the 1920s, this place was just seen as a landscape of extraction.

The pine timbering, the Cyprus timbering, is a major resource for the United States and the natural beauty of the swamp was really not noticed or cared about.

Really took concerned individuals, with the ear of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to, you know, show him the beauty, the natural beauty of the swamp and what could be.

In the 1930s, it was protected as a National Wildlife Refuge.

In the 1970s, it got additional protection as a Federal Wilderness Area.

Georgia Conservatory is proud that our members had a role in that, with a number of other great conservation organizations.

- We are sitting on Billy's Island, one of the most famous islands here within the Okefenokee Swamp.

During the 1900s, from about 1900 to about late 1920s, there was a large-scale Cyprus logging operation that took place here where they actually took out the vast majority of the old-growth Cyprus trees.

Now on this island, it was actually the logging camp itself where people lived and worked.

So you would be expected to find houses for the loggers and their families, along with a doctor's office, a church, company store, a tavern, a hotel, a dance hall, which back then, was referred to as a juke hall, and also a movie theater.

- This is it.

We planned this months and months ago, six months ago, right?

And we thought it'd be a really cool episode and we are finally here, about to do it.

- During our talks with the refuge, I was talking to a lady here, named Susan, and she highly recommended this platform out in the middle of the prairie, called Round Top.

So it's a 12 mile paddle.

Looking forward to the journey.

- Yeah, so it's 12 miles out, 12 miles back, 24 miles total.

We're only gone for 24 to 30 hours.

So, (chuckles) we're gonna spend at least half of our time paddling.

This is different, we're gonna be on unstable platform most of the time, in a canoe, so that limits our long exposures and our shutter speeds and things of that nature, and then we're gonna be camped on a platform that's surrounded by watery marsh.

So, I do hope that our night sky photos will come out.

I'm really, really looking forward to how bright the stars will be since we're in a Dark Sky certified location.

(carefree, gentle music) - The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, today, is about 407,000 acres, and is a little over 80% of the Okefenokee Swamp.

The refuge was established in 1937 and it was designated to protect and conserve the unique Okefenokee Swamp.

(carefree, gentle music) The Okefenokee Swamp is a really special place, here in South Georgia, right on the boarder of Georgia and Florida.

It is the largest wetland system that we have here in the state of Georgia and arguably one of the most unique and largest wetland systems in the United States, if not beyond.

It is a blackwater swamp system and it has a peat base and so, you know, everything from clean water, clean air, and carbon sequestration and carbon storage is very important here in the Okefenokee Swamp.

(water burbling) (birds chirping) - So we got what, one mile down and-- - Two gators-- - 11 miles to go.

- Two gators in the first mile.

- Yeah.

- And cool little turtle.

- They weren't big ones.

- No.

- Which is good.

You know, we'll work our way up to the big ones.

- [Jason] Yeah.

(canoe thumps) - Oh.

We're still getting this paddling a canoe solo thing down.

I think, by the end of this, we will have paddled a solid 14 to 15 miles because we kind of have a weave thing going on here.

- [Jason] Yeah, the black water of the swamp is creating these really pretty reflections.

- Yeah it's, I mean, with the color on the trees, right now is a really, really beautiful day.

It's extremely peaceful.

Most of the time, unless there's like a plane flying over or something, it's just us and the swamp.

There's no sounds except for our paddles in the water and then all of the wildlife around us.

(gentle, rhythmic music) (camera clicking) (gentle, rhythmic music) - Georgia Conservatory has been taking folks into the swamp since 1967, the year that we were founded, and every year since, we introduce a new group of people to the beauties of the Okefenokee.

Our main goal of bringing folks down here is to create advocates.

Our belief is, if you visit a place, you'll love it, and if it's ever threatened, you'll raise your voice.

That's happened with the Okefenokee a handful of times during its history.

- So the Okefenokee Swamp is really a one-of-a-kind ecosystem, in North America.

There's really nothing else like it.

And part of the reason it's unusual is its unusual formations.

So to the east of the Okefenokee Swamp, there's a feature that's called Trail Ridge.

And Trail Ridge makes it sound like it's a bigger feature than it is 'cause when you're standing on this ridge, you hardly even notice that you're on a hill, and Trail Ridge is basically an old barrier island complex, when the sea level was higher, and that barrier island complex, essentially, made a natural earthen dam that dammed up several small rivers and streams that would have come from the headwaters of the Okefenokee and then passed straight to the Atlantic, but because of that dam, it essentially back-watered those streams and they created the Okefenokee Swamp, and that damn holds the water up until it can either flow to the Southwest, through the Suwannee River, or South, through the Saint Marys River, which has a cut through Trail Ridge to get out to the Atlantic.

(gentle, cheerful music) - So here we are at the Coffee Bay Shelter and we have been paddling, nonstop-- - Yep, right at six miles now.

- [Chris] Almost six miles, for hours.

I'm feeling it, lower back-wise, I don't know, are you feeling it anywhere?

- Yeah, I had back surgery not too long ago.

So it's a little tight.

- Yeah.

So this was intriguing to us.

We were thinking we were gonna continue to Round Top, the only issue is the sun sets in about four hours.

We're not even sure we would make it to Round Top before the sun sets, and the cloud app that Jason has shows, perhaps, the clouds rolling in, right around sunset, which would then kill all of our night sky photographs at Round Top, and that's what Round Top is really known for.

- Yeah.

- So we're thinking we're gonna call a mulligan here.

We had plan B, which was to stay at Coffee Bay, but we have now moved on to plan C, which is to return to Cedar Hammock?

- [Jason] Cedar Hammock.

- Which we passed many, many miles ago.

(laughs) - It's another, it's actually another prairie, like Round Top, except it's actually a floating platform, where Round Top was fixed, so the long exposure, for the night photography, but there's the porta potty that's on a fixed frame-- (pair laughing) We are actually gonna be hanging out on the porta potty because it's actually, it's a fixed part of the platform so we might be able to arrange something up there or do a time-lapse from the platform and maybe go up and stand on the fixed platform.

- So, in summary, we have moved from plan A to plan B to plan C, and plan C is basically setting up lots of photography right next to a porta potty (laughing) all night long.

(energetic, bluegrass music) - So the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge has been a proposed or a tentative World Heritage site since the mid 2000s and that just means that we've been identified as a potential site to work towards a designation of being a World Heritage site by UNESCO.

There's just under two dozen World Heritage sites in the United States that fall either under a natural designation or a cultural designation.

So right now, we are working on identifying our universal value and working on a proposal to move forward with this World Heritage designation.

(energetic, bluegrass music) - [Chris] So we're here.

- Yes, we made it, barely.

- (laughs) How you feeling?

- Pretty, you know, not to complain, but-- - (laughs) Go ahead and complain.

- Yeah-- - I do it all the time.

- I did have back surgery, so it's uh-- (Chris laughing) My back is a little shot, I think.

11 miles, I looked on our app-- - [Chris] I was feeling it the last few miles, for sure.

- [Jason] I was glad to flop out onto the dock when I got out.

- When I saw the roof of the shelter, probably couple hundred yards away, I was like, "Oh, it's over."

We're here, we can get out, take some pictures.

No more paddling for the day.

It's, you know, it was a really pretty paddle today.

- Yeah.

- Like we saw a lot, you know, saw a lot of alligators-- - Turtles.

- Turtles.

The alligators didn't really follow me much.

They seemed to follow you more.

- [Jason] I got more on the bone.

- Maybe, or it could be the rotisserie chicken I threw in your pack.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - It's great to finally be on, we're not on dry land, we're on a floating dock, but it's nice to be someplace for a while, for the evening and we have enough time to kind of scout it out a little before the sun sets.

So, yeah-- - Might get a bite to eat.

- Yeah, it's time to eat and also, probably set up our tents as well.

- [Jason] Yeah.

(cheerful, bluegrass music) - The name of the game is trees.

There's a lot of beautiful Cyprus trees all around us.

They're colorful because of the time of year it is and we can shoot, really in all directions right now.

So this is kind of fun for Jason and I because we're not having to get out and try to find a composition and scramble, we're right here and we're just looking around and seeing what catches our eye and we're gonna try to photograph that and hopefully some of 'em will come out.

(camera clicking) (cheerful, bluegrass music) What a day.

- Yeah.

We did a lot of extra paddling-- - Yeah.

- But we did less than we were expected to paddle, if that makes any sense.

- [Chris] Makes total sense.

We paddled way out of our way, to end up here, but I'm glad we ended up here.

- Yeah.

- There's a lot to shoot and I can already tell, by the sounds, that we're gonna be serenaded tonight.

- Yeah, I'm curious to see what the sky's gonna look like.

- One of the really neat designations that the Okefenokee has is over at the Steven C. Foster State Park, is designated as an International Dark Sky Park.

So visitors from around the state and around the country, and even internationally, come to see our dark skies.

- So we go outside at night and we look up at the stars and we think the stars are interesting, but those of us who live on the East Coast have no idea how many stars we're missing.

There are very few places on the East Coast you can actually see the Milky Way, whereas, if you go to someplace remote, like you're up in Canada, or you're in New Mexico, you look up and the sky is vibrant with stars and you can see the Milky Way.

Well there's only a few spots on the East Coast that are like that and the Okefenokee Swamp is one of them.

The Milky Way is very obvious to you, and you know, a lot of people go, who are amateur astronomers, go there just for the sky.

(animals chattering) (cricket chirping) (animals chattering) (gentle, serene music) - So that was a pretty incredible sunrise.

- Yeah man.

- I mean, I woke up, I looked out the side of the tent, I saw some pink in the sky, and I was like, "This is gonna be good."

I could just, I could sense it.

And then, when I looked all around and it was pink in every direction, I knew that we had some magic happening and we needed to get up and capture it.

How'd you sleep?

- Not too good.

We, middle of the night, we had about 25, like 14 plus foot gators come out, and I think they were-- - What?

- Yeah, I think they thought they had some competition out here.

They heard you bellowing all night.

- What are you-- - You snore, man.

- No.

All right, look-- - so all these gators, like-- (Chris laughs) thought they had an alpha male up here, on the deck, like-- - I'm on my back, maybe, so you shoulda just come over and just give me a little shove-- - I almost pushed you in with that 15 footer over there.

- (laughs) What do you think of the swamp, though?

- It's amazing, just how different it is.

I mean, it's just like, you know, when we're over there, driving through the canopy, and all the big Cyprus and the tunnels we were going through, that's kind of like my vision of swamps, but this open prairie just leads to a lot of potential and a lot of unique and different shots.

- I just love the diversity of it.

It's obviously very wild.

You feel very isolated when you're out here and there's sporadic access, you know, with your phone and everything, but otherwise, you're kinda looking around and seeing things like people did 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 500 years ago.

I mean, it's very untouched, with the exception of the occasional camping platform.

So it's neat, in today's age, places like this, in Cumberland, that are really preserved so well, where you just experience nature and wilderness-- - Yeah.

- In its purest form.

♪ Could we capture nature's wonder ♪ (gentle, piano music) ♪ Find our way to getting lost ♪ ♪ Freeze a frame to save forever ♪ ♪ Adventure worth the cost ♪ So there we go, man, we're done with the swamp, the Okefenokee, and it was incredible.

- I know, man, it was everything I was hoping for.

I've never really experienced swamp life.

(Chris laughs) But it was really cool, I mean, to stay in the middle of it, to see the dark skies and just the gators, casually laying around, you know, like-- - Yeah.

They're like dinosaurs.

- Yeah.

- Just everywhere.

- I mean, it just looks like triceratops and their horns.

- [Chris] Yeah.

(laughs) All right, you wanna roll down the road and head home?

- Yep, that long journey home, I'm at the bottom of the state, I need to go to the top-- - Got a long ways to go.

Let's hit to road, yep.

♪ Hues on fire in the clouds, perfectly exposed ♪ ♪ A song first played, and then composed ♪ ♪ Day is dying, dark will come ♪ ♪ Still we look for sight ♪ ♪ So we wander, chasing light ♪ ♪ Could we capture nature's wonder ♪ ♪ Find our way to getting lost ♪ ♪ Freeze a frame to save forever ♪ ♪ Adventure worth the cost ♪ (cheerful, upbeat music) ♪ Still we wander, chasing light ♪ (cheerful, upbeat music) ♪ Still we wander, chasing light ♪ ♪ So we wander, chasing light ♪ (gentle, cheerful music) - [Announcer] Funding for View Finders was provided by-- - [Woman] Let's imagine what outside can be.

- [Man] Outside is important.

- [Woman] It's musical.

(woman laughs) - Together, we can create an outside with space for everyone.

- [Announcer] Funding for View Finders is provided by Troncalli Subaru, located on Highway 9 in Cumming.

Visit Troncalli Subaru or find out more online at TroncalliSubaru.com.

(cheerful, upbeat music) - [Man] At Terrapin Beer Company, we make beer for life's adventures, be they far from home, or right in your own backyard.

Terrapin, good everywhere, best outside.