One Island Down . . .

For the longest time, I’ve been intrigued by two islands.

The first is Keefer Island, a 600-foot-long blot of lava rock and sagebrush in Idaho’s Snake River, lying within the boundaries of the city of Idaho Falls. The island used to have a single willow tree, until wind pushed it down onto the cabin built by an early Idaho Falls denizen. The tree is gone. The cabin still stands. But I’ve never been there.

The other is Utah’s Antelope Island. It sprawls over 42 square miles in the middle of the Great Salt Lake, with a short chain of mountains that pops out of the ground to loom 2,500 feet above the lake’s surface. Isolated by its surrounding salty moat, the island has often called to me to explore its plains and hills. And maybe provide a location to spot the Great Salt Lake’s mythical North Shore Monster.

Now, thanks to Explorer Fishstyx, who gets around in Utah like nobody’s business, I know where to go to get to Antelope Island, and what to do when I get there. You can read about his adventures on the island here.

This is what Uncharted is all about: Exploring the unexplored. Sure, lots of people have visited Antelope Island before Fishstyx. But it’s not until you’re there, breathing that salty air, stalking antelope with your camera and otherwise enjoying the solitude of that island fortress that you can nod sagely with the others and say, “Yup. I’ve been there.” Seeing Fishstyx’s photos and reading his story now cements it in my mind: I’m going to Antelope Island this summer if it kills me. And Keefer Island won’t be far behind.

Now it's up to you. Have you visited Antelope Island? If so, we'd like to hear from you. Just because Fishstyx has published his story and photos, that doesn't mean the book is closed on this adventure. Each one of us brings a different perspective, a different eye, to each place we visit. That's what makes us explorers. And sharing our adventures at Uncharted -- whether we're the first or seventy-first to do so -- is what matters.

Uncharted Kicks A Few Rocks Down Memory Lane

One of my hobbies is listening to old time radio recordings. I have to blame my mother for that. She grew up with the likes of George Burns and Gracie Allen, Spike Jones, and an unlikely pair of Midwestern newlyweds, Fibber McGee and Molly.

Fibber McGee and his wife live at 79 Wistful Vista from 1935 to 1959, going from scratchy radio transmission to high fidelity and eventually to television. Molly constantly put up with Fibber’s wild schemes, whether he was attempting to make money without really having to work (such as the time he decided to dig an oil well in the backyard) or concocting some hair-brained solution to a problem he himself created. (He once suggested putting midgets on Fourth of July floats after it was pointed out the route he’d planned passed underneath a 6-foot-high viaduct.)

One of the sanest things McGee ever did was taking his wife on a canoeing trip where, with the soft swoosh of the paddles and an echo that knew more of the words than he did, he crooned to his lady love with the following song:

Cruisin’ down the river, on a Sunday afternoon.
The one you love, the stars above, waiting for the moon.
You and I together will plan our honeymoon,
Crusin’ down the river on a, on a Sunday afternoon.

It’s a sweet song, written in 1945 by Eily Beadell and Nell Tollerton. Blue Barron and Russ Morgan both brought it to the top of the U.S. Billboard Best Seller in Stores list as a number one single in 1949. Here’s the song:



As fortune would have it, Uncharted brings you such a Sunday afternoon feeling on Utah’s Cutler Marsh in two stories by Alan Murray and Brian Davidson. Our 2 ½ hour paddle through the marsh brought this song to mind and wrapped me in a cocoon of warmth as I recalled many an evening of sitting in the dark with Mom and Dad, listening to their old radio recordings.

For me, sound evokes powerful memories. When a new memory is mated with an old sound already linked to older memories, those memories flood out – in this case, bringing a bit of my childhood to life again as we paddled the still waters, watched the birds, and gazed up at the swallow nests built underneath the bridges. Now, swallows and goslings and sandhill cranes – and that scary moment when our canoe got stuck on the mudbar and I thought I’d have to walk us to shore – are indelibly tied in with this little ditty. So much the better for me, as I now have more memories on instant recall.

For the Uncahrted story on cutler marsh, go here.

For additional babblings from yours truly on Cutler Marsh, go here.

And explore the site. A few other staffers also posed their own photos and scribblings on Cutler Marsh. This variety exhibits one of the powers of Uncharted, aside from the x-ray vision and atomic breath. Nobody has a lock on a spot. If you want to write about or photograph something that's already on Uncharted, please do. Go ahead. Really. Each individual is an explorer in his or her own right.

Meeting new people

Meet “Thedude.” He’s 28, likes politics, traveling and running rivers. His favorite place on Earth is the Grand Canyon. Before he dies, he wants to hitchhike from Argentina to the U.S. and raft the Nile. “I lived in a tent (In Moab, Utah) with my dog for six months,” he writes, “I don’t recommend using that as a pickup line.”



I hope he can live out those dreams––in fact, I’m counting on it. He’s just one of the many interesting people you can meet on Uncharted. People with their own set of travels and adventures, often right in their own backyards. People who have been there, done that, and can steer you in the right direction. And people who can show you places that are truly uncharted.

At Uncharted, we love exploring new places and meeting new people. Even more than that, we want to share those experiences, ours and yours, one journey at a time.

Over two weeks ago, you joined us in making that dream come alive as Uncharted became the first Geo-Social Media Agency in the world. So, you’re probably thinking, “What’s Geo-Social Media anyway?” If you haven’t heard that term before, it’s not surprising, because we recently invented it. Simply put, it’s the mix of professional journalism with an online community, a community of friends sharing their own experiences through visuals and the written word, presenting that material geographically.

And that’s exactly what has happened. In just a matter of days, you’ve shared adventures from Hong Kong to Hawaii, California to Idaho, Michigan to New York, Europe to India. Now, anyone, anywhere in the world can click on a map and experience the globe behind the geography through your eyes.

And it hasn’t gone unnoticed. People from 19 different countries, speaking a variety of languages, have viewed your submissions. It’s been featured on blogs, other websites and carried through the air on radio waves. And your audience is growing every day.

So, this week we’re excited to share with you yet another story from our staff––this time, written and photographed by me, on one of Northern Utah’s geologic marvels, the Wind Caves.

And while I spent considerable time writing and taking photos for this story, I realize that, in a way, it’s not complete. It’s still missing one thing––your photos, your stories and your experiences. So, for those of you who’ve been to the Wind Caves, don’t let our story get in the way of you sharing your own as well, because that’s what Uncharted is all about––bringing the world closer together one journey at a time.


Alan Murray is Executive Director of Uncharted. He likes sea horses and snowshoes and frequently has the urge to leave the country. To contact Alan feel free to write to alan@uncharted.net.