@georgiarivernetwork
About the Event:
Join Georgia River Network for Trip Planning 101, a live webinar with paddling experts and guidebook authors Joe Cook and Suzanne Welander. After paddling hundreds of miles of Georgia’s waterways and writing guidebooks on the topic, Joe and Suzanne are excited to share their top trip planning tips with you! Topics covered will include what to think about when planning your next trip, best spots for beginners and families, what to bring with you, how to find equipment, key safety considerations and trip planning tools.
The webinar will stream live to Georgia River Network’s Facebook Page (@georgiarivernetwork) at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16 and will be moderated by Andrea White, Georgia River Network’s community programs coordinator and certified ACA paddling safety instructor.
Trip Planning Tools to be Featured in the Webinar:
Georgia River Network’s river user guide book series authored by Joe Cook: https://garivers.org/guidebooks/
Suzanne Welander’s 3rd edition of “Canoeing & Kayaking Georgia:” https://shop.adventurewithkeen.com/product/canoeing-kayaking-georgia-3/
Georgia River Network’s Georgia River Guide mobile app: https://garivers.org/georgiariverguide/
About the Panelists:
Suzanne Welander began canoeing in 1999. Since then, she has completed hundreds of trips exploring Georgia’s diverse streams or eddy-hopping down the Ocoee in her whitewater canoe. She has a special passion for wilderness, stoked by multi-day self-supported canoe trips in remote parts of Alaska, Canada, Montana, and Arizona, in addition to canoe-camping getaways in wild corners of Georgia. Suzanne’s curiosity continually draws her to explore sections of rivers she has not yet paddled and to monitor the changes at those she revisits. She’s also a half-decent whitewater canoe slalom racer. When she isn’t paddling or writing about rivers, Suzanne works for a North Georgia organic farm and plays saxophone in the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable. Suzanne lives in Atlanta with her husband who’s also an avid canoeist, their young son, and a small flock of chickens.
Joe Cook is a 1988 graduate of Berry College where he studied communications and agriculture. Joe is the Advocacy and Communications Coordinator for Coosa River Basin Initiative and has served that organization in various ways since 1995 as a board member and past Executive Director/Riverkeeper. On the side, he is a nature/landscape photographer and writer whose work has been published in numerous national and regional magazines and is featured in three books, Wildflowers of the Appalachian Trail, Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains and River Song-A Journey Down the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers. He has studied and reported extensively on water resource issues in Georgia since 1994 as well as organized rallies such as last years tire roll around the Capitol and the building of the Scrapitol the previous year. Joe became Paddle Georgia Coordinator for Georgia River Network in 2005 and has conducted this event every year since introducing thousands of people to Georgia rivers.
