The Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition the Okaloacoochee Slough, across the Caloosahatchee River, over to Babcock Ranch, and west along Fisheating Creek toward Lake Okeechobee. From Lake Okeechobee, the heart of the Greater Everglades system, the Expedition traveled up the Kissimmee River with excursions toward the Lake Wales Ridge, up the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes, east around Orlando, and into Ocala National Forest. Once in the existing Ocala to Osceola corridor, the trip continued north in Georgia and into the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The vision for the second Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition is to connect natural lands and waters throughout the northwest region of Florida,
Miami River (Florida) to improve the river's condition. Although it is widely believed that the name is derived from a Native American word that means "sweet water", the earliest mention of the name comes from Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, a captive of Indians in southern Florida for 17 years, when he referred to what is now Lake Okeechobee as the "Lake of Mayaimi, which is called Mayaimi because it is very large". The Mayaimi Indians were named after the lake, beside which they lived. Spanish records include the cacique of "Maimi" in a group of 280 Florida Indians that arrived in Cuba in