GFF turns 30!

Sometime this spring – I honestly don’t know exactly when – this site has been online in one form or the other for 30 years.

I have almost arbitrarily set the date to March 1st 2024. Some of the material is actually older than that, but has been placed on a certain date from anecdotal facts and vague memories more than precise registration. In the spring 1994 when the first content was uploaded to a web server, there were no Yahoos, no Alta Vistas, no Googles, no Archive.orgs or any other systematic registrations of the event, so you will have to take my words for it: the first GFF pages were published in the spring 1994 – 30 years ago. The Grand Opening of the Global FlyFisher on its current domain was in 1999, but quite a lot of the content existed several years before that. Some of it still exists, but many bits have vanished or changed form. But a surprisingly large part of the early material is still around.

That causes for some kind of celebration, I think, and even though there isn’t going to be any banquet or huge party, I will take the opportunity to be a little proud of the site and the people who have helped making a 30 year anniversary possible.

And no, fret not! I will not start mentioning names from one end, because that would quickly enough become a very long list, and almost no matter how hard I tried, I would forget someone, and I don’t want to do that. So it’s no one mentioned, no one forgotten.

There isn’t going to be any celebrities standing in line to shake hand or hug either, and Taylor Swift swooped up most of the prizes, and Nolan is going to take care of the rest, so none are left for GFF anyway. 30 years is no age, and nothing that should stir any major commotion.

So no party, no name dropping, no prizes, no handshaking ... so what’s the whole purpose, you might ask?

Well, just blowing my horn a bit and being a little proud, that’s all. And I’ve issued the site a certificate! That’s well deserved I’d say.

The certificate

Martin Joergensen

So I’ll just leave it at that and let it be known that as far as I’m concerned, it’s just the start of another 30 years – or let’s say 20. Then we can return to the real celebration when the site turns 50. That’s kind of a sharp corner, and should be well worth throwing a party for. Let’s see when we get that far.

If you really want to help me celebrate, contribute some material to the site. I'd love to publish your article, fly pattern, pictures or what you have to offer.
If you are in the mood to contribute in an other way, that's also possible.

A few samples of the GFF front page from 1999 to 2024

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Global FlyFisher timeline