Photo by Devin Greaney Keith Kirkland is executive director of the Wolf River Conservancy. Group Continues Effort to Preserve the Wolf River By Devin Greaney Special to See-Tennessee.com MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- They could be articles in one of those outdoor adventure magazines. The kind where the cover reads "True Survival Stories from an Unforgiving Wilderness." In December 1990, Keith Kirkland took a canoe trip down a river filled with trees so thick it was hard to see the channel. He and his friend got a late start and took a wrong turn when heading downstream. Like being caught in a maze, they could not find their way out. It was getting dark and they feared they would have to spend the night in their canoe, which would be a dangerous place since the forecast called for temperatures to be in the low-20s. They finally made it out of the river and to their cars around 10 that night. A later trip took him to a point where the river dead ended into a saw grass swamp filled with water moccasins. No, not the non venomous water snakes common to the area, but the poisonous pit vipers. And no, not a few but more than he had ever seen than on all of his float trips combined. He had become separated from the group and was alone. A snakebite would have been compounded with no one around to assist him and there he was, out of his canoe, in shorts and sandals pulling his canoe through the swamp. The North Woods of Minnesota? The Florida Everglades? The Bayous of Louisiana? No. No and no. Each incident occurred within 75 miles of Memphis. "Two of my most terrifying adventures have been on the Wolf River," said Kirkland, now the executive director of the Wolf River Conservancy. "That made me fall in love with the Wolf River. I love adventure." The Wolf River? Isn't that the big ditch in North and East Memphis? The Mississippi, now that is THE river. Since 1985, The Wolf River Conservancy has been working to change that perception. Kirkland's paddling has taken him from Northern Canada to Costa Rica. He considers the meandering section of the Wolf -- the part from its origin to East of Germantown -- as one of the most beautiful he has seen. From Germantown through Memphis, a channeling project in the early 1960s gave the river a different look, more like a straight ditch with a few ponds that were once bends in the river. Fifty years ago the entire Wolf looked similar to the one snaking through Fayette County. A map from the early '60s and before show a meandering river that looks like a small Mississippi. The conservancy has worked and is working to build parks, boardwalks, trails and plant trees along the river and floodplain. But more importantly, the Conservancy works to buy land along the river, keeping it from development. "The whole damn thing could be logged tomorrow," he said was a fear and impetus for getting the conservancy together. After his 1990 adventure "I committed to creating a corps of river guides," he said. It was not difficult since he worked for Outdoors Inc., a locally-owned store for outdoor adventurers. One interested person was Margaret Welsh. They began working together and today they are married with Hannah, their 5-year-old daughter. The Ghost River section from LaGrange to Moscow is where Kirkland had his winter scare. The river channel is difficult to see among all the trees (hence the name). This is now a Tennessee State Natural Area. The Conservancy has put markers on the trees to keep paddlers from getting lost, but that is about the only change thanks to efforts of the Conservancy and others. "It's like you're in the Amazon and you're 30 minutes from Germantown, Tenn.," he says. The snake adventure happened between Canaan and Michigan City, Miss. This area has changed over the years through logging. Another project in which the Conservancy is passionate is its advocacy for making a continuos trail by combining existing paths and parks and connecting them along the Wolf River. The goal is make it possible for someone to bike, hike or rollerblade from Martyrs Park near the Harrahan bridge, north through Tom Lee Park, through Mud Island and go to Collierville without crossing a street -- a distance of about 36 miles. A meeting with city officials say the estimated cost of $25 million over 10 years "is not that much money for a capital improvement project," Kirkland says. Once built, he adds, there are few recurring expenses other than cleaning and patrolling the trail will need over the years. And if Memphis helps the Wolf, the Wolf may help Memphis. "The big picture is Memphis is competing with other cities all across the country for a talented workforce," he says. Phoenix has 58 miles of trails that look over the skyline. In Austin, Texas, the 7.9-mile Barton Creek Greenbelt takes hikers into what feels like deep into the Texas Hill country even though they are less than five miles away from downtown. Memphis has shown up in the not-to-favorable lists of the fattest cities in America. A fitness challenge could motivate people to get fit cutting the number of heart and diabetes problems that come with an overweight community. Kirkland says "there is illegal dumping, meth labs and stolen cars abandoned" near the Memphis portion of the river. He says studies he has seen show a decrease in crime or no change in crime where similar parks and greenbelts are built. As far as cash-strapped Memphis goes, he says an increase in property values of homes and businesses within a half-mile of the trails should be enough to payback the city and county for the expense of building the trails. Flooding danger is reduced when overflow has wetlands to flood rather than homes and businesses. Kirkland pulls his van into a Shell station parking lot on Germantown Parkway and points to a line of trees just south of the Walnut Creek Subdivision. He says the Memphis Garden Club is donating the area, the 318-acre Lovitt Woods, to the Conservancy. He remembers fondly walking through those woods and seeing the flowers trees and tree houses kids had built over the years. He knew walking through it is the kind of place that could be replaced by apartments or a shopping center. But thanks to their efforts he can hike through those woods again in the years and decades to come. So can his daughter. How You Can Protect the Wolf The Wolf River Conservancy is a non-profit [501(c)(3)] organization dedicated to conserving and enhancing the Wolf River and its environs as a natural resource for public education and low impact recreational activities. For more information or to request an information packet, call (901) 452-6500 or e-mail wrc@wolfriver.org. Click here for a membership application. Devin Greaney is a freelance writer based in Memphis. Return to Memphis Home Chattanooga Hotels | Clarksville Hotels | Jackson Hotels | Johnson City Hotels Knoxville Hotels | Memphis Hotels | Murfreesboro Hotels | Nashville Hotels Stay in the Smoky Mountains: Gatlinburg | Pigeon Forge | Sevierville | Townsend © 2001-2008 Devault Interactive. All rights reserved.