Ankle-deep in the Everglades, a walking tour shares Miccosukee stories

On a warm January morning, about 30 people from across South Florida gathered on Miccosukee tribal land and found themselves ankle-deep in Everglades mud. Shoes sank into the sludge — some briefly lost and recovered — as participants grabbed fallen branches for makeshift walking sticks during a walking tour.

The trudge is part of an environmental-performance project that is called A Walk Through Our Neighborhoods and allows participants to explore South Florida’s culture, history and environmental challenges. Since its launch in 2023, the effort has guided tours across Miami-Dade, including Overtown and Little Haiti, highlighting the contributions of Black and other minority residents.

The walks are supported by the Dade Heritage Trust, NWD Projects and Girl Trek Overtown.

Each walk is led by a member of the community being visited, an approach that co-founder Nicole Crooks says centers on lived experience and local knowledge.

“Whoever tells your story owns your destiny,” said Crooks. “To see a community through the eyes of someone who lives there gives that community sovereignty and authority over its own stories — and its future.”

On this tour, Houston R. Cypress, a Miccosukee and co-founder of the Love the Everglades Movement, led the group.

For about an hour, participants moved slowly through the Everglades’ mud and sawgrass while listening to Cypress share stories about growing up in the tribe, the healing properties of the land, traditional teachings — including how tobacco was made — and the ongoing flooding challenges facing the community.

For Cypress, leading the walk was about inviting people onto his land and offering an educational and spiritual experience. As the group waded deeper into the mud, he encouraged participants to slow down and take in their surroundings.

“Enter into the sawgrass and just have a wonderful feeling in your heart, in your mind,” Cypress said. “Usually when Miccosukee people enter the sawgrass, they might offer a little song.”

“It’s an honor to bring folks out to places like this,” he added. “I’m helping people connect to these places, and sometimes I have to step back and let the Everglades speak for itself.”

Participants also learned about challenges facing the Miccosukee community. Organizers shared information about flooding concerns, as well as weekly prayer vigils outside the controversial Florida migrant detention facility known as Alligator Alcatraz.

It was these issues that helped shape the decision to host a walking tour in the Everglades.

“The Everglades is the heart of Florida,” said Dale Andree, co-founder of A Walk Through Our Neighborhoods. “At a time when there is so much infringement on the land and the people who have lived here — including what’s happening with detention camps — the Everglades must be understood in order to be protected.”

On Dec. 29, 2025, President Donald Trump vetoed H.R. 504, the “Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendments Act,” which would have added the Osceola Camp — a small Miccosukee village — to the reservation in the Everglades and protected the area from flooding risks.

In his veto, Trump said the tribe “has actively sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies that the American people decisively voted for when I was elected.”

The tribe last year joined a lawsuit with two environmental groups, Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, alleging that federal and state agencies didn’t follow federal law requiring an environmental review for the immigration detention center in the middle of sensitive wetlands.

The legal and environmental challenges hit home for participants as they tramped through the Everglades and listened to Cypress describe the struggles.

“Sure, our feet got wet and soaked, but this is how we’re going to learn best and really absorb the information,” said 33-year-old participant Bee Maria. “I feel like more people should come here and experience what we experienced today to better understand why it’s important — and why we need to protect this place.”

The next walking tour is scheduled for Feb. 14 and will be a walk through Overtown. For more information about the tours, go to A Walk Through Our Neighborhoods’ web page.

This report was produced by Miami Herald news partner WLRN Public Media.