Smoky Mountain Living, August 2014

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING

STAM P COL LECTING | I D ENTI F YI NG P EA KS | A M E R I CA N CH EST N U TS AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014

Celebrating Southern Appalachians THE

MAPPING THE MOUNTAINS • DOCUMENTING A NATIONAL PARK • ART EN PLEIN AIR • FOREST MICROCLIMATES

The Lay of the Land THE NAVIGATORS: MAP TRADITIONS MEET NEW TECH AN IMMIGRANT’S STORY: MASA’S IMAGES CATALOG A NATIONAL PARK

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014 • VOL. 14 • NO. 4

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Contents

FEATU RE STO RIES

ART OUTDOORS Those who seek to capture the landscape take their tools of the trade with them on the trail.

BY ANNA OAKES

PAGE

36

ON THE MAP From ridge lines to streams, peaks to valleys, mapping the mountains is a challenge.

BY BECKY JOHNSON

PAGE

44

MASA’S MOUNTAINS George Masa, a Japanese immigrant who befriended Horace Kephart, was instrumental in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s creation.

BY CARROLL MACMAHAN

PAGE

56

TO KNOW A FOREST As microclimates and elevations change, so do the trees. There is more than one forest that surrounds us.

BY DON HENDERSHOT

PAGE

64

HISTORY OF AN INDUSTRY The Cradle of Forestry celebrates America’s timber harvest and conservation.

PHOTOS BY MARGARET HESTER

PAGE

70

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Contents MOUNTAIN VOICES

DEPA RTME N TS

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Consider starting a Southern Appalachian stamp collection

MOUNTAIN MUSIC

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Professional sound gets mountain high

OUT & ABOUT OUTDOORS

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The American Chestnut’s rise from oblivion

An ancient rock outcropping high atop Blue Ridge Pinnacle in McDowell County in Western North Carolina points toward the Great Craggy Mountain chain and the Swanannoa Valley Rim below.

MOUNTAIN LETTERS

Mark VanDyke is a photographer who shoots landscapes and architecture across the Southeast. Visit markvandykephotography.com or email mark.vandyke@cox.net for more information.

ARTS

Good Living

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mountain peaks have shaped mountain people

CUISINE

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Simple bean salad and a historic building turned bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cherokee author nominated for fiction writing prize

MOUNTAIN VIEWS

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Love and loathing for a life spent landscaping

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Southern Appalachian Mountains Gallery Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 East Tennessee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Select Lodging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

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p e rs p e ct i ve s :

FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR

Growing up, I lived in a house nestled in the woods. Only in the winter, with all the leaves off the trees, could we see our neighbor’s porch lights. Privacy afforded the imagination great luxury, which I—even as an only child—greatly enjoyed.

I swung on grape vines, counted trilliums and bloodroot flowers, stalked bunnies, and played in the small stream that ran from an old springhouse down to Mr. Eleazer’s pond. I could wander as far as I could still hear my mother’s whistle (the sharp kind performed by placing one’s finger just so in one’s mouth). No one ever just dropped by save for the occasional meat purveyor dealing vacuum-packed cuts from a cooler in the back of his pick-up Sarah E. Kucharski truck whom we always turned away. There was no trash service or pizza delivery. There weren’t even trick-or-treaters come Halloween.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to miss the privacy that house provided. Today, I see ten houses from my front porch in town and six or seven times as many from the second story sun porch windows out back. When a neighbor decided to cut his towering pine trees, our view suddenly included the town’s paper mill, and when the renters next door have an argument, I always know—and sometimes also hear what it’s about.

Friends of ours, Laura and Travis, moved from the mountains to the piedmont years ago, and just recently from a house in a subdivision to a house in the country on five acres of land. There’s an outbuilding and a tractor, a tremendous garden spot and wild blackberries. The dogs gallop about freely, chasing grasshoppers and tracking whatever wildlife recently has ventured through.

To say that my husband and I are jealous would be an understatement. He grew up in central Georgia on 13 acres of flat, piney land, riding his bike on a barely traveled dirt road.

Now he yells at drivers who barrel by with blatant disregard for the 25 mph speed limit. One early morning a teen ran off the road, tagged the fire hydrant on the sidewalk, obliterated our mailbox and young redbud tree, bounced off our driveway over the hedge of burning bushes and slammed into

our elderly neighbor’s bedroom wall. Another late night a drunk driver took out a power pole (she was fine and even attempted to drive away before a neighbor in nothing but his boxer shorts stopped her). A woman who walks her Golden Retriever thinks that our trashcan, left out for pick up on Mondays, is a wonderful receptacle for her dog’s waste products. Life in town is at least interesting.

Land in the mountains comes at a premium price, so our increasing desire for less human interaction increasingly seems as though it will be solved only with a tall and solid fence. I used to think that people who erected such things were antisocial. Now I know they are—and that I am one of them.

These hassles, however, are what I accept in order to live in the mountains. A summer trip Tybee Island, Ga., reminded me that what we here consider humidity is nothing compared to a steam heat index and a planned camping trip to Edisto Island, S.C., has led me to buy the first box fan I’ve owned since college. The cascading waves of blue mountains that rise far beyond the 10 houses I see from my front porch appear like giant sleeping dinosaurs. The doves, cardinals, and wrens that dine at my bird feeder sing their songs in the surrounding oak and locust trees that light up with hundreds of lightning bugs’ green strobes each night.

Life in town means that I hear the ice cream truck’s relentlessly happy tune as it makes its way through the neighborhood, my husband can make a quick run to the grocery store if I’m cooking and forgot to buy eggs or milk, the roads always are plowed when it snows, and a recent pizza delivery came via a young woman whose godmother once owned our home.

This edition of Smoky Mountain Living is dedicated to our mountain landscape. Perhaps I am selfish for wanting to own more of it, but it is my pleasure to share it and its stories with you.

WWW.SMLIV.COM

Land in the mountains comes

at a premium price, so our increasing desire for less human interaction increasingly seems as though it will be solved only with a tall and solid fence.

— Sarah E. Kucharski, managing editor

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p e rs p e ct ive s :

FROM OUR READERS

They said it

VOL. 14 • NUMBER 4

S

moky Mountain Living always loves hearing from its readers—whether in person or through word of mouth, via Facebook or email, a typed up letter or a handwritten note jotted on a Post-It and sent in with a subscription renewal check.

Since our last issue, we’ve heard from Tina DeAngelo who went to Maggie Valley to celebrate North Carolina’s state dog, the Plott Hound, and listen to some live music from nationally acclaimed bluegrass group and last year’s winner of the International Bluegrass Music Association award for Album of the Year.

“Had a great time at Plottfest yesterday,” DeAngelo said. “Balsam Range was awesome as usual.” And we especially appreciate Stefanie Gose who simply said, “I love this publication.”

We set off a great debate when we Two of the mountains’ notable flowering asked our Facebook fans where they shrubs—the rhododendron and the flame azalea—complement one another with would rather be—the mountains or the their contrasting hues. MARK HASKETT PHOTO sea. “I have lived at both. They both have their pros and cons, but after a year in the flat land, you miss those mountain sunsets, those trout-filled waters, that nice climate,” said Jeremiah McGallard. at facebook.com/smliv and twitter.com/smokymtnliving.

Many called for the best of both worlds.

Fans have access to special “But not at the same time. That would promotions and giveaways hurt,” said Randal McBride. And Rami including subscriptions, tickets Kay created a new body of water with her and more! response, “TenneSEA.” Our call to choose between mountain laurel or rhododendron favored the laurel. “I decided it was my favorite flower when I was four and saw it on a roadside in what was country ‘outside’ of Atlanta in 1960,” said Pat Booker. “My family moved to Mobile, Ala. soon after, and I didn't see it again for 30 years, but when I did, it was love rekindled!” However, a guessing game to name an azalea species—the orange flame azalea—garnered a different kind of response. “I think I’ll call him George,” said Tyra Ewing.

Let us know what you’ve got to say!

Connect with us

Submit your letter to the editor by email at editor@smliv.com or by mail to Editor, Smoky Mountain Living, PO Box 629, Waynesville, N.C. 28786. Letters should be exclusive to Smoky Mountain Living. We do not publish open letters or third-party letters.

Letters should preferably be 150 to 175 words, should refer to the magazine in general or an article that has appeared within the past two editions. Letters must include the writer’s address and phone numbers. No attachments, please.

Smoky Mountain Living reserves the right to use material at its discretion, and we reserve the right to edit material.

We'll do our best, but due to the volume of correspondence we receive, we are unable to respond to all questions and comments.

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

Publisher/Editor . . . . . . . . . . . Scott McLeod publisher@smliv.com General Manager . . . . . . . . . Greg Boothroyd ads@smliv.com Advertising Sales Manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hylah Birenbaum hylah@smliv.com Managing Editor . . . . . . . Sarah E. Kucharski sarah@smliv.com Art Director . . . . . . . . . . . Travis Bumgardner travis@smliv.com Graphics . . . . . . . Micah McClure, Emily Moss Finance & Admin. . . . . . . Amanda Singletary Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Greg Boothroyd, Whitney Burton, Amanda Bradley Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scott Collier Editorial Assistant . . . . . . Glenda Kucharski Contributing Writers . . . . . . . . . Diana Erbio, Don Hendershot, Joe Hooten, Becky Johnson, Holly Kays, Carroll McMahan, Jeff Minick, Susan Reinhardt, Bill Studenc Contributing Photographers . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linda Barfield, Tim Barnwell, Jonah Enfinger, Jo Harris, Mark Haskett, Margaret Hester, Jo Hurst, Elizabeth Majcher, Sarah Malpeli, Karen Nidiffer, Pete Nunweiler, Gary Pinholster, Beverly Slone, James Sweeney, Mark VanDyke, Bonnie Waigand Contributing Illustrator . . . . . . . . . Mandy Newham-Cobb Smoky Mountain Living is published bi-monthly

by SM Living LLC. Smoky Mountain Living has made every effort to insure listings and information are accurate and assumes no liability for errors or omissions.

For advertising information, contact Hylah Birenbaum at 866.452.2251 or hylah@smliv.com.

For editorial inquiries, contact Sarah E. Kucharski at sarah@smliv.com.

Smoky Mountain Living assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. Queries should be sent to Sarah E. Kucharski at sarah@smliv.com. ©2014. All rights reserved. No portion of this magazine may be reprinted without the express, written consent of the publisher.

Smoky Mountain Living is published bi-monthly (Dec/Jan, Feb/Mar, Apr/May, Jun/Jul, Aug/Sep, Oct/Nov) by SM Living, LLC, 144 Montgomery Street, Waynesville, NC 28786. Periodical Postage paid at Waynesville, N.C., and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: please send address changes to Smoky Mountain Living, PO Box 629, Waynesville, NC 28786.

p e rs p e ct i ve s :

ABOUT OUR WRITERS Don Hendershot is a freelance writer,

naturalist and biological consultant living in Waynesville, N.C. He has written in magazines including Our State, Native American Journal, and Smoky Mountain Living. His weekly column, The Naturalist's Corner, appears in The Smoky Mountain News. Hendershot was nominated by the Roosevelt-Ashes Society for Outstanding Journalist in Conservation 2010, yet his most beloved title is “Daddy” to daughters Izzy and Maddie.

Holly Kays is a forester's daughter who came

to the Appalachian South by way of the West via the mid-Atlantic. She’s produced award-winning work at newspapers in Idaho and Wyoming and now writes for The Smoky Mountain News in Waynesville, N.C. Happy to have returned to the land of many trees, she’s even happier to write about them. When, of course, she’s not hiking.

Carroll McMahan lives in Knoxville, Tenn., Joe Hooten was born in Macon, Ga., but spent

his formative years surfing the beaches near his home in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. He eventually found his way to Western North Carolina. Hooten taught public middle and high school history in Hendersonville, Cary and then Raleigh for 10 years before moving back to Asheville with his wife and three young kids in 2008. Hooten writes about his all-time favorite hobby—music—for The Smoky Mountain News and Smoky Mountain Living. A second-rate guitarist, he can be found most evenings pickin’ some tunes on the back porch while enjoying the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains.

Becky Johnson grew up in Raleigh, raised by

parents who instilled in her an appreciation for the outdoors and wild places, which in turn gave rise to a strong environmental ethos. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1999 as a double major in journalism and anthropology and a creative writing minor. She worked as a park ranger on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a year before pursuing journalism in Western North Carolina. She has been with The Smoky Mountain News, based in Waynesville, N.C., since 2003, where she is a reporter.

Jeff Minick lives in Asheville, N.C., where he

tutors home-educated students and writes for various publications. He is the author of two books, both selfpublished: “Amanda Bell,” a novel, and “Learning As I Go,” a collection of essays and reviews.

but grew up and works in Sevierville, Tenn., where he currently works for the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce and serves as Sevier County Historian.

He is the author of two books, “Sevierville: Images of America,” a pictorial history of Sevierville, published by Arcadia Publishing Co. and “Elkmont’s Uncle Lem Ownby: Sage of the Smokies,” a biography of the last resident of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, published by The History Press. He writes a weekly column, Upland Chronicles, a series that celebrates the heritage and past of Sevier County, published in the Mountain Press.

Susan Reinhardt is an award winning

journalist, columnist, and author of five bestselling books, including her latest novel, “Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle.” Besides traveling and serving as a taxi cab and debit card to her children, she loves to eat and try new restaurants and recipes. She loves everything about Western North Carolina, from the heartbeat of the city life to roaming the outlying areas, finding charm and adventure.

Bill Studenc is senior director of news services at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C. Studenc, who grew up in Black Mountain, has worked as a reporter and editor at The Mountaineer in Waynesville, editor of The News Record in Marshall and sports reporter for the Asheville Citizen-Times. He lives near Lake Junaluska with wife Margaret, daughter Neva, son Will. An unrepentant headbanger, he still listens to 1980s heavy metal bands.

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p e rs p e ct ive s :

MOUNTAIN MUSINGS

The land in which I landed

I

’ll never forget the drive, and the first time I saw the Appalachian mountain range’s purple waves while heading up the highway from Spartanburg, S.C. I was raised in the hot, sauna-summers of West Georgia, where the land is flat and the heat builds and steams from the roads. We rarely got snow, maybe every five or so years, and we had such thrills when it arrived and coated us in that glorious white wonderment that’s on our mountain menu most winters.

While I was in college at the University of Georgia in 1987, my thenboyfriend who’d gone to Asheville School, suggested we visit the mountains one cold and clear-skied winter afternoon.

As we drove, rising and beautifully layered Susan Reinhardt ranges seemed to hug me and whisper sweet and soothing words to my soul: “Come live here. This is where you’ll find your personal Utopia.” I was 25 at the time, and knew without a doubt that the mountains would be where I’d live, work, retire and then pass into the next world.

Unlike some of the region’s more adventuresome “transplants,” I wanted to get a job before moving, so while we were on our visit I went to Belk, bought a dress, waltzed unannounced into the Citizen-Times offices and all but begged for a reporting gig.

“We have no openings, but will in three months,” an editor said. I drove back to Spartanburg, having taken a temp job managing a health club and teaching those ancient, Jane Fonda-type aerobic classes.

My persistence following up with the paper paid off, and three months later, I rented a U-Haul and moved everything I had—which no longer included the boyfriend—into a charming apartment behind the Manor Inn on Charlotte Street. My house was like a little Swiss cottage with hardwood floors and two claw-foot tubs.

Within a week of my March arrival, a huge snowstorm hit, giving me more thrills than a child discovering Disney World. Though it was breath-robbing to see the mountains—green, purple or shadowed in shades of grays

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and blacks—viewing them capped with snow tripped my joy switch. In my 27 years living here, the snow always has brought about my childlike glee upon getting out of school for a day. I bought a sled, something we never needed in Georgia, and in time, I learned about the different trails for hiking and picnicking.

Whenever I had problems—and I had plenty during the years of marriage, divorce and illness—the mountains proved my protector, my source of comfort. In her book “The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted,” writer Bridget Asher says, “This mountain, the arched back of the earth risen before us, it made me feel humble, like a beggar, just lucky to be here at all, even briefly.”

My relationship with the mountains has lasted while my belief that I was a “beach and ocean” kind of person did not— at least not long enough to make it my permanent home. I’d worked in Myrtle Beach, grown tired of the party scene for which it’s known, and quit my job after a couple of years to move to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. St. John is located about 4 miles from St. Thomas, and the landscape features hills and valleys, much like Asheville and Western North Carolina but on a smaller scale. The highest peak is Bordeaux Mountain at 1,277 feet.

While there I lived in a yurt for a short stint, eventually ran out of money and couldn’t find a job, which prompted my return to the mainland. Now my family and I frequently return to the island on vacation.

We love St. John because it reminds us of home, with more than two-thirds of the island protected by the National Park Service. Just like in the mountains, trails for hiking and climbing offer huge payoffs once reaching the top. The only real difference—besides travel time and the price of going— is the gorgeous turquoise sea, an artist’s palette of every blue and green hue imaginable.

Even with its similarities, the mountains call me homeward like a mother ringing a dinner bell at dusk. I know my heart belongs to the Blue Ridge, and I consider myself a local. I’ve earned my badge with all these years here to say I’m a Western North Carolina woman. And every day I give thanks for finding this niche of Nirvana.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

“As we drove, rising and beautifully layered ranges seemed to hug me and whisper sweet and soothing words to my soul: ‘Come live here.

This is where you’ll find your personal Utopia.’”

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p e rs p e ct ive s :

MOUNTAIN VOICES

Exploring the landscape through miniature pictures

BY DIANA ERBIO

S

ince 1840, when the first stamp picturing Queen Victoria was issued in Great Britain, countries have issued thousands and thousands of postage stamps. These small works of art with their bright colors, geographic, cultural, and historical depictions, foreign languages and postmarks allow one to journey around the world.

Stamp collectors collect for many reasons and in many ways.

A topical collection focuses on a chosen subject such as industry or animals, people or places. Those with a connection to the Appalachian Mountains will find that the landscape has been etched in time and sent through the U.S. mail.

The Great Smoky Mountains are pictured on one of a set of 10 U.S. stamps from the National Parks Issue of 1934. Plants and animals also are portrayed on stamps—black bears, foxes, bobcats, salamanders, coyotes, elk, mountain laurel, azalea, and rhododendron.

Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, who both were born in the 18th century, were featured on U.S. stamps. A 1942 stamp celebrating Kentucky’s 150th statehood anniversary pictures Boone leading settlers through the Cumberland Gap. Another U.S. stamp issued in 1968 contains images of an ax, powder horn and gun with the name Daniel Boone carved into a woodplanked background that honors the daring American woodsman and pioneer who cut the Wilderness Road that many would follow across the mountainous landscape. Davy Crockett and his coonskin cap are pictured in a woodland scene on a 1967 U.S. stamp.

Consider the plants and animals Boone and Crockett came across and the people who touched their lives. Often these too can be found on stamps, sending the topical stamp collector on a sort of treasure hunt. Whether digging for a particular stamp in a dealer’s box at a stamp show, picking through a pile of colorful stamps purchased online or searching a relative’s attic or antique store for old mail with stamps still attached, one finds that thrill is in the search.

Note that the majority of stamps are quite affordable, usually well under a dollar each. One exception is a stamp known as the “Inverted Jenny,” which sold at auction in 2005 for $2,970,000. The “Inverted Jenny,” the most famous of U.S. rarities, was issued in 1918 and features a Curtiss JN-4 biplane—known as a “Jenny”—printed upside down by mistake. Only one sheet of 100 stamps with this printing error was released to the public.

While a topical collection may focus on a region such as the Appalachian Mountains, it is up to the collector how to expand that collection through themes such as music, sports or writers.

Novelist Thomas Wolfe, author of “You Can’t Go Home Again,” was born in Asheville, N.C.

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

in 1900 and portrayed on a U.S. postage stamp 100 years later. William Sydney Porter, who wrote more than 400 short stories as O. Henry, was born in Greensboro, N.C. in 1862. O. Henry’s stamp was issued in 2012, 150 years after his birth. Carl Sandburg, known as the “Poet of the People” wrote many of his poems while living at his home in Flat Rock, N.C. Once an investigative reporter who covered injustices Americans were facing in areas far from his Flat Rock home, Sandburg later would reveal these wrongs to the nation via his poetry. Sandburg also wrote adventurous yarns filled with nonsense and a spoonful of common sense called Rootabaga Stories.

These tales for his children were “American Fairy Tales.” Sandburg felt American children should have some fairytales set in their own land, with some of the familiar surroundings

Those with a connection to the Appalachian Mountains will find that the landscape has been etched in time and sent through the U.S. mail. they recognized, unlike the many fairytales that were set amongst the medieval castles of Europe. These stories were also filled with unfamiliar territory through which a train traveled zigzag through fantastical villages where cream puffs floated in the wind and pigs wore bibs and corn fairies and blue foxes lived. A U.S. stamp was issued in 1978 on the 100th anniversary of Sandburg’s birth.

Each stamp, connected by an initial topic, is an opportunity to learn about what ties life to its land and be creative tying it all together.

Diana Erbio, a freelance writer and stamp collector, has linked many topics to stamp collecting and is always looking for a new stamping adventure.

Great ways to get started If one is interested in starting a stamp collection or addition to it, consider the following tips and resources.

Don’t forget to check one’s own incoming mail and ask friends and relatives if they have any old postcards or letters tucked away that might have some stamps of interest. Stamp dealers and stamp shows have mystery boxes to sift through for that hidden gem.

Visit the United States Postal Service website (usps.com) to purchase and view upcoming United States stamp issues and the American Topical Association (americantopicalassn.org) to connect with stamp clubs and study groups.

WWW.SMLIV.COM

Gary Pinholster Foothills Parkway Sunrise, Tenn.

James Sweeney Wesser, N.C.

This edition of Smoky Mountain Living looks to the landscape for inspiration. Here our readers share what they have seen among the streams and trees and peaks.

Jo Harris Richard Ensing at Smoky Mountain Heritage Festival, Sevierville, Tenn.

Bonnie Waigand • Townsend, Tenn.

Jonah Enfinger Wolfe Mountain, N.C. Linda Barfield Pretty Place

Elizabeth Majcher • Sunburst, N.C.

The mountains were his masters. They rimmed in life.

They were the cup of reality, beyond growth, beyond struggle and death. They were his absolute unity in the midst of eternal change. —Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

Pete Nunweiler View from Poppe’s Pinnacle cabin

A lone peak of high point is a natural focal point in the landscape, something by which both travelers and local orient themselves. In the continuum of landscape, mountains are discontinuity—culminating in high points, natural barriers, unearthly earth.

—Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Beverly J. Slone • Looking Glass Rock from the Blue Ridge Parkway

Sarah Malpeli Haywood County, N.C.

Jo Hurst Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

Jonah Enfinger • Looking Glass Falls, N.C.

Karen Nidiffer • Wears Valley

Our upcoming October/November edition will be dedicated to exploring our fears. Have you conquered your fears of heights by climbing a mountain peak or learning to swim in a mountain lake?

Have you spent a night in the woods telling ghost stories or ventured deep underground in a cave?

Send your story of overcoming your fear and an accompanying image to photos@smliv.com by August 13, 2014.

For additional details, visit smliv.com.

Gary Pinholster • Cades Cove, Tenn.

d e p a r t m e n t :

MOUNTAIN MUSIC

Adam Greenberg, owner of Whitewater Recording studio. JOE HOOTEN PHOTOS

Mixing business with pleasure

BY JOE HOOTEN

A

dam Greenberg has followed his dream and built a stateof-the-art recording studio in Western North Carolina, a facility nestled in a remote area of Buncombe County near the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway.

The studio’s surroundings are a true breath of fresh air, the lush foliage and beautiful mountains the perfect backdrop to inspire any musician. Less than a hundred yards away from the studio is Greenberg’s main residence, an impressive mountain home that’s secluded from neighbors and the bright lights of the city.

Not only does he have his work just a few steps from his front door, he also has a pond, a greenhouse, and a sustainable garden.

“I am definitely a computer nerd, but the outdoors and nature nourish me,” Greenberg said. “My wife and I love to garden — Adam Greenberg and grow things. It’s why I came to live out here almost 20 years ago. The property, the greenhouse, the pond, the garden are all things that take me out of the tech world and back to the dirt. It’s grounding.”

Adam Greenberg grew up in Miami during the 1970s before moving to Athens, Ga., to attend the University of Georgia. With a major in TV, radio and video production and a minor in music,

“Capture what is

happening the best way you can and don’t do anything to get in the way of what is being recorded.”

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Greenberg experienced the early 1980s in Athens as the music scene exploded as bands like the B-52’s, R.E.M., and Pylon went from home town heroes to nationally respected artists. A proficient musician and guitarist, Greenberg played in the clubs, but he also had the technical background to expand on his love of music and began recording bands.

“I was fascinated with the creation of recordings and ways to capture and manipulate the sounds,” Greenberg said. From humble beginnings, Whitewater Recording was established in 1983 in his bedroom.

“I started the studio in my house while attending UGA. There was a non-stop stream of creative people in Athens ... I started with a four-track in the bedroom and tracked bands all over the house and sometimes on the front porch,” Greenberg said.

Several years in the Athens music scene pushed Greenberg to seek a change of lifestyle and location, Adam moved to Asheville, already a musically and culturally rich town, where he was keenly aware that it was oddly lacking in high-quality recording facilities. Whitewater Recording ended up in a massive 3,000-square-foot facility near the city, but in 2006 Greenberg decided to build his own studio on his six acres of land near Arden, N.C. “I ran a commercially located facility for 20 years in Asheville and thoroughly enjoyed it, but this building is just right for me and my clients. I’m back home, but in a fully professional environment,” Greenberg said.

An A-list of the region’s most talented bands and artists who have worked with Adam would be fairly extensive. Greenberg has worked with Bob Moog, David Wilcox, Kenny Anderson, Larry Keel, Velvet Truckstop, and Sons of Ralph just to name a few.

In addition to music, Greenberg is also responsible for many local and national voiceovers for media packages — radio and video com-

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

mercials, web presentations, and other mediums.

Some of his productions have included wellknown companies and organizations such as the University of Phoenix, Toyota, Subaru, Spotify Internet Radio and Silk (soy milk).

“Although I still do a lot of recording, since about 2005 I have focused more on the mastering, mixing, and the post-production side of things, and the studio reflects that,” Greenberg said.

“I love what I am doing, but it’s always changing, which keeps it fresh. I can’t see myself not doing this. Life is what we make of it, and there is so much to learn and so much to discover.”

For more information, visit whitewaterrecording.com

Q&A with Adam Greenberg SML: Where did you grow up? I know you’re a musician as well, but when did you get into music?

Adam Greenberg: I grew up in Miami, Fla. during the 1970s and went to the University of Georgia in 1981. I majored in

TV, radio and video production, but my love really was music. I was fascinated with the creation of recordings and ways to capture and manipulate the sounds. I was usually fooling around with some gizmo. I minored in music while at Georgia with a focus on arranging, theory, and music business. Unfortunately for me, performance classes were not available for music minors, so I never got the chance to take formal guitar training as I had hoped. Fortunately I had taken quite a bit of piano at an early age and a little guitar so I could play. But I’m really self-taught.

SML: When did you get the idea to start Whitewater Recording?

Greenberg: I started the studio in my house while attending Georgia. There was a non-stop stream of creative people in Athens in 1981. I was always out playing in the clubs and knew lots of fellow students and musicians. I started with a 4 track in the bedroom and tracked bands all over the house and sometimes even on the front porch. The name Whitewater came from my addiction to whitewater canoeing and rafting.

SML: Do you have a philosophy towards recording music?

Greenberg: Capture what is happening the best way you can and don’t do anything to get in the way of what is being recorded.

SML: From the looks of it, you’ve got some pretty nice “toys” in the studio, what’s your most prized possession in here?

Greenberg: The view! Kidding aside, I’m not as crazed for the gear as I used to be. I was afflicted with gear disease for a long time. I’ve been around awhile, so I have a nice collection of vintage gear from Neve, Avalon, Urei, TLA, Neumann, AKG, but the gear is really not so important as what the sound is at the source when you capture it. Yes, the great equipment helps, but it doesn’t make the player or instrument any better … My favorite? Probably still the Sony mixing console. It’s the centerpiece of the control room and really bridges the old with the new since it’s not only a digital controller, but a fully automated audio mixer. And it sounds great.

WINETHESQUARE Friends of the Historic Courthouse Committee Presents:

AROUND

Oct. 17-19, 2014

FRIDAY, OCT. 3

STATESVILLE, NC REGIONAL AIRPORT

Hayesville, NC 83-71

STARTS AT 5 P.M. CONCERT AT 7 P.M.

TO BENEFIT

Food & Music Wine Tastings with Area Wineries $

20/PERSON

Must be 21 with I.D. to participate

WATCH FOR UPDATES:

www.cccra-nc.org Clay County Communities Revitalization Association PO Box 1533 • Hayesville NC 28904

Call 828.389.2121 for more information.

Proceeds benefit Clay County Historic Courthouse Restoration Fund.

83-02

WWW.SMLIV.COM

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d e p a r t m e n t :

OUT & ABOUT

Hidden luxuries in the Virginia highlands

I

n the mountains of Virginia near the Blue Ridge Parkway, what once was farmland and the nation’s largest producer of bundled firewood now is home to a luxury resort unlike any other.

Primland is refined but far from stuffy—the kind of place where one can both relax and adventure, enjoy a romantic escape or explore with friends. Service is impeccable but comes with a smile, as European style meets Southern hospitality.

Primland’s founder, Didier Primat developed the resort so that more people could enjoy the land, and followed eco-conscious practices to ensure its future. Reclaimed wood, rain basin integration, habitat creation, and user-friendly lighting features evidence Primland’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental For more information, visit Design) certification and primland.com or call conservation-minded philosophy.

866.960.7746.

The mountain resort also leads by example, employing local workers and educating visitors about the region’s history and wildlife.

While Primland strives to cut its environmental impacts, it cuts no corners on amenities. From Bourbon tastings and PGA member-led golf clinics to a recreation room for kids complete with gaming systems and specialty spa treatments for teens, Primland offers a wide variety of diversions. Meeting and wedding facilities also are available.

Guests staying at the resort or those who wish to visit may take in Primland’s beauty through activities including Sunday brunch and monthly cooking classes, nightly stargazing and 18 holes on the Highlands Course, while exclusive packages offer once-in-a-lifetime opportunities such as driving Virginia International Raceway with nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen or guided hunts with Primland’s bird dogs.

learn more:

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

LODGING Most properties with 12,000 acres to develop would do so—houses, condos, townhouses, cabins, hotels, attractions. More is the American thing to do. Fortunately Primland is less about Disney-esque proportions and more about European elegance and conservation.

The main lodge at Primland has 26 rooms, each with a king or two queen beds. Rooms are expansive, plush and comfortable, designed with space to entertain or simply separate living and sleeping. Thoughtful touches include button-operated window shades to provide varying levels of natural light and privacy, double sinks, stone tile floors and Bulgari toiletries, as well as energy conservation lighting.

Airy and comfortable public spaces at the

The spa at Primland (left) is one of few to acknowledge the land’s Native American connection. Therapies, based on the American Indian medicine wheel and practiced with guidance from local Native American advisors, are intended to work in line with nature. Look for the spa’s Healing Day packages, or for a more standardized experience, consider a simple facial, nail treatment, or sporttherapy wrap designed for golfers. A fitness room, yoga and indoor pool round out spa offerings.

SARAH E. KUCHARSKI PHOTOS

lodge include sitting areas with large fireplaces and an outdoor deck with fire pit and mountain views. Rates from June to October range from $370 to $1,200 per night.

Scattered along the golf course’s fairways and across the property are 20 cottages and mountain homes, each with its own unique charm. Of particular note are the three tree houses—Barn Owl, Cooper’s Hawk and Golden Eagle—which offer extraordinary views and added privacy within walking distance of the main lodge. The resort’s dining and spa are easy to reach from these romantic escapes. Rates for non-lodge accommodations run from $370 to $1,800 from June to October. Look for lower rates for all accommodations November through May.

NIGHTLIFE As the sun sets, dinner is served at Elements, Primland’s main dining room in the lodge, the Stables Saloon, a more casual setting in a renovated barn, and at the 19th Pub, also in the lodge.

Elements offers fine dining with a focus on local fare, while the Stables Saloon leans more toward steaks and American classics. At the pub, look for crawfish chowder, mountain trout and burgers, but don’t miss the Pig Candy—thick and crispy bacon basted with maple syrup and dusted with cayenne and raw sugar.

Relax away the rest of the evening with a drink while sitting by the outdoor fireplace and enjoying the s’mores station until the sky is dark and the observatory opens. Nightly stargazing and more in-depth programs are held in the dome-topped barn silo adjacent to the lodge. The observatory, like other Primland facilities, welcomes visitors who are not staying at the resort to join with a program reservation. Each 30-minute nightly program costs $35 while the longer Tour of the Universe is $25 for children and $75 for adults.

WWW.SMLIV.COM

Explore the outdoors Above and beyond any other activity, getting outside to explore Primland’s 12,000-acre property should be at the top of any visitor’s list—and with so many activities from which to choose, Primland makes it easy.

Golf is perhaps the greatest draw, as the 18-hole links course earns marks for its true styling and sweeping mountain views. Former golfer, designer and sport correspondent Donald Steele, born in England, created a course by hewing the fairways and deep bunkers into land once farmed and forested. A par 72 with a course record of 64, Primland is one of only four courses Steel completed in the U.S. (the other three being Carnegie Abbey in Rhode Island, Cherokee Plantation in South Carolina, and The Vineyard Club in Massachusetts).

“He still has a lot of the European characteristics here in the U.S.,” said resort vice president, Steve Helms.

A course tour with head golf professional Brian Alley is pleasant enough to make even the most adamant antigolfer think of taking a couple of clubs out for a swing, if for no other reason than to take in the views and resident wildlife, which ranges from songbirds to bears.

Greens fees are $220 Sept. 4 to Oct. 31, 2014 and fall to $135 in November.

In addition to golf, Primland offers unique opportunities to traverse its expanses on foot via hiking, a disc golf course, and educational geocaching courses.

One relatively easy trail leads to a view of the Pinnacle of Dan thus named for its sharp peak above the Dan River, which also gives name to the tiny nearby town of Meadows of Dan that is close to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

For a greater adventure, head out on horseback through the forest or rent an ATV to rumble up and down steep climbs and through small streams, covering the greatest amount of ground in the shortest amount of time. These thrills, along with sporting clays, hunting and fly fishing trips, set off from an outdoor center located nearly 30 minutes away from Primland’s lodge on the other end of the property. Mountain biking, kayaking, and tree climbing round out the resort’s activity offerings.

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FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF DANIEL BOONE

d e p a r t m e n t :

OUTDOORS

Sculpture to honor Olmsted’s landscaping legacy The North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, N.C., has commissioned a sculpture honoring Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture, whose vision for the most comprehensive arboretum in the country served as the impetus for The North Carolina Arboretum.

Through his holistic approach, Olmsted created harmonious compositions that equally addressed ecological, economic, social, and aesthetic issues. His extensive writings on design served as a primer for the modern day principles of landscape architecture.

In 1858, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, an accomplished English architect, won the design competition for New York City’s Central Park. The design—Olmsted’s first—is heralded even today for its architectural ingenuity and positive socioeconomic impact.

Olmsted’s final grand project brought him to the mountains of North Carolina during the late 19th century. Having been hired by George Vanderbilt to design a landscape for his Asheville home, Olmsted recognized the potential to transform the land, damaged and worn from years of farming and logging.

The Olmsted sculpture by renowned artist Zenos Frudakis will join more than 200 works in the Arboretum’s collection. Frudakis has executed commissions ranging from golf professional Payne Stewart at Pinehurst Resort to the National Air Force Memorial Honor Guard Sculpture at Arlington National Cemetery.

Wilderness Road State Park in Ewing, Va., is about 310 acres that lie astride the Wilderness Road, a route Daniel Boone carved in 1775. The route, which followed a buffalo trace, opened America’s first western frontier.

Most notable in the park are the Karlan Mansion built in 1877, a state-of-the-art visitor center and Martin’s Station, a replica of a colonial frontier fort that was on this site in 1775. Visitors can hike, bike or horseback ride on the 8.5-mile Wilderness Road Trail linking the park with more than 50 miles of trails in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. The park also has the Indian Ridge Trail, which is a self-guided trail, and offers interpretive and environmental educational programs.

For more information, visit dcr.virginia.gov or call 276.445.3065.

ORGANIC GROWERS SCHOOL LAUNCHES FALL SYMPOSIUM The Organic Growers School will host the 1st Annual Harvest Conference, a fall event focused on the fall growing season, harvesting, canning, growing, gardening, energy, cooking and more with Janisse Ray, author and naturalist to provide the keynote address.

Pre-conference workshops on Sept. 5 will include Alan Muskat’s “Wild Mushrooms, A Magical Mystery Tour,” and Ray’s “Speaking of Nature: Place Based-Creative Writing.”

On Saturday, Sept. 6, more than 20 classes will be held at Asheville-Buncombe Technical and include Appalachian Heritage Foods, Top 10 Uses for Excess Fruit, Learn Your Trees and Know Your Woods.

For more information, visit organicgrowersschool.org or call 828.564.1179.

Cycling race to benefit Friends of the Smokies Gran Fondo National Championship Series is adding a seventh event to the series to take place in Asheville, N.C., and the surrounding mountains and benefit Friends of the Smokies.

A gran fondo is a European-style cycling challenge that takes bicycle racing to the next level through a hybrid of competitive road racing and casual century rides, designed for cyclists of every skill level.

The Gran Fondo Asheville will be held on Sept. 7 and start and finish in conjunction with the annual Organicfest. Organicfest celebrates everything organic, green, healthy and sustainable, and offers food, music, vendors, family fun, and more.

“Cycling is a fun way to get out and see the beauty of this area while getting great exercise,” says Meridith Elliot Powell, cyclist and Friends of the Smokies board director. “We are thrilled to offer this opportunity 22

for visitors and locals alike to enjoy the back roads of the area.”

Friends of the Smokies partners with Great Smoky Mountains National Park to help maintain it as a crown jewel of the national park system by increasing financial and volunteer support to protect bears, heal hemlocks, educate kids, restore log cabins, and repair trails.

The race is limited to a 500-person field. Registration details are at gfncs.com.

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d e p a r t m e n t :

OUTDOORS

Before the blight hit, one in four Appalachian trees was an American chestnut. Below: volunteers at Meadowview bag chestnut flowers to get ready for pollination season. HOLLY KAYS PHOTO • DONATED PHOTO

Working toward a chestnut comeback B Y H O L LY K AY S

W

ith a population that doesn’t quite break 1,000 and few enough restaurants that one can count them on one’s fingers, it’s safe to say that Meadowview, Va., is a small town. But when it comes to American chestnuts, Meadowview is a big name. The town is home to The American Chestnut Foundation’s Meadowview Research Farms, America’s most advanced arsenal in the 100-plus-year fight to restore the former glory of the vanquished forest giants. This fall marks the farm’s 25th anniversary in the fight against chestnut blight, a fight that ACF believes is entering the home stretch.

“The classic American chestnut of old could be 100 feet tall,” said Doug Levin, one of a core group of volunteers with ACF’s Southwest Virginia Branch who make the farm tick. “It could be 15 feet in diameter. They were monstrous.

I’ve read they could be considered the redwoods of the east.”

Chestnuts composed 20 percent or more of eastern forests, covering as much as one-third of the Smokies. People used their strong, light wood for virtually every purpose imaginable. As for the nuts, people ate them, fed them to livestock and hunted game animals that depended on the nuts for food.

“It was called the cradle to the grave tree because it was used for literally everything from cradles to caskets,” Levin said. “People almost had an emotional connection to these trees.”

A fungus introduced from Asia in 1904 spelled the end of the chestnut. It was a catastrophic loss for Appalachia, the regions’ game species and forest health. A smattering of individual researchers started to develop a blightresistant cross of American chestnut and its cousin, the Chinese chestnut, but it took until 1983, when the American Chestnut Foundation formed, for a large-scale restoration effort.

“The way the breeding program works, at the very beginning a surviving American was crossed with a Chinese chestnut tree,” Levin explained. “What you ended up with was an American-Chinese half-and-half. That’s where you started. Every cross since then has actually been a backcross with an American.”

The first generation of trees is 50 percent American, the second generation 75 percent, with the ratio rising to seven-eighths and fifteen-sixteenths. Trees that don’t resist the blight or that retain too many Chinese characteristics are eliminated along the way, so a tree that is fifteen-sixteenths American is considered American enough, retaining hardly any of WWW.SMLIV.COM

its Chinese characteristics beyond the essential one: blight resistance.

With 25 years of chestnut farming experience, the folks at Meadowview now have fifteen-sixteenths trees that are 20 to 30 feet high—they’d be even taller, Levin said, if they were living in a forest, but meadow life causes trees to grow shorter and wider than taller and narrower. Test plots across the region are now growing fifteen-sixteenth trees, and Levin said ACF expects to start releasing blight-resistant chestnuts into American forests within the next decade or so.

It’s cause for celebration. Guests at an Oct. 11 fundraiser will enjoy roasted chestnuts, locally-crafted chestnut beer and, of course, a hay ride tour of the 150-acre farm. Chestnut-themed children’s activities also will be held.

“Those kinds of celebrations don’t come around often,” Levin said.

Restoring the American chestnut is about a lot more than just saving a tree, he said. It’s about restoring a cultural icon of the Appalachians, and thanks to the work of dedicated researchers, growers, and other volunteers, restoring the chestnut to its forest glory is seeming more and more to be a story of success.

“In a way, maybe, that’s something that draws us without our realizing it,” Levin said.

“It’s something that’s very hopeful.”

Want to go?

The 25th Anniversary of the American Chestnut Restoration Program will be observed 2-6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, at the Glenn C. Price Research Laboratory in Meadowview, Va. Free, but raffles and membership opportunities will be part of this fundraising event.

SWVABranch@acf.org or 276.944.4631.

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MOUNTAIN LETTERS

What the land has meant to the people

BY JEFF MINICK

Geography matters.

From grunts to generals, soldiers understand the enormous role terrain plays in warfare. An intimate familiarity with terrain—the high ground, a ford in a river, a trail through a marsh or dense forest, the location of a wadi in the desert—can spell the difference between victory and disaster. Highway engineers similarly are aware of landscape’s tremendous effect on plans and aspirations.

Most of us, however, fail to credit geography’s impact on a culture and its peoples. As we zip around our mountain highways, shop at malls carved from hills, and rumble across rivers by means of stout bridges, we give little thought, most of the time, to the degree in which these mountains have shaped the lives of all who ever have lived here, including ourselves.

Ethnicity provides one of many examples of this formation. One finds a much larger African-American population in North Carolina’s eastern flat lands than in Western North Carolina. This imbalance occurred for at least two reasons: the mountain slopes and climate were not suitable for plantation farming—such farms relied on slave labor— and in later times, the Piedmont region, years ahead of the mountain culture in industrial development, drew black workers from South Carolina. The Cherokee, unlike tribes European settlers obliterated on the coast and flat lands, benefited from the mountains’ peaks and valleys, nooks and crannies.

From accents to music, from folk arts to small independent farms, Western North Carolina’s culture is a result of geography.

Nearly all books written about Western North Carolina acknowledge, consciously or unconsciously, terrain’s influence. Take William R. Trotter’s “Bushwhackers: The Civil War in the North Carolina Mountains” (John F. Blair, Publisher, 338 pages, $18.95). Bushwhackers is part of a trilogy along with Silk Flags and Cold Steel and Ironclads and Columbiads, these being histories respectively of the Civil War in the Piedmont and on the Coast. Why does the Piedmont rate “Silk Flags” while the mountains earn the onerous “Bushwhackers?” Basic answer: terrain. The mountains were settled last in the state’s history; inhabitants, many of them Scots-Irish living in isolation, saw no point in succession, and skirmishes and feuds were therefore the order of the day among Union and Confederate sympathizers.

“We give little

thought, most of the time, to the degree in which these mountains have shaped the lives of all who ever have lived here, including ourselves.”

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“Appalachian Travels: The Diary of Olive Dame Campbell,” edited

by Elizabeth McCutchen Williams.

University Press of Kentucky, 2012. 294 pages, $40.

“Appalachian Travels: The Diary of Olive Dame Campbell” (University Press of Kentucky, 294 pages, $40) tells of the John C. Campbell Folk School founder and her husband when they first explored the Southern Appalachian Mountains in the early part of the twentieth century. Campbell notes the local people’s poverty and the ingenuity, the mountains’ beauty, and industry and tourism’s gradual incursions into the area—she describes places she and her husband slept each night, ranging from a cabin where the inhabitants hacked and coughed from some disease of the lung to a grand summer hotel in Linville with golf links. Campbell constantly attests to the terrain’s importance on their travels, writing of steep grades, good and bad roads, and the variety of vehicles— trains, motor cars, wagons—by which they made their journey.

In “Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains: A Guidebook” (The University of North Carolina Press, 426 pages, $22), Georgann Eubanks takes readers on 18 self-guided literary tours of Western North Carolina. In addition to the notes on more than 170 authors—writers like Horace Kephart, Gail Godwin, and Thomas Wolfe—Eubanks also visits various museums, restaurants, and bookshops, any establishment, in fact, having to do with literature.

Public libraries, theaters, certain coffee shops, even a general store or two that carries books, cemeteries like Riverside in Asheville where both Thomas Wolfe and O’Henry are buried, the home towns of writers dead and alive: readers will find all of these in Literary Trails. Needless to say, writers mentioned all exhibit geography’s, the mountains’ influence in their work. Even F. Scott Fitzgerald was a frequent visitor to Asheville while his wife, Zelda, was at Highlands Hospital. The mountain climate gave rise to sanitariums for people suffering respiratory diseases or, as was the case with Zelda, mental and emotional problems.

These books, like so many others Appalachian writers have produced, are reminders of the mountains’ impact on our lives and our culture. In our pride, we may think that we have fitted the mountains to serve us. It would behoove us to remember that the contrary is true. It is the mountains that have formed us.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

IMPRESS

your closest friends.

828.633.1806 945A SMOKY PARK HWY. CANDLER, NC

83-67

www.wingsnclays.com WWW.SMLIV.COM

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d e p a r t m e n t :

MOUNTAIN LETTERS

Devil’s Courthouse.

Views you can use As the mountains rise and fall along the 469-mile length of the Blue Ridge Parkway from Cherokee, N.C., to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, one might look out upon the landscape and wonder just what it is that one sees. A shift in elevation or distance traveled dramatically changes one’s perspective, and weather conditions are the difference between seeing for miles or meters.

Such obstacles have limited our mountains’ identification on a horizontal plane—most mountain maps are topographic and thus viewed from the top down, but that’s not how we tend to view the landscape.

Photographer Tim Barnwell has released a work five years in the making, “Blue Ridge Parkway Vistas,” which features sweeping panoramic views and labels the mountains they include.

The book is a valuable contribution to the region for its practical knowledge and geographic clarifications presented in a user friendly and aesthetically pleasing format. Barnwell’s work challenges common notions about the lay of the land—and a few governmentmade signs.

“Blue Ridge Parkway Vistas” is strongly recommended for anyone who has sought to appreciate the Parkway as a journey rather than just a road and its overlooks as windows through which we see both our past and future.

IMAGES COURTESY OF TIM BARNWELL

Part of the view from Bear Den Overlook.

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

ABOUT TIM BARNWELL

Graveyard Fields and falls.

Tim Barnwell grew up in Western North Carolina, earning his reputation as a photographer of record most notably through his intimate portraits of the region’s lives and landscapes in “The Face of Appalachia, Portraits from the Mountain Farm;” “On Earths Furrowed Brow: The Appalachian Farm in Photographs;” and “Hands in Harmony: Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia.” Visit barnwellphoto.com or call 828.251.0040 for information about books, prints, workshops, and shows. His works are now on display in Asheville and Highlands, N.C., Portsmouth, Va., and Newark, N.J.

Part of the view from Mile-High Overlook.

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MOUNTAIN CUISINE

Putting a French twist on the South

D

owntown Morganton, N.C.’s hottest culinary destination is undisputedly Root & Vine, located at 139 W. Union Street. Soak up the restaurant’s bar scene on a floor paved in vintage tile or watch the passersby from the spacious patio, which includes not only traditional dining tables and chairs but also a stylish outdoor lounge area with comfy couches and drink tables.

The restaurant is the place to be before Morganton’s weekly “TGIF” concert series, just a short stroll away on

Chef Reaux’s regional flavors Chef James Reaux returned to participate in the Telluride Food And Wine Festival this year as a guest chef for cooking seminars, demonstrations, and gourmet luncheon service and moonshine lecture. Reaux owns and operates the Coast II Coast restaurant group in Western North Carolina and Northern Georgia—Murphy’s Chophouse Restaurant in Murphy, N.C., The Chophouse of Hiawassee in Hiawassee, Ga., The Chophouse at LaPrade’s in Clayton, Ga., plus Hawg Wild BBQ and Catfish House in Clarksville, Ga. Upon moving from south Florida to the mountains, Reaux became particularly interested in the influence of the Cherokee Indian history of the area and is combining the flavor of that history into his design, menus and presentations.

Smoked Beef Brisket with Stone Ground Grits and Toasted Baby Kale Served by Chef Reaux in Telluride

The seared duck breast, with house-made pork belly, mushrooms, maple, and mashed sweet potatoes. Below: the Wake Up Call is a cocktail of Maker’s Mark, sherry, maple syrup, apple wood-smoked ice cube, and candied bacon.

the courthouse lawn. Chef Brian Miller translates the skills garnered from A-B Tech’s award-winning culinary program into satisfying, savory, and sophisticated dishes at a palatable price point. French and Southern styles and a focus on seasonal produce and seafood combine for a contemporary menu that has foodies talking, supplemented by a full bar of more than 50 beers, 100 wines, and original cocktails.

Begin your meal with the steamed mussels—delightfully complemented by mandarin oranges, fennel, and a chili-garlic sauce—or try romaine salad, toasted on the grill. The ribeye and duck breast dishes are highlights of the entrees menu, and for something different (and strong!), try “The Wake Up Call,” a cocktail of Maker’s Mark, sherry, maple syrup, apple wood-smoked ice cube, and candied bacon.

For info, call 828.433.1540 or visit rootandvinerestaurant.com.

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Remove the fat cap from a fresh beef brisket (9/12 lbs. each).

Season with your favorite spice rub and yellow mustard on all sides.

Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for 24-48 hours. Transfer to the smoker and smoke for 12-15 hours at approx. 225 degrees. Remove and reserve warm. Yield is about 15-20 portions per brisket.

When the brisket is close to being done, combine whole milk, chicken stock, salt, white pepper and butter in pot and bring to a boil.

Add the stone ground grits, reduce heat, and cook for 1 to 1 ½ hours, stirring occasionally so the grits do not stick. Add more liquid if necessary.

Remove pot of grits from the heat, stir in butter and a generous amount of aged cheddar cheese.

As grits are cooking, clean kale, removing any dirt or large stems.

Toss leaves in extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and minced garlic.

Lay leaves flat on a baking sheet and roast for 15-20 minutes until edges are crisp. Sprinkle with sea salt if needed.

Visit murphyschophouse.com for menus, reservations and more.

Bush’s Cool 3-Bean Salad With Grapes From Bush’s Beans Visitor Center in Dandridge, Tenn.

3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar 3 Tbsp. canola oil 3 Tbsp. honey 2 Tsp. honey mustard 4 thinkly sliced green onions (white and light green parts only) 1 16 oz. can Bush’s Garbanzo Beans, drained and rinsed 1 16 oz. can Bush’s Red Kidney Beans, drained and rinsed 1 15.5 oz. can Bush’s Cannellini Beans, drained and rinsed 1 peeled, seeded and diced medium cucumber 1 ½ c. halved green grapes Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste In a large bowl, whisk together the red wine vinegar, canola oil, honey and honey mustard until well combined. Gently stir in the green onions, beans, cucumber and grapes until well coated with the dressing. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Store in the refrigerator and serve chilled.

Five and dine: Asheville’s Buffalo Nickel

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hen minted in 1913 the Buffalo nickel had been commissioned as part of an effort to aesthetically improve American coinage but drew protest for its inability to strike true within the mechanisms of coin-operated machines.

The Buffalo nickel’s history is an allegory for West Asheville’s new restaurant that bears its name. Beautifully designed with hardwood floors, graceful chandeliers, reclaimed wood used to build the bathroom and bar, Buffalo Nickel is one of the most attractive establishments in West Asheville and exudes more warmth than many of downtown’s hip eateries.

Couples would enjoy their date night or friends their low-key get together with drinks and a game of pool on Buffalo Nickel’s second floor.

Drawing from Northeastern American cuisine—pierogis, gnocchi, challah, octopus, little neck clams (chef Ryan Kline is from Hastings, PA and sous chef Brandon Miller is from Akron, OH)—the menu nonetheless exhibits a split personality with its other offering of deviled eggs, chicken liver mousse, scrapple, chicken pot pie and regional flavors incorporating Lusty Monk mustard, Smiling Hara Tempeh and Carolina Gold rice.

The pierogi appetizers could sing with a filling that incorporates a dash of cheddar and green onions, a more crisp pan fry, a bit of lightly cooked and still crunchy kale, and a good spoonful of the otherwise $5 side of golden beets with mint and citronette. The same goes for the gnocchi plate, which has great flavor, but needs more for the tooth to do.

Given Chef Kline’s talent, look for this young restaurant's menu to mature.

Buffalo Nickel is located at 747 West Haywood Road, Asheville, N.C., 28806; 828.575.2844 or buffalonickelavl.com.

Whet your appetite for an elevated culinary experience!

Elixir

Sweet

Grand Tasting

Thursday, August 21 A craft cocktail experience

Friday, August 22 An evening of decadent desserts & sips Grove Arcade

Saturday, August 23 A celebration of Asheville’s food & libations U.S. Cellular Center

AUGUST 21-23

WWW.SMLIV.COM

FOR TICKETS AND HOTEL PACKAGES

www.ashevillewineandfood.com

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d e p a r t m e n t :

MOUNTAIN ARTS

Young museum makes a lasting impression Established in 2003, the History Museum of Burke County is just over a decade old, which makes its substantial collection of local artifacts all the more impressive.

The museum features two floors of Burke County and regional history, including exhibits dedicated to fashion, the military, law enforcement and famous criminals, Native Americans, the railroad, Lake James, education, and the timber, textile, and furniture industries.

Volunteer docents staff the museum, and public programs are offered throughout the year. Admission is free. Located at 201 W. Meeting St. in Morganton, the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The Morganton Rail Road Depot, located at 624, S. Green St., is open Saturdays from 1-3 p.m.

For more info, call 828.437.1777 or visit thehistorymuseumofburke.org.

Museum director Claude S. Sitton (above), a retired Superior Court Judge, shares information about the museum’s Civil War displays. This wool suit (left) from the BelkBroome Store in downtown Morganton was worn by Jimmy Buchanan on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. DONATED PHOTOS

A CHEROKEE VOICE RISES AS A NOTABLE AUTHOR

TENNESSEE TOWN CELEBRATES A MUSICAL GREAT

In author Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle’s work “Going to Water,” Osley Sololoneet, born and raised on the Qualla Boundary in rural western North Carolina, recognizes that he yearns for more than the safety of the Great Smoky Mountains. He comes to believe that “the only true death is a static existence.”

Clapsaddle, Executive Director of the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, is an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who graduated from Yale University and the College of William and Mary. Her work draws inspiration from her grandfather’s erratic legacy—Osley simultaneously undertakes careers in professional wrestling, tribal government, and souvenir peddling, finding that they are all inextricably linked in the world of love, politics, and identity. The novel takes place in 1920s-40s Cherokee and Chicago, Ill. “Going to Water” was named a finalist for the 2014 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction which is presented biennially to the author of a previously unpublished novel of high caliber that promotes fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships. This year marked only the second that PEN issued the award, which Barbara Kingsolver created and entirely funds.

The seventh annual Louie Bluie Music and Arts Festival celebrates the legacy of musician, artist and raconteur Howard Armstrong on Saturday, Sept. 27 in Caryville, Tenn.

Named for and inspired by African American musician and artist Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong (1909-2003), the event features two stages of live music, food and craft vendors, children’s entertainment and activities, an art competition for amateur and professional artists, and a juried quilt exhibit.

Armstrong grew up poor in Campbell County and became one of the nation’s finest string-band musicians as well as a painter, storyteller and master of foreign languages.

Craft and vendor applications may be submitted until Sept. 8.

Quilters may enter their quilts for the festival judging and exhibit Wednesday, Sept. 24, at The Quilt Patch in LaFollette, Tenn. Submissions for visual art judging will be accepted Thursday, Sept. 25 at the Cove Lake State Park Pavilion/Recreation Building. The competition is open to all amateur artists (any artist whose primary source of income is not derived from sales of his or her art).

For vendor and competition details, as well as general festival information, visit louiebluie.org or call 423.566.0329.

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

Foxfire

Museum

& Heritage Center

Providing Nationwide Charter Bus Services for Western North Carolina since 1969

800-882-1227 www.cherokeeboysclub.com

83-63

Experience Southern Appalachia as recorded and documented by the students of Rabun County, GA—and shared with the world through The Foxfire Magazine and The Foxfire Book volumes. Visit the legacy they created in honor of their families and neighbors over 45+ years.

Home of the Foxfire books– our newest:

45th Anniv.

1SR ÂŻ7EX EQÂŻ TQ

Museum gift shop offers regional folk pottery, home-made soaps, knitted & woven textile crafts, Foxfire books and related titles on history, plant lore, skills & trades, more! ;HRL <: [V 4V\U[HPU *P[` .( ;\YU VU[V )SHJR 9VJR 4[U 7HYR^H` 6UL TPSL \W MVSSV^ [OL IYV^U ZPNUZ [[[ JS\½VI SVK Â&#x2C6; - WWW.SMLIV.COM

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d i re cto r y :

MOUNTAIN GALLERIES SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS

AROUND BACK AT ROCKY’S PLACE The Ultimate Folk Art Gallery in the South!

Representing a plethora of self-taught artists.

Best selection by artist “Cornbread” in the Universe! Established 2002.

3631 Hwy. 53 East at Etowah River Rd. Dawsonville, Ga. • 706.265.6030 aroundbackatrockysplace.com Hours: Saturday 11 to 5 & Sunday 1 to 5 DOGWOOD CRAFTERS Arts and crafts co-op featuring local artisans.

Stained glass, gourd art, handmade soaps, photography, painting, canned goods, metal work and more. Established 1976.

90 Webster St. • Dillsboro, N.C. 828.586.2248 • dogwoodcrafters.com

GUIDE The Southern Appalachians have a rich artistic history. As long as folks have lived in these majestic landscapes, they’ve been molding, shaping and putting together items that serve not only practical purposes but also aesthetic ones, too. From weavers to potters, painters to metalsmiths, glassblowers to woodcrafters, these artisans reflect generations of heritage and innovation. Promoting and perpetuating this beauty are the galleries that are as unique and varied as the artists themselves.

EARTHWORKS ENVIRONMENTAL GALLERY Open for business since July of 1992! We have always focused on artists who are stewards of our beautiful planet earth, in some way or other. Hand craft artisans in so many mediums grace our collections. Artists, both regional and from around the world seem to fit together here at Earthworks.

21 North Main St. • Waynesville, N.C. 828.452.9500 • earthworksgalleries.com FOXFIRE Foxfire’s Appalachian Museum, a 22-log-cabin village with exhibits & artifacts & a gift shop featuring The Foxfire Book series & traditional crafts & gifts, provides heritage programs for learners of all ages, sponsors The Foxfire Magazine class at RCHS, and provides scholarships to local students.

98 Foxfire Ln. • Mountain City, Ga. 706.746.5828 • www.foxfire.org GOLDEN CARP, THE Specializing in local and American watercolorists, exhibits of local and global artisans in basketry, pottery and fiber arts, and unique home accessories and fine gifts.

107 Webster St. • Dillsboro, N.C. 828 586-5477 • thegoldencarp.com HEARTWOOD GALLERY Heartwood Gallery, located in the heart of historic downtown Saluda, is a beautiful and unique collection of American Craft, featuring one of the area’s finest pottery collections, and an array of jewelry, glass, wood, fiber, metal, and garden art. Offering 100% American Craft since 1985, Heartwood displays work designed for function as well as beauty, reflecting the quality craftsmanship of our mountain region and beyond.

21 East Main St. • Saluda, N.C. heartwoodsaluda.com

Continues on Page 34 32

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4 EXPLORE Southern Appalachian Galleries

THE

Ultimate

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THE BEST SELECTION by artist “Cornbread” in the Universe!

Folk Art Gallery in the South!

3631 HWY. 53 E.

AT ETOWAH RIVER RD.

DAWSONVILLE, GA 706-265-6030 aroundbackatrockysplace.com HOURS: SATURDAY 11 TO 5 & SUNDAY 1 TO 5

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SPACE AVAILABLE FOR YOUR CREATIVE ENDEAVORS

“Cool and the Gang” by Jenny Buckner

“WHERE ART DANCES WITH NATURE” 98 NORTH MAIN ST. • WAYNESVILLE, NC • 828.456.1940 MON.-SAT.10-5:30 • SUN.1-4 • WWW.TWIGSANDLEAVES.COM EXPLORE

To have your gallery featured in Smoky Mountain Living’s Southern Appalachian Mountains Gallery Guide, contact Hylah Birenbaum at 828.452.9283 or hylah@smliv.com.

Southern Appalachian Galleries

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Oct. 16-19 Over 200 Juried Artists Craft Demonstrations Live Regional Music

Becky and Steve Lloyd

U.S. Cellular Center Downtown Asheville, NC Thu.-Sat.: 10am-6pm Sun.: 10am-5pm

www.craftguild.org 828-298-7928

MAHOGANY HOUSE ART GALLERY AND STUDIOS, THE The Mahogany House Art Gallery is located in the historic area of Frog Level in downtown Waynesville, NC. Its fall away brick plaster walls, dark plank wood flooring and embossed tin ceiling tiles lend a timeless appeal and complement the treasures of art displayed within. At present, the artist studios feature an encaustic artist, acylic and oil artist, a cold wax and assemblage artist and 2 woodturners.

240 Depot St. • Waynesville, NC themahoganyhouse.com MUD DABBERS POTTERY Handmade stoneware pottery from a family of potters producing functional and contemporary designs including bowls, mugs, pitchers, dinnerware cassorole dishes, sculptures, masks, raku and Brandon Mountain Gnomes.

20767 Great Smoky Mountain Expressway (U.S. 23-74 in Balsam) 828.456.1916 • www.muddabbers.com QUALLA ARTS & CRAFTS MUTUAL Qualla Arts & Crafts Mutual, Inc. is the nation’s oldest and foremost Native American cooperative. Since 1946, visionary Cherokee craftspeople and leaders have been preserving and promoting Cherokee crafts while strengthening tribal values and providing livelihoods by offering unique beauty to the wider world at Qualla. You can see it throughout Qualla’s beautifully redesigned artists’ gallery store, as you feel the warmth and brillliance of the basketry, pottery, weaving, carving, sculpture and other works of art that surround you.

645 Tsali Blvd. • Cherokee, N.C. 828.497.3103 • quallaartsandcrafts.com SEVEN SISTERS GALLERY Discover something different at Seven Sisters Gallery, a staple in charming, historic Black Mountain since 1981. We have one of the best and broadest ceramics collections available, furniture, original artwork, jewelry, and more!

Everything is made in the USA, and much of it is local.

117 Cherry St. • Black Mtn, NC 28711 828-669-5107 • 7sistersgallery.com Mon-Sat 10-6, Sun: 12-5 STECOAH VALLEY CULTURAL ARTS CENTER Traditional and contemporary works: paintings, pottery, weaving, wood-turned items, glass works, photography, note cards, jewelry, soaps, quilts, books and more.

121 Schoolhouse Rd. • Robbinsville, N.C. 828.479.3364 • stecoahvalleycenter.com

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EXPLORE

Southern Appalachian Galleries

SUSAN MARIE DESIGNS With visionary talent and skills acquired in thirty-three years as an award-winning goldsmith, Susan Marie transforms nature’s most exceptional gemstones, diamonds and pearls into wearable contemporary elegance. As a G.I.A. Graduate Gemologist she selects the most vibrant and highest quality cut stones to create her fine jewelry.

Four Biltmore Ave. • Asheville, N.C. 828.277.1272 T. PENNINGTON Teresa Pennington is a self-taught colored pencil artist who renders, in amazing detail, the scenery and landmarks of western North Carolina and beyond.

15 North Main St. • Waynesville, N.C. 828-452-9284 tpennington.com

“Peaks of Otter” BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY

15 N. Main St. • Waynesville, NC ARTIST OF THE

BLUE RIDGE

(828) 452-9284 tpennington.com 83-59

TWIGS AND LEAVES GALLERY Stroll down Main Street in Waynesville and you will find a unique gallery where art dances with nature. Browse through an unforgettable collection of nature-inspired works by 140 primarily regional artists and crafts persons.

Take home a piece of art that echoes the wonder of nature.

98 N Main St. • Waynesville, NC 828.456-1940 • twigsandleaves.com UPTOWN GALLERY (MACON COUNTY ART ASSOCIATION) Local artists. Village Square Arts and Crafts shows in Highlands. Open studio, monthly presentations. Workshops and classes for adults. Children’s activities with the Bascom.

30 E Main St. • Franklin, N.C. 828.349.4607 • uptowngalleryoffranklin.com

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VISIONS OF CREATION With over 40 years of experience, Roberto creates contemporary and one-of-a-kind fine jewelry in gold and silver. Each hand-crafted piece has its own unique properties. Most are limited editions and signed. Roberto is constantly creating, evolving and designing new and innovative pieces.

100 Cherry St. • Black Mountain, NC 828-669-0065 • visionsofcreation.com WAYNESVILLE GALLERY ASSOCIATION The Waynesville Gallery Association is represented by 11 unique galleries: Art on Depot, Burr Studio, Cedar Hill Studio, Earthworks Gallery, Gallery 86, Grace Cathey Sculpture, The Jeweler’s Workbench, the mahogany house art gallery and studios, TPennington Art Gallery, Twigs and Leaves Gallery, and Village Framer.

The group promotes and participates in Art After Dark which happens the first Friday evening May through December. waynesvillegalleryassociation.com

First Friday of each Month Second Friday in July 6-9 p.m.

May through December

WAYNESVILLEGALLERYASSOCIATION.COM Funded in part by Haywood County Tourism Development Authority • 1.800.334.9036 • visitNCsmokies.com

EXPLORE

Southern Appalachian Galleries

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Artists of Dusk Dawn

Jo Ridge Kelley paints a scene en plein air at Waterrock Knob on the Blue Ridge Parkway in fall 2013. ED KELLEY PHOTO

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

Painters and photographers interpret the Appalachian landscape

BY ANNA OAKES

WWW.SMLIV.COM

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JO RIDGE KELLEY WANTS YOU TO FEEL HER PAINTING. To clarify, streaking your fingers across the canvas is generally frowned upon and could result in a stern escort out of the gallery.

Rather, the accomplished Waynesville-based artist believes the art of en plein air painting—meaning painting outdoors—produces works that stimulate the full spectrum of a viewer’s senses.

“My paintings are about feeling,” Kelley explains. “When you’re out in the natural world, you are aware of all the sounds, and the textures—you’re experiencing the whole thing. That can’t help but to flow through you and out onto the canvas. I think when you view a painting, you tap into all of the senses. A really good painting is able to do that for the viewer. Sometimes you can actually hear it, feel the wind, the movement of the clouds, the movement of the trees.”

“Plein air” is a French term that means “in the open air.” The approach gained popularity during the late 1800s and early 1900s among impressionists who sought to connect the artist with nature through direct observation.

Meet three Southern Appalachian artists who—whether by paintbrush or camera—have chosen to free their art from the binds of the studio in favor of the wide open outdoors.

JO RIDGE KELLEY WAYNESVILLE, N.C.

J

“I feel the closest to our creator when I’m out there. You really don’t get that in the studio.”

— Jo Ridge Kelley

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o Ridge Kelley is so dedicated to the plein air approach that she refers to her car, where she spends ever-more hours chasing her scenic subjects, as the “paintmobile.” But she wants to upgrade to a van—that way she can spend the night inside, out on location, and roll out of bed with the sunrise into her outdoor studio.

Kelley was born in High Point, N.C., and grew up on a dairy farm in the Quaker tradition with her parents and four siblings.

She would take a break from her daily chores to recline in a meadow or beside a creek, where she would draw trees, rocks, and wildflowers. ‘I’ve got a picture of me sitting out in the lawn on our dairy farm at 12 years old with a sketchbook. I have been doing it pretty much all my life,” Kelley says. She studied drawing and painting in college and taught high school art for several years. She married nature photographer and painter Ed Kelley, and the two shared a Waynesville gallery and studio, Ridge Runner Naturals, for 22 years.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

“We’ve now closed that so we can travel and teach and paint on location,” Kelley said, noting that she’s even willing to sell her work from her vehicle. “My paintings are always available if I have them with me.” She and Ed love to travel out West, with work in Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, and the Tetons among the highlights of her career, she says. She owned a gallery in Santa Fe, too, until it flooded, and she hopes to open another there: “I love it out there in Georgia O’Keefe country.” This year, the two are turning their focus toward North Carolina and the coast.

Trained in oils, Kelley then worked in watercolor exclusively for about 15 years, but she has now returned to oils. Her process is organized and structured, beginning with toning the canvas, then sketching her composition, coloring in abstract shapes, and finishing with darks, highlights, and calligraphy work. She utilizes larger brushes to speed up the work, limiting paintings on location to two or three hours. “It helps if you break it down; it’s not as overwhelming,” says Kelley. “Sometimes you just do a small study and bring it back and do it larger in the studio.” She aims to paint at sunrise or sunset for the most dramatic light, beautiful shadows, and contrasts in warm and cool hues. “You’re having to work before the light changes. You have to work kind of fast, so therefore you’re working more intuitively.”

Kelley notes that many associate plein air painting with landscapes, but “you could also set up a still life or do a figure painting outside.” Plein air is not so much about the subject matter as it is the process. “Your spirit is alive when you’re in the natural world. You escape your everyday obligations around the house. You forget everything. It’s all about you and the painting. It just doesn’t get any better than that as a painter. I really believe that it is the best way to paint.” And with Kelley, the subjects of her paintings are not only driven by the sprawling countryside before her, but by her own internal landscape. “More often, I end up choosing exaggerated and unexpected color relationships and compositions that reflect my emotional response more so than what I’m seeing in front of me,” she writes in her artist’s statement. “I find it much more satisfying to be guided as much by my imagination and memory as my eyes.”

Plein air painting affords originality: “Nobody else is inspiring that work,” Kelley says. “It’s all about you and what you’re out there experiencing in nature.” And it’s spiritual.

“Anytime I’m out in nature, it’s when I rejuvenate my spirit,” says Kelley. “Whether I’m just walking or taking it all in, sort of in a meditative state, or putting the brush to

The moon and Grandfather Mountain loom large in this shot by landscape photographer Mark VanDyke, taken just before sunrise at Price Lake off of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, N.C. COURTESY OF MARK VANDYKE

“Give them places

they know, but as beautiful as they’ve ever seen it.”

— Mark VanDyke

canvas, it is a very spiritual experience. I was raised a Quaker, and I feel the closest to our creator when I’m out there. The experience can be one of a higher power taking over— you give in to just letting it happen. You really don’t get that in the studio.”

A number of galleries carry Kelley’s works, with Twigs and Leaves in Waynesville offering more traditional mountain scenes and Artetude in Asheville showcasing Kelley’s more contemporary works. She is excited and invigorated by the growth of the plein air movement, noting she plans to attend the national Plein Air Convention in Monterey, Calif., in 2015. And she wants to share the movement with others, offering private lessons and many workshops and classes in the area.

“If somebody wanted a plein air experience, they can contact me,” she indicates.

Jo Ridge Kelley’s works can be viewed at joridgekelley.com, where one will find a list of galleries that carry her work. Kelley leads regular classes and workshops at 310 Art Gallery in Asheville’s River Arts District. Call 828.776.2716 or email gallery@310art.com for more information.

MARK VANDYKE CLEMSON, S.C.

W

orking outdoors means that Mark VanDyke’s chosen profession is one part art, one part science. He is constantly checking weather forecasts in search of what he calls “dynamic” conditions—those that produce immense clouds, or storms, or snow, for instance. “If it’s the summer, we want to see a cold front,” he says. “People respond to that—they don’t normally get out in those conditions.” Like Kelley, VanDyke prefers early mornings and evenings for ideal lighting, often hiking to his destinations at 3 or 4 a.m. to position his camera and tripod so lens and trigger are ready to capture the first fingers of sunshine reaching over the ridgeline.

VanDyke spent a week in mid-June chasing the Catawba Rhododendron bloom from the Craggy Gardens near Asheville to Roan Mountain in Tennessee, but nature held a little back this year, he reports. It was a “growth year,” he explains. “An okay bloom, but a little less than it could have been,” with lots of leaves but not as many flower buds. A WWW.SMLIV.COM

park ranger told him the cold winter sent the mountain shrubs into a growth stage.

“Maybe next year,” sighs VanDyke. “It’s beautiful anyhow, though.”

VanDyke grew up in Fairfax County outside of Washington, D.C., and knew from the time he was a boy that he wanted to work outside. Construction seemed like the way to do it, and VanDyke spent several years climbing the ladder from a laborer building homes to an engineer on health facility projects. “I realized that I was actually getting farther from the trails, rivers, and forests that I longed to spend more time around,” Mark writes on his website. Along the way, he moved to South Carolina for college, where he became acquainted with the Blue Ridge Mountains and Chattooga River. His affinity for outdoor adventures led to the purchase of his first digital SLR camera about eight years ago: “I’m an avid outdoorsman and just wanted to share the locations with family and friends.” He joined the academic world for a time, earning a master’s degree in construction management and pursuing a doctorate in design and planning, even entertaining a few 39

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

plein air events: y

Landscape photographer Mark VanDyke spends a day in mid-June shooting at Price Lake on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Blowing Rock, N.C. The beautiful balds of the Roan Highlands (above) are one of his favorite destinations. ANNA OAKES PHOTO • COURTESY OF MARK VANDYKE

Aug. 2-29 — “From Mountains to Sea,” featuring the Southern Appalachian Artist Guild, Glynn Art Association. St. Simons Island, Ga. Reception Aug. 2, 1-2:30 p.m. glynnart.org

published works were two images featured in Smoky Mountain Living’s section of reader-submitted photos, he notes.) “It’s interesting to y Aug. 16 to Oct. 12 — Plein Air Shenandoah, me—it’s the very first year that showing art painted on location in the Virginia Shenandoah. River District Arts, Sperryville, people recognize me out on Va. riverdistrictarts.org the trail.”

Now, VanDyke jokes that he y Sept. 11-14 — Fall Plein Air Event, with goes hiking for a living, but of workshops, paint-outs, awards and exhibits. course there’s much more to it Blue Ridge Mountain Arts Association Art than that. Like the mountain Center, Blue Ridge, Ga. blueridgearts.net creeks that eventually intersect y Oct. 2 to Nov. 9 — “The Master Artist Exhibit,” to form the broad rivers of the featuring Jo Ridge Kelley and other artists.

Piedmont, multiple streams of Gallery 86, Waynesville, N.C. Reception Oct. 3, income provide the cash flow 6-9 p.m. haywoodarts.org VanDyke needs to make ends meet, and like the weather, y April 2015 — Fourth Annual Plein Air Convention & Expo, “the Woodstock of plein much of it is unpredictable. air painting.” Monterey, Calif.

Stock photo agencies purchase pleinairconvention.com his images to be sold for use in newspapers, magazines, y July 2015 — Arts on the Green. The Village Green, websites, and advertisements— Cashiers, N.C. villagegreencashiersnc.com “that’s probably my most steady monthly income,” he says. Fine Art America, an job offers, until, he says, “the costs of online marketplace, connects VanDyke with completing the education versus the offer had print buyers. He hopes that licensing of his me wondering if I could afford it. That was photographs for magazines and other when I pretty much made the full-time leap publications continues to grow, too, and [to full-time photography]. I decided it was eventually he plans to sell directly through now or never to try this.” shows and exhibitions of his work.

That was about a year ago, and since then Unlike the studio photographer guided by a VanDyke has been gaining momentum as a client’s specifications, landscape shooters must regional photographer, which he credits to an think about what might be marketable to a active social media presence and published buyer. “Everything we do is speculative,” photos in Our State and Outdoor VanDyke adds. And it’s not the most extreme, Photographer magazines. (Among his first exotic locales that seem to interest the buyers; WWW.SMLIV.COM

it’s the familiar places that sell—the Grandfather Mountains, the Mount Mitchells, the Outer Banks, the Charleston lowcountry.

“We want an image that’s striking, but at the same time, we want an image that people can recognize,” says VanDyke. “If someone can’t recognize it as a place they’ve been or a place they could be, they can’t connect with it emotionally. Give them places they know, but as beautiful as they’ve ever seen it.”

Success in the field of outdoor photography comes from having the right equipment and knowing how to use it, including gear for windy and rainy conditions, but more than that, VanDyke claims, it’s a game of strategy and chance. “Once you know your camera and your settings, it’s just a matter of putting yourself in the right place. So much more of this is just chasing the weather,” he says. “It’s who can get to the right spot and who can find an innovative composition.”

VanDyke is content to continue his photographic studies in the region, focusing on the mountains and coastline of the Carolinas and Virginia, where he soon plans to relocate.

“There’s so much here, every time you return you get something different.

Everything changes. The wind, the sun— there’s no similar scene two times in a row or me. It keeps it very fresh.”

Find Mark VanDyke and his spectacular landscape photographs at markvandykephotography.com.

VanDyke offers photo field adventures for individuals or groups of two or three people seeking to learn more about landscape photography.

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“Late Afternoon Light”

by Keith Burgess. Oil, 30x40, private collection, Cashiers, N.C. Below: Burgess paints en plein air alongside the Toccoa River in north Georgia.

COURTESY OF KEITH BURGESS

KEITH BURGESS HIAWASSEE, GA.

K

“I try to look at myself as an artist instead of a painter. I think there’s a big distinction.”

— Keith Burgess

42

eith Burgess spent a career as a graphic artist and illustrator for AT&T in Atlanta, but in 2003 he returned to a love of painting he cultivated as a teenager and refined during his college years. “I enjoyed the work,” Burgess says about his time in the corporate world, but “eventually, I just wanted to express myself more and get back to my fine art. I retired early at 52 so I could pursue my dreams.”

He now resides in the Georgia mountain town of Hiawassee on Lake Chatuge, and for the most part, he paints the rural scenes of the north Georgia mountains, occasionally venturing to North Carolina or Virginia, too.

Burgess says he takes mental notes about locations he passes hundreds of times on the road, often returning to “hang out there and study the place” by painting and supplementing with photos and sketches.

Burgess combines work in the field and the studio to complete his pieces, which are primarily done in oil.

“I mainly just do the smaller ones on location; the larger ones are done in studio,” notes Burgess. “I’m 63 now, and as I get older I’m not handling really hot and really cold days as well. The more I paint outside, the more information I have to be able to complete a studio painting and have it appear

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

as if it were painted outside.”

“It’s good to paint from nature when you’re a beginning artist, especially,” Burgess explains.

“You don’t get the information you need from photos or other sources. It helps you see what light does in nature. A photograph doesn’t pick that up.” It can be an overwhelming undertaking at first, he concedes, but over time, Burgess says he has picked up strategies and methods for focusing his work.

“When you stand in front of the landscape, there’s a lot of information. Beginners especially don’t know how to condense that into a painting,” he said. “You just learn to take from that what you need as a painter.”

First, Burgess too seeks out the shadows of dusk and dawn, avoiding the middle of the day, when “everything is washed out from the light over the head.” He uses a French easel he’s had for 20 years, which he prefers even though it is heavier than other styles. Next he finds a good focal point with supporting lines and shapes that pull the viewer into the painting. Aiding him in this task is a small, two-inch-wide “view finder.” “You look through it to frame your subject, to get a feel of how you want to compose it. It helps reduce everything down to what you want to see.” Burgess refuses to become bogged down in the same subject or medium, however, and turns to his charcoal and graphite drawings, portraits, and still lifes for variety. “You always should not become too caught up in the same

Make it in the plein Take advantage of ongoing opportunities to meet and learn from professional and amateur artists, or give en plein air art making a try for the first time.

WNC Plein Air Painters WNC Plein Air Painters was founded in 2003 to form a network of like-minded artists who enjoy landscape painting on location. The group comprises amateur and professional artists regionally located in and around Asheville, N.C., from Charlotte to Boone to Franklin. Members paint together and exchange suggestions, methods, and techniques. For more info, visit wncpap.com.

Plein-Air Painters of the Southeast Formed in 2001, PAP-SE is an organization of professional plein air painters bound by a common passion to promote the traditional methods of painting en plein air. For more info, visit pap-se.com.

thing, and find other subjects,” he says. But his landscapes, marked by a realistic and clean application of vibrant color, are his favorite. “I find in the landscape a kind of spirituality and truth. I am honored to place myself in that long tradition of representational painters who have been inspired by the natural world around us,” he shares, in his artist’s statement. “What attracts me to a particular scene is a pleasing arrangement of shapes and color created by the play of luminous light and shadow, usually found at the beginning and end of day. The best advice I ever received as an artist was to ‘squint’ at my subject.”

The north Georgia artist is actively involved in artists’ communities such as the Southern Appalachian Artist Guild and the Blue Ridge Mountains Arts Association, and he has observed an increased interest in plein air painting, especially over the last 10 years, he says. “It’s become very popular to start plein air groups,” he notes, adding that he is part of a loose group of six to eight artists who frequently invite each other to paint on location. Burgess enjoys the camaraderie and meeting other artists, and

painting in a group gives some a greater sense of security in remote places.

Burgess’ work has been shown in countless Georgia and Virginia locations and recently has been featured in no fewer than a dozen exhibits each year. He has received a number of “Best in Show” and other awards, as well as numerous commissions, and his pieces are collected worldwide. He is represented by several art galleries and will invite aficionados to visit his studio.

“I always think about art as art and not as something that is commercialized,” Burgess points out. “I try to look at myself as an artist instead of a painter. I think there’s a big distinction. There’s a lot of painters out there, but there’s very few artists. That’s what I strive for.”

Learn more about Keith Burgess at keithburgessart.com, where one also will find a list of galleries that carry his work.

Burgess offers lessons by appointment at the Blue Ridge Mountains Arts Association Art Center in Blue Ridge, Ga. Call 706.632.2144 or email blueridgearts.programming@gmail.com to register.

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43

Learning the ropes of map reading during an REI course in Asheville, Mary Beth Gwynn, 66, hopes to gain confidence to be able to hike alone. BECKY JOHNSON PHOTO

ON THE BEATEN TRAIL Maps for a knowledge cache

BY BECKY JOHNSON

44

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 â&#x20AC;˘ ISSUE 4

Since ancient times, man has explored the “A map is anything that someone uses to something significant to them in the landscape,” landscape with the represent said Tom Colton, the chief mapping specialist for the Great intent to discover what Smoky Mountains National Park. “It’s man’s way of marking his passage on earth by assigning a name to a place.” lies beyond what he Without maps, civilization would quite literally be lost. organize our interpretation of the world around us and knows. Oral descriptions how“They we see it,” Colton said. believe many prehistoric cave paintings and pictographs first andArchaeologists petroglyphs a form of map—from cataloguing hunting began to tame the wild grounds to depicting important events. The first clearly maps—maps that look like what we’d expect a earth, and as man recognizable map to look like—date to 200 B.C., uncovered in tombs in on blocks of wood, silk and paper. charted greater China Today, the human propensity to map things is boundless: territories, so grew his air pollution maps, human disease maps, linguistic maps, hydrology maps, weather maps, and crime scene maps. We’ve knowledge of our vast mapped places we’ll never travel to, from the deepest ocean to the craters of the moon. The United States world and thus the trenches Geological Survey even publishes a complete set of power to rule. Maps topographical maps for Mercury, Mars and Venus.

“Take a good topographic map, and I don’t think there is delineated land and sea, any other piece of paper with the same density of said Dave Wetmore, a retired college professor cities and kingdoms, information,” in Brevard, N.C., and a self-proclaimed map junkie. “I can 30 minutes immersed in a topo map just as happy as a trade routes and military spend clam in a mud flat.” campaigns, Wetmore hikes religiously, twice a week minimum, in every season, but his version of hiking is different than most. infrastructure and “Trails get old after a while,” Wetmore said.

Wetmore prefers the scavenger hunt of ferreting out longeventually, even the forgotten wagon roads, old paths used by settlers, or historic closest Starbucks. logging railroad grades to the well-maintained, blazed, and signed sort of trails.

“When you go off trail you can go anywhere you damn well want to,” Wetmore said. “You are responsible for what happens to you. There is no amorphous ‘they’ to blame. If I screw up, I know just who to go to. I enjoy the independence, despite the responsibilities and dangers that go with it.”

WWW.SMLIV.COM

45

even held one,” he said.

From a practical standpoint, maps don’t break, don’t lose signal and don’t run out of battery. But that’s not why he shuns global position system units.

“To use GPS to find your way through the woods is kind of like buying a little machine to paddle the canoe through the rapid for you,” he said. “It sort of defeats the purpose of getting out into the wilds.”

“When I look at a map and the topographic lines, it becomes like a painting of the place, an aerial photograph of the landscape in my mind.”

— Burt Kornegay

K

Burt Kornegay, an expert outdoorsman and backcountry guide, is also a map maker. The previously unchartered wilds of Panthertown Valley were immortalized with his wildly popular map of the national forest enclave known as the “Yosemite of the East,” due to its legendary waterfalls and domed peaks. “The map opened up Panthertown for people. They know where they are, have some idea of what is out there, and how to get to it.” www.slickrockexpeditions.com. BECKY JOHNSON PHOTO

Wetmore has an unrivaled arsenal of USGS topographic maps to fuel his adventurous streak. Before he sets out, he studies the creeks and rivers, the ridges and scarps, the hollers and coves. He mulls what he would encounter should he go up a particular slope, over a crest, around an outcrop or down a spur. Sometimes he studies maps just for fun, mentally blazing his way across the landscape, an exercise of sorts in arm-chair bushwhacking.

Wetmore realizes he has an intuitive knack for maps that doesn’t come naturally to everyone.

“The transition is taking a two-dimensional representation, and in your own mind, turning that into a three-dimensional object.

It does not come easy,” Wetmore said. “But with that skill you have nothing to worry about. If you don’t know how to read it, it is a useless piece of paper. What’s more, it is a dangerous piece of paper.”

A 46

lthough they’ve never met, Wetmore has a kindred spirit living on the other side of the mountain range that sepa-

rates Transylvania and Jackson counties in North Carolina.

“I can look at a map for several hours. I can get lost reading a map. It’s like reading a book,” said Burt Kornegay, a backcountry guide who’s led more than 300 canoe and backpacking expeditions. “When I look at a map and the topographic lines, it becomes like a painting of the place, an aerial photograph of the landscape in my mind.”

For Kornegay, who’s led multi-day paddle trips down some of the country’s wildest rivers, his map is always the most precious cargo. When Kornegay takes to his canoe each morning, his map is center stage, splayed across the canoe in front of him like a dashboard, encased in waterproof sheathing and lashed down with bungee cords— protecting it in the event of a capsize.

Kornegay is a map purist. Unlike the Millennial generation, content with punching their destination into a smartphone and blindly trusting the directions it spits out, Kornegay prefers to forge his own path.

“I don’t know how to use a GPS. I’ve never SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

ornegay’s love for maps goes beyond the practical. He revels in the place names on maps and the heritage they convey. Spreading out a map of the mountains around his own home in Tuckaseegee, N.C., Kornegay ran his finger along a ridge line, pausing at each summit in the chain.

“Panther Knob, Wolf Knob, Buck Knob… this tells you about animals that were found here,” Kornegay said. “And these names— Wayehutta, Cullowhee—that tells you about early people.”

He slid his hand down the map to a wide, flat spot along the Tuckaseegee River named East LaPort, a French word meaning “the door,” a name that pays homage to the brief French fur trapping influence from the 1700s.

In this sense, maps are more than just a representation of the landscape today—they are a connection to the past.

“Everybody wants to be able to go to a place and say, ‘This is where my great, great granddaddy lived and his cabin was right here, and this is the stream they got their water out of, and this is the ridge they looked at when they sat on the front porch,’” said Lamar Marshall, a historical ethnographer immersed in an ongoing project to map the historical Cherokee landscape. “People are intrigued with where and who they came from.”

Sadly, for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, tracing those sorts of specifics are not possible. Villages were burned and lands seized as forced upheaval drove the Cherokee from their native lands. Little about the vast network of Cherokee settlements that once covered the mountains of North Carolina and northern Georgia survived in the historic record.

“There is a big black hole of history that surrounds the ethnogenesis of the Eastern Band of Cherokee who remained in North Carolina,” said Marshall, who lives in the Cowee community of Macon County, N.C. Marshall has dedicated the past several years to creating a series of time-lapse maps that reconstruct the Cherokee cultural landscape in Western North Carolina during the 1700s and 1800s. The project, carried out under the umbrella of environmental organization

WildSouth, has resulted in an interactive online map providing a virtual, threedimensional, fly-over tour of Cherokee society.

“I call it a snap shot in time. It is a reconstruction of the landscape focused on the human element,” Marshall said.

Marshall has sleuthed out primary source documents from the 1700 and 1800s, buried in county courthouses, state archives and libraries, including early surveys, treaties, field diaries of the

see more:

Discover the legends and reality of historic Cherokee trails and towns through interactive maps and videos at cherokee.wildsouth.org.

first explorers, traders logs, and military journals. He’s logged hundreds of miles over the mountains retracing the footsteps from those records.

“When you read these maps of historical landscapes, it is like a time machine,” Marshall said. “It’s like you are escaping into the past. I can get so absorbed that, when I speak to an audience, I close my eyes and I can see the landscape.”

T

he map room in Western Carolina University’s Hunter Library is outfitted with large trays and drawer systems to accommodate maps in the best form: flat.

“They are in an awkward format and they take a lot of space,” said Krista Schmidt of Cullowhee, N.C. As the keeper of WCU’s prolific map repository, Schmidt wrestles with the map storage dilemma daily.

Some are just too big and have to be folded, but no matter how gently, how gingerly, how lightly you fold them, the paper inevitably thins and tears at the corner creases.

Schmidt can’t say exactly how many maps WCU has in its collection. She guessed 50,000—“minimum.” Amassed over time and not always cataloged along the way, the collection largely can be attributed to a former librarian who for three decades snatched up any map, from anywhere, she could get her hands on.

“She built that collection to be enormous.

Now there is a big need to get it cataloged,” Schmidt said, estimating that only 10

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47

percent of WCU’s maps are indexed.

The maps run the gamut from an over-sized atlas of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt to a map series detailing petroleum reserves in Alaska in the 1970s.

As she riffled through a wide, flat, pull-out storage drawer, Schmidt noted a little known fact about maps.

“They’re really heavy,” she said, sliding one arm elbow-deep into a floppy stack of maps like a wedge while tugging, albeit gently, at the map on the bottom.

Indeed, map fiends never seem to have enough space for their stockpile, and are constantly refining the best way to organize, index and store them. Kornegay’s overflowing map collection fills a small room in his house that’s been dedicated to the enterprise — bins upon bins of them, stacked against the walls, in corners and on shelves. He’s never thrown out a map.

“There’s hard-earned knowledge on those maps,” Kornegay said. Other river trip guides would pay good money for Kornegay’s maps—not for the maps themselves, but for the notes he’s scrawled all over them, from reliable water sources to prime campsites.

Few map collectors have enough space to keep all their maps in one place, so they end up with a working inventory of everyday go-to maps, and others relegated to deep storage.

Wetmore even has a collection that resides in his car. He meets two hiking friends every Thursday morning at a church parking lot in Brevard with no particular plan other than bumbling around in the woods for the day.

“We say, ‘Where are we going to go today fellas?’” Wetmore said.

48

Up to her elbows in maps, librarian Krista Schmidt manages Western Carolina University’s collection of about 50,000 maps, including obscure and vintage editions. Known as an off-trail explorer, Dave Wetmore’s cataloged and indexed topo collection (below) is the envy of fellow map hoarders.BECKY JOHNSON PHOTOS

His main collection—or “accumulation of maps” as Wetmore calls it—resides in his basement library where a custom-built map box would be the envy of any map hoarder.

The box has three perfectly-sized compartments for perfectly alphabetized and indexed maps with cross-reference tabs to make pairing up neighboring quadrangles a cinch.

His overflow repository is under the bed, however.

“I’ve always thought it was a good place to store maps. My wife didn’t think so,” Wetmore said.

He’s not the only one who’s tried storing maps under the bed, nor the only one to get spousal pushback over it.

Marshall’s house is brimming with maps.

Most are stored in his office in clear plastic bins—which are perfect for stacking, and can be stacked quite high in fact, Marshall added.

But there’s the inevitable surplus, which, like in Wetmore’s house, seems to find its way to the bastion of unclaimed storage space: under the bed. His wife does not approve.

“When I am stuffing and pushing them SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

around, they poke out on her side of the bed, and it is the opposite of a tug of war. She pushes them back and then they stick out on my side,” Marshall said.

Due to the space required for storage, many map collections are going digital. As old maps are updated, information is lost.

Schmidt turned to an old orthophoto map of Jackson County, N.C., with handwritten names scrawled along the tiniest creeks, names that no longer appear on modern maps.

“Because some of the older families have moved or sold their land, you don’t always know these names anymore,” Schmidt said.

WCU has printed some maps that only existed in digital form. But for some, the problem is finding a scanner big enough. A map of Jackson County in 1901, too precious not to back up digitally, was taken to a supersize scanner at UNC-Chapel Hill’s library.

And many see a paper map as passé.

“I haven’t printed a map in two years and don’t plan to for the rest of my career. I am all about the cloud,” said Colton, mapping specialist for the GSMNP. Digital maps allow layers to be turned on and off, super-imposing an infinite combination of variables onto the landscape

with the touch of a button. Plus, it’s more cost effective to update a digital map than a printed one. “Printed maps just kill me. If I spent $100 to print the parkwide topo map last week, it may change this week,” Colton said.

W

hen the first mapmakers began scouting the Smoky Mountains in the 1850s, the odds were stacked against them. Armed with rudimentary instru-

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REI instructor Rick Merriman shows map newbies how to set the declination on their compasses. BECKY JOHNSON PHOTO

On the right course Always carry a map. It’s an oft-repeated, age-old adage that cautions the trail novice against the prospect of getting lost.

But carrying a map does little good if one doesn’t know how to use it, says Rick Merriman, an instructor for outdoor gear retailer REI, who led a recent map reading course at the store’s Biltmore Park, N.C., location.

Merriman’s class always has a waiting list of participants from all over the map—young, old, men, women, couples, singles. The only commonality is they want to do something outdoors, and away from civilization.

“I want to be able to hike by myself in the woods,” said Mary

Beth Gwynn, 66, of Asheville, N.C. “I want to be able to go off trail and feel safe doing that.”

After a crash course on reading maps—from how to use the legend to what a contour line is—Merriman puts the newbies through the paces of their new-found map and compass skills.

The class roster recently included Kary Lawson, 40, who hopes to hike the Appalachian Trail with her 19-year-old daughter next year, and David Byer, 33, who heads to Gates of the Arctic National Park in Alaska with friends in August. A bush plane will drop the group of explorer off and pick them up six days later.

They are all GPS savvy, but, “No one I am going with knows how to use a compass,” Byer said.

For Susan Alderman, learning to read maps is a necessary evil in her hobby as an endurance adventure racer.

“The most important part is navigation,” Alderman said.

Adventure race teams must plot their way cross-country through a series of checkpoints scattered through a vast wilderness.

“They are usually hidden. You have to bushwhack to get to them—up steep stuff, down steep stuff, through rhododendrons,” said Alderman, a state crime lab technician in Asheville, N.C. Brad Dobson, 38, of Hendersonville, N.C., joined the course so he could take his kids into the woods with confidence. At 3 and 5, his youngsters are just reaching hiking age, but Dobson fancies himself a Boy Scout leader one day and wanted to get a head start on his outdoor skills.

Meanwhile, retiree Bob Lewis had less noble goals.

“If only this would work for finding your car in a parking lot,” Lewis said, wrestling to get his map folded back up properly.

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 2

ments compared to today, they scrambled and clawed their way through rhododendron snarls and over craggy outcrops. The Smokies proved some the toughest terrain early cartographers had tackled in America, chief among them the famous Swiss surveyor Arnold Guyot and Thomas Lanier Clingman, both of whom have Smokies’ peaks named in their honor.

In the 1880s, a more systematic and governmentsanctioned survey of the Smokies’ peaks and ridges was undertaken. The quest to find the tallest mountain in the East motivated the surveyors, despite the formidable environment.

Fifty more years passed before a renewed mapping effort ensued in the 1920s in the run-up to the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In a heroic effort to map the gorgeous but rugged terrain that would become the park, George Masa, a Japanese photographer who made his home in Asheville, N.C., trekked the Smoky Mountains with a homemade measuring device — an odometer attached to a bicycle wheel.

Colton looks back on earlier surveyors’ work with respect, particularly Guyot’s.

“If we went out with a barometer today we couldn’t reproduce the accuracy of his work,” Colton said.

Nonetheless, it wasn’t perfect. Colton oversaw an effort a few years ago to remap the park’s topography using an airplane to project lasers onto the earth.

The new, laser-based elevation readings of the park’s peaks varied — widely in some cases — from the previously recorded elevations.

“The difference in published elevations was anywhere from 100 feet to 1 foot in difference,” Colton said.

To double-check, he launched an effort to climb the summits of all the Smokies’ peaks over 6,000 feet and take manual GPS elevation readings. To carry out the massive project, he put out a call for volunteers.

“We got an overwhelming number of volunteers, more than we could handle,”

“People are very passionate about the experience they have in the park. Part of that memory is being able to look back later in their life and see where they had that experience.”

— Tom Colton, chief mapping specialist for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

WWW.SMLIV.COM

Colton said.

Aerial laser mapping provided greater detail from the park’s lowest streams to its highest ridgelines.

“The difference in accuracy would blow you out of the water. I can’t fathom how this park functioned,” Colton said. “Of course, some guy 20 years from now will be saying the same thing about us.”

Colton has spent the past few years remapping every stream in the park.

“We have found possibly thousands of miles of new streams,” Colton said.

Colton is one of the only cartographers in the nation who has credentials to log onto the USGS computer database and edit the official topo quads.

“I basically replace their streams with my new streams,” Colton said.

Mapping in the Smokies goes far beyond the basic topo map, however. Much of Colton’s work is scientific mapping that helps park biologists with research and resource protection. One such projection is vegetation mapping. Satellite images of the park capture an inventory of the park’s vegetation every two weeks, allowing ecologists to compare it year over year. Volunteers are integral to the park’s ecological mapping efforts, sending their own findings on the trail and in the backcountry to Colton to incorporate in the park’s various maps.

“We have people who wander all around the park with a GPS looking for their favorite tree or favorite plant,” Colton said.

Colton even has a sunlight map, showing how many kilowatts of sun shine on a given point in the park each day, all year.

F

or the 10 million visitors a year to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a beloved souvenir is no doubt the glossy, colorful map given at park visitor centers.

“People are very passionate about the experience they have in the park. They take pictures, they see a bear, they sit by a waterfall, they have a picnic, they go on a hike,” Colton said. “Part of that memory is 51

Fly fisherman James Smith never leaves home without a trusty DeLorme Gazetter kicking around in the back of his truck. BECKY JOHNSON PHOTO

being able to look back later in their life and see where they had that experience.”

While park visitors increasingly use map apps on their phones or car GPS systems to find everything from restrooms to trailheads, the ubiquitous park maps haven’t declined in popularity. At a practical level, park maps show a global view that’s missing on tiny phone screens. But subconsciously, a real map—one you can spread out on your lap or fold up in your pocket—feels more connected to the landscape.

Additionally, GPS and digital map apps are notoriously inaccurate in the mountains. The Swag, a luxurious yet rustic inn located along

the border of the GSMNP in Haywood County, N.C., cautions visitors seeking directions: “Please do not use a GPS system to find us! Some GPS systems send you on an obscure 4x4 road of rough terrain.” The problem can have even more serious repercussions for the growing number of hikers who use GPS units in lieu of trail maps these days.

To ensure Smokies’ visitors navigating with digital devices stay on track, Colton uploads precise and refined maps of the park to the web—free for any map software or phone app creators to integrate into their own programming code.

“I have had to adapt how I publish maps for all these people who make the maps—Google, iPhones, Bing Maps, Mapquest,” Colton said.

“We have a great interest in all these locationbased service providers having accurate maps.

We want the visitor to have the best and safest experience in this park as possible, and one way we can make sure to do that is to help them figure out how to get where they want to go.”

But elsewhere in the remote reaches of the Appalachians, without someone like Colton working behind the scenes to guarantee accurate maps are embedded in map apps and GPS software, there’s another common pitfall: duplicate place names and dueling identities.

James Smith, a fly-fisherman and manager of Orvis fishing outfitter in Biltmore Park, N.C., ventured out on an afternoon drive to scout new trout streams in the Sandy Mush Game Lands straddling Madison and Buncombe counties in North Carolina, when he realized something was amiss. He pulled over and riffled through his truck for his trusty copy of the DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer.

“And, of course, Google maps was giving me directions to the wrong Sandy Mush,” Smith said.

Smith regularly puts a copy of the DeLorme Gazetteer into fishermen’s hands as an essential piece of fly-fishing gear.

“Phones give you turn by turn directions, but as soon as you lose service you are out of luck. If you’ve got that Gazetteer, you can find your way to anywhere you want to get to,” Smith said.

Attractive map helps a cause The Asheville Map, an inaugural project from Best Local Maps, will be included in the North American Cartographic Information Society’s Atlas of Design, which features the world’s most beautiful and intriguing cartographic designs.

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The Asheville Map brings to fruition the map that creator Bruce Daniel and his wife, Nora, wished was available when they first came to Asheville ten years ago. Each map sold benefits MANNA FoodBank, which unites people to end hunger in Western North Carolina.

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52

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

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MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS George Masa’s pivotal role in preserving mountain landscapes

BY CARROLL MCMAHAN

George Masa (1881-1933) had no way of knowing when he shot this picture at Charlie’s Bunion that one of the peaks in the distance would one day bear his name.

COURTESY OF GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION/GEORGE MASA COLLECTION

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COURTESY OF GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION/ GEORGE MASA COLLECTION

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n 1933, George Masa, a pivotal figure in the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the creator of some of the finest black and white photographs of the region, died in Asheville from influenza. Even though more than two years had passed since the death of his best friend and mountaineering companion Horace Kephart—noted author and, like Masa, a stalwart advocate for the preservation of the Smoky Mountains—he remained devastated over that loss and some believed heartache, as much as physical maladies, contributed to his death.

The enigmatic Japanese immigrant was destitute and spent his final days in a county sanatorium instead of out under the sky blazing trails, photographing, measuring and recording peaks and distances in the rugged backcountry of the Smoky Mountains he loved more than life itself.

Masa’s friends and fellow hiking club members wanted his life’s work on behalf of the Smokies to be memorialized. On June 4, 1939, James H. Caine of the Asheville Times wrote: “When George Masa died some six years ago there was a movement afoot to fittingly recognize what he had done to preserve in pictorial history the scenic grandeur of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But like Mark Twain’s weather, nothing has been done about it.”

In 1961—after a three-decades-long crusade—a 5,685 feethigh peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was named Masa Knob. The accolade was an appropriate acknowledgement of Masa’s dogged spirit and selfless contributions to safeguarding the mountains for future generations.

Masa Knob, located on the North Carolina-Tennessee state line, is about three miles from Newfound Gap and is situated between Charlie’s Bunion and Mt. Kephart. Traveling east on the Appalachian Trail from Ice Water Springs, the trail drops down through slate outcrops and across Masa Knob. In 1929, Masa and Kephart, along with Charlie Conner, a local farmer and guide, hiked to the Sawteeth Range of the Smokies to survey intense storm damage. It was during this trip that Charlie’s Bunion, a familiar Appalachian Trail landmark, received its name.

Masa Knob is a relatively obscure peak in the Sawteeth Range. It’s safe to say that of the thousands who hike the AT annually, few know they are traversing a landmark named for a remarkable, yet mystifying, individual.

George Masa has been called “the Ansel Adams of the Southern Appalachians.” That is quite a comparison considering that Masa was a self-taught photographer who lived in proximity of the Appalachian Mountains for only the last 18 years of his life. Adams, however, who was arguably the best black and white photographer of the natural landscape and a dedicated environmentalist, was never consumed with the majesty of the Great Smokies. He only visited the Smokies once and said of the

mountains, “The Smokys [sic] are OK in their way, but they are going to be devilish hard to photograph ….”

Two decades before the legendary Adams published images from his visit—only four—George Masa ceaselessly roamed the rough terrain of the Smokies capturing vistas on film that he would sell to tourists. Small in stature and laden with a heavy tripod and bulky camera, Masa somehow managed hikes up to 20 miles in search of a suitable location to capture those views.

And, much to the chagrin of those who sometimes accompanied him, he patiently would wait hours for the perfect lighting, or even a precise cloud placement or formation.

Masa arrived in the United States in 1906 as Masahara Iizuka and sometime thereafter changed his name. He told a family in Asheville with whom he once boarded that he discontinued the use of the Iizuka and changed his first name to George when he converted to Christianity while still living in Japan.

Americanizing his name to George Masa was perhaps simply a matter of convenience.

The actual events of George Masa’s life prior to the time he moved to Asheville are cloaked in mystery. He once told a newspaper reporter that he was born in Osaka, Japan, and studied mining engineering at Tokyo’s Meiji University. He claimed to have arrived in America at the age of 24. His birth date was estimated but has never been verified. The date of birth on his grave marker, which was erected 14 years after his death, is January 20, 1881.

Interestingly, the information Masa gave for the 1920 and 1930 federal censuses revealed inconsistencies. He had somehow aged 16 years in ten, and his immigration date—first reported as 1914, had changed to 1906—a difference of eight years. When Masa died, a newspaper report stated he’d come to the United States to further his studies—mining engineering—at the University of California and had severed all ties with Japan following the death of his father, a jeweler.

Writing in Japanese, Masa’s journal entry for January 18, 1915, said he was “launching out on an adventure today.” This journey started in San Francisco where he boarded a train headed for New Orleans. During his brief stay there, Masa recorded a small income in his journal as well as expenses but

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there was no source of income listed. After a gap of four months with no journal entries, he wrote, “Now I have to raise money. It can’t be helped, for I have just enough money to travel and not [a] penny extra.”

On July 10, 1915, reportedly traveling with a group of Austrian students, Masa arrived in Asheville by train. Two days later, he was hired to work in the laundry at the Grove Park Inn. The Inn, built by pharmaceutical magnate E.W. Grove, had opened just two years earlier.

Grove’s son-in-law, Fred Seely, designed the magnificent building and served as the Inn’s manager. Seely purposely recruited a group of foreigners, including Masa, to work at the hotel, feeling they created a cosmopolitan atmosphere for his wealthy clientele.

Captivated by the beautiful mountains surrounding Asheville, Masa began taking trips to the lofty peaks with his Austrian companions. Perhaps Masa saw himself as a character in the small volume of Japanese Samurei and Ninjutsu tales he carried. The Ninja, from humble backgrounds, were devoted to living in accordance with nature; seeking enlightenment through long mountain pilgrimages. Masa frequently said

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that his “church” was in the mountains.

Clearly, the mountain landscape was fundamental to his spirituality.

When the Austrians left Asheville, Masa remained. Within a few months, he had been promoted to the valet desk at Grove Park Inn where he enjoyed interacting with the well-todo guests. Masa had an engaging personality and presented himself in a manner that was both respectful and engrossing. The guests were fascinated with him.

Realizing that photographs would portray a positive image of the Grove Park Inn and its clientele, Seely allowed Masa the use of his personal camera and Masa photographed the guests at the Inn and on outings in the surrounding mountains. Masa’s skill as a photographer and the quality of his film processing suggests that he had received previous training, but that is another fragment of the mystery surrounding his life.

In November 1916, Masa wrote Seely stating he had tired of hotel work and was making plans to leave. But for some unknown reason he remained at the Inn until May 1917, when he again decided it was time to move on. He had decided to relocate to Colorado

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Springs to “get lessons in metal processing.”

After a short time in Colorado, he wanted to return to Asheville and work again at the Grove Park Inn. In a letter to Seely he wrote, “When you find a position to suit me, except valet, please let me know. I am glad [to] come back to work but I have to spend all my money on vacation so please let me have about couple months wages in advance.”

Seely obliged, sending Masa $40 with a promise of a better job and a month’s vacation each summer, with half pay. Masa returned to the Inn as head porter. A short time later he worked as a craftsman in the woodcarving shop of Biltmore Industries, a business acquired by Seely from Edith Vanderbilt.

Perhaps because of the circumstances of World War I, Seely suspected Masa might be involved in espionage and reported his presence to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The charges proved baseless and Masa became one of Seely’s most trustworthy employees.

In the spring of 1918, Masa left the Grove Park Inn for good. He traveled through Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., before returning to Asheville in October.

He soon took a job with a local photographer,

Clockwise from top: In this 1920s photo, a car passes under Bridal Veil Falls near Highlands, N.C. This classic shot of The Chimneys was used on a postcard printed by the Asheville Post Card Company. In 1928, Masa captured Santeethlah Lake shortly after construction of the dam. A postcard of Lake Lure is an example of the many post cards produced using Masaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s images. COURTESY OF GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION/GEORGE MASA COLLECTION

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Herbert Pelton. Masa and Pelton formed a business partnership called The Photo Craft, setting up shop on Biltmore Avenue. Less than a year later, Pelton moved to Washington, D.C., and Masa became the sole owner and changed the name to Plateau Studios.

The ambitious Masa took on everything from portraiture to covering news events and selling prints and colored postcards of his photographs.

Gradually, he began spending more and more time in the mountains and less time in his studio. He promoted his business through advertisements in local publications, inviting readers to inspect his growing collection of scenic treasures.

Masa began financing his own projects, including a showcase of Mt. Mitchell called “The Mt. Mitchell Motor Road.” The Asheville Chamber of Commerce produced brochures promoting investment and tourism, illustrated with Masa’s images.

In his quest to capture new vistas on film to sell in his studio and to his mail-order customers, Masa was drawn farther and farther from Asheville. A charter member of the Carolina Hiking Club, he had ample opportunities to delight in, and photograph, the beauty of the Smokies.

As Masa’s reputation as a scenic photographer grew, he received an increasing number of requests from writers for images to accompany their articles about the area.

Somehow, perhaps through Paul Fink—a national park advocate, banker and outdoorsman from Jonesborough,

Richland Balsam rises 6,410 feet. A handdrawn map (above) detailing Richland Balsam, dated November 22, 1931, was found in Masa’s possession. COURTESY OF GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION/GEORGE MASA COLLECTION

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Tennessee—Masa was introduced to Horace Kephart, who would become his closest friend.

Masa was profoundly influenced by his meeting with Kephart. He studied publications recommended by Kephart and became a devoted student of the flora, fauna and the history of the mountains. The two became constant companions. They took numerous trips into the mountains, gathering photographs and information while hiking in the daylight and exchanging ideas and plans over the campfire by night.

Along with Verne Rhodes, executive secretary of the North Carolina Park Commission, Kephart and Masa were involved in the verification and naming of geographic features in the Smokies under the direction of the U.S. Department of Interior.

They are credited with recording every mountain, stream, and valley that fell within the proposed park boundary in North Carolina. From this work, the Department of Interior made a map of the future national park. It would be decades before Masa showed up on area maps, except for the ones he’d hand drawn and signed.

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Masa drew detailed sketches to help with map making and painstakingly labeled each photograph. He hiked with Paul Fink and photographer Jim Thompson, both members of the nomenclature committee for the Tennessee side of the Smokies. Like Kephart and Rhodes, they relied heavily on Masa’s work.

With exact measurements being vital, Masa cleverly devised his own measuring apparatus by attaching an odometer to the wheel of a bicycle that had been cut off just behind the front fork so that only the wheel and handlebars remained. He was often spotted in the mountains pushing that contraption along, making notes as he went.

Witnessing firsthand the devastation caused by industrial-scale logging, Masa and Kephart immersed themselves in the campaign to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. As the public rallied support for the park, Masa and Kephart became noted figures in its promotion. Masa conducted on-going correspondence with government officials, including Arno Cammerer, sending them detailed letters, maps and photographs to enhance the cause.

In the fall of 1930, Masa escorted a contingent of National Park officials on an inspection trip in the Smokies. He sent First Lady Grace Coolidge a large book of photographs he had taken within the proposed park and collections to the governors of North Carolina and Tennessee.

It was the print he sent to John D. Rockefeller Jr. that some say was the motivation for Rockefeller’s generous donation to the Park.

Asheville was not spared the devastation of the Great Depression. Just weeks after Masa led the high-ranking officials through the Smokies, the Asheville banks closed. Masa

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“… in commemoration of the stranger that stirred us to such depths of love for our wilderness areas, we of the Carolina Mountain Club desire that a peak in the Great Smoky Mountains be named in his honor just as Mount Kephart was named in honor of his associate on mountain trips. The Carolina Mountain Club suggests that the name Masa’s Pinnacle be given one of the peaks of what used to be known as “The Fodderstacks” — one of which has been renamed humorously “Charlie’s Bunion,” and the other one can be called Masa’s Pinnacle.”

— Carolina Mountain Club Resolution, May 5, 1960

lost his entire savings and had to resort to asking his friends for money. Despite his misfortune, he refused to renege on his commitment to his beloved mountains. Soon, he was engaged in another project: mapping the southern portion of the Appalachian Trail.

This work consumed him and what little funds he could scrape up.

Masa served on the board of the Appalachian Trail Conference and was one of the principle organizers of the Carolina Appalachian Trail Club. During its first year, the club scouted, measured, and marked over a hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail with Masa providing most of the data on possible routes. The first person to systematically measure many of the trails, Masa possessed an intimate knowledge of the mountains; he knew the altitude, distance, location, and topography of every location on the North Carolina side of the Smokies and many on the Tennessee side.

On April 3, 1931, Masa picked up the morning paper. The bold headline—“Horace Kephart Killed”—changed his life forever.

Kephart, 68, and another author, Fiswoode Tarleton, had died the day before when the driver of the taxi in which they were riding lost 62

Horace Kephart (left) with dead rattlesnake and pistol. Kephart and Masa were involved in the verification and naming of geographic features in the Smokies under the direction of the U.S. Department of Interior. Right: Masa stands ready to go to work with three cameras on tripods. COURTESY OF GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION/GEORGE MASA COLLECTION

control of the vehicle and it overturned three times. Unexpectedly, that same morning Masa received a letter from Kephart; it was concerning nomenclature of the Great Smoky Mountains. “It shocked me to pieces,” Masa wrote to a friend. Visibly stricken by his friend’s death, he was among the first to arrive at the funeral in Bryson City and the last to leave.

Masa was never the same after losing his dear friend, and his financial situation continued to deteriorate. Despite his grief, Masa was known for keeping sprits high among his fellow hikers. He organized a hike in memory of Kephart to be held on April 2, 1933, the second anniversary of Kephart’s death.

More than 100 people participated in the hike to Mt. Kephart’s summit. Not long after that hike, Masa was stricken by an illness some described as tuberculosis.

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His condition rapidly declined. Friends checked him into a county tuberculosis sanitarium. At noon on June 21, 1933, Masa died—penniless and in debt. Members of the Carolina Hiking Club and other friends pitched in to pay for his funeral and burial.

Although he had expressed his wish to be buried next to Kephart, limited funds made it impossible.

As the years passed, even with Masa Knob being a landmark along the popular Appalachian Trail, George Masa and his work essentially slipped into obscurity until a biographical film Paul Bonesteel produced in 2003 revived interest. Since that documentary and Ken Burns’ PBS epic production “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” featuring a segment on the Smokies that profiled Masa and Kephart’s contributions, some of Masa’s personal letters have been discovered but revealed little additional information about the man who was one of the greatest photographers of the Great Smoky Mountains. With Masa Knob in close proximity to Mt. Kephart, it seems the landscape they loved has reunited the great explorers and friends.

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Once & future landscapes of the Southern Appalachians

BY DON HENDERSHOT

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he Southern Appalachians are a paragon of biological diversity. The Appalachians are the country’s most significant biodiversity hotspot east of the Rockies, and the Central and Southern Appalachians are unrivaled in the U.S. for aquatic diversity, comparable only to China in terms of forest diversity, according to the Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative.

The Appalachians were formed 200-300 billion years ago and plant communities have been evolving ever since. Disjunct populations, organisms found from two or more disparate regions, are common in the Southern Appalachian. Take for example Liriodendron, our tulip poplar — there are two known species in the world, one common across the Smokies and one common in China. Other disjunct populations found in the Southern Appalachians and Asia include witch hazel, ginseng, trumpet creeper, trillium, pipevine and doghobble. These plants are evolutionary remains of similar growing conditions and habitats changed through climatic and geological upheaval.

It takes a host of contributing factors to create the amazingly

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The Cove Mountain Trail (facing page) traverses mainly cove hardwood forests as it ascends to the old Cove Mountain Fire Tower — now an air quality monitoring station. Grassy Ridge Bald at Roan Mountain (below).

BRIAN STANSBERRY/CREATIVE COMMONS

diverse ecosystems of the Southern Appalachians. Topography and elevation combined with various soil types play a large part.

Plant communities at the lower elevations resemble those across the Southeast, and higher elevations give way to more northern forest types. Hiking 12 miles roundtrip from Kephart Prong to Charlie’s Bunion along the Appalachian Trail and back illustrates the forest landscape’s diversity with cove hardwood, northern hardwood, grassy bald and spruce-fir forests.

“It’s like hiking from Tennessee to Maine,” said author and instructor at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, Jeremy Lloyd.

The Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont (GSMIT) is a non-profit that partners with the U.S. Park Service to provide hands-on learning experiences for students, teachers, naturalists and the public through programs that celebrate ecological and cultural diversity, foster stewardship, and nurture appreciation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Jennie McGuigan, school programs director at GSMIT, often takes kids on a short jaunt along Spruce Flat Falls Trail that

begins right at Tremont and is only a 2-mile roundtrip.

“We begin walking through a cool shaded forest and I ask the kids to ‘let me know when you feel different.’ In less than a halfmile we reach a ridge on the southern side and it’s suddenly dry and warm,” McGuigan said. “We often see snakes and lizards and rhododendron, mountain laurel and pine trees line the trail.

That short walk will take us from old growth cove hardwood, through northern hardwood to xeric oak-pine forest.”

These three specific forest types are among the region’s five to be found across the mountain landscape.

“That said, there are more than 100 classical plant communities just in the Smokies, but these are generally included in the larger forest types,” Lloyd said.

The high-elevation spruce-fir forest is found on mountain peaks above 5,000 feet and originated around 10,000 to 20,000 years ago with the last ice age.

“Northern species were chased south in front of the glaciers, and when the glaciers retreated southern species advanced up the mountains,” Lloyd said.

This geological movement left isolated islands of spruce-fir on the highest peaks of the Southern Appalachians.

Spruce-fir forests once stood tall and lush on the peaks of the Southern Appalachians. Fraser fir dominated the higher elevations from around 6,000 feet sometimes creating pure stands. Red spruce was the major species between 5,000 and 5,500 feet with yellow birch, beech and mountain ash beginning below 5,000 feet. There was little shrubby understory in these mature spruce-fir forests, and the forest floor was a carpet-like covering of conifer needles and nearly 300 species of mosses with wildflowers such as bead lily, Canada mayflower and mountain wood sorrel found in appropriate habitats.

These pristine forests danced atop the peaks of the Appalachians for millennia, then in the late 1950s rangers on Mt. Mitchell discovered a white powdery fluff on the needles of some Fraser firs — the exotic adelgids, small, aphid-like insects that feed on the fluids trees use for food. Nymphs settle at hemlock needles’ base, where they spend winter feeding on trees’ starches until reaching maturity. Infestation can cause needles to drop and branches to die. Tree death may take as long as a decade, but it’s a virtual certainty. The one-two punch of acid precipitation and adelgid infestation has dealt what could be a knockout punch to the spruce-fir ecosystem.

Today’s Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forests are small isolated remnants of those cold glacial times. At the Richland Balsam Overlook—the highest point on the Blue Ridge Parkway—steel-grey snags of dead trees mar the landscape, a memorial to a forest that was. Animal species depend on the cool, dense forests that evergreens create.

“What’s going to happen is trout streams are going to warm up, and that could impact our native trout as well as the bugs that live in the stream,” said Bill Yarborough, special assistant for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The forest remnants still are home to a number of rare, threatened and/or endangered species, many of which are endemic to the region. The Fraser fir (Abies fraseri) of the

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Southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest is found nowhere else in the world. The endangered spruce-fir moss spider, the tiniest tarantula in the world, also is endemic to this habitat. Other rare plants include Rugel’s ragwort, Appalachian oak fern, Mt. Leconte moss and Clingman’s hedgenettle.

“Just below the spruce-fir at around 4,500 feet you get northern hardwoods, similar to the forests of New England,” Lloyd said.

Northern hardwood canopy species include sugar maple, American beech, yellow buckeye, eastern hemlock, white pine, red oak and sweet birch with an understory dotted with rosebay rhododendron, which are known for their white flowers.

Continuing upwards, the cove hardwood forest meets with the oak-pine forest where the rich purplish-pink Catawba rhododendrons and mountain laurel grow, leading to the sprucefir forest where wildflowers include umbrella leaf, flowering raspberry, fly-poison, bee balm, bluet, trillium, obedient plant and monkshood.

Tiptoe between forest types and experience “transitional zones” at the Heintooga Picnic Area and Flat Creek Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, at the end of Heintooga Road, which leaves the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 458.2 and runs for about nine miles before ending at the Heintooga Picnic Area. This picnic area (with running-water restrooms and concrete picnic tables on plush moss carpets) sits beneath a spruce-fir canopy alive with golden-crowned kinglets, red-breasted nuthatches and other high-elevation species like black-capped chickadees.

The Appalachian Trail traverses through many forest types including spruce-fir on Mt. Guyot, which peaks at 6,621 feet making it the fourth highest summit in the eastern U.S. and second highest in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Here, ice covers the dead branches of a once-great stand of Fraser Firs, killed by the Balsam Wooly Adelgid. BRIAN STANSBERRY/ CREATIVE COMMONS

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

The Forest Service maintains the grassy balds at Max Patch, a major landmark on the Appalachian Trail. HAYWOOD COUNTY TDA PHOTO

Flat Creek Trail skirts the Heintooga picnic area and runs 2.6 miles to Heintooga Ridge Road. There’s little by way of transition here from the spruce-fir to the northern hardwood — it’s almost like exiting one room and entering another. As soon as one passes the last picnic table one begins to pick up birch and yellow buckeye. Turning back one sees the tall, cylindrical conifers and the carpet of moss below, and facing the trail one sees the round-crowned hardwoods and understory dotted with wildflowers.

Hemlock forests and beech gaps are found within the northern hardwood forests. There are nearly 100,000 acres of eastern hemlock in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, including 800 acres of old growth. Hemlocks can form dense stands but hemlock forests are often interspersed with yellow birch, tulip poplar, red maple, red oak, black cherry and other northern hardwood species, following rivers, streams and creeks with an understory of rhododendron and mountain laurel. The exotic hemlock woolly adelgid has heavily infested most of the hemlock forests of the East and threatens their existence. A 2013 U.S. Forest Service study indicated that losing the hemlock could permanently change the region’s water cycle, as well, because the large trees photosynthesize year-round, helping to regulate water flow.

“The loss of this tree is the most significant loss since the American chestnut,” Yarborough said. “It will change Western North Carolina as well as the other parts of its habitat.”

Beech gaps, generally found on exposed slopes near mountain passes above 4,500 feet, are unique to the Southern Appalachians. The beech trees here, which account for 75 percent or more of the canopy, usually are gnarled and stunted from the winds and harsh elements. Other canopy species that occur in beech gaps include Carolina silverbell, yellow birch and yellow buckeye.

Two types of balds – heath balds and grassy balds - occur in the Southern Appalachians and they are both mysteries. They are unique because, unlike Alpine balds, they occur below the tree line. Naturalists, scientists and/or botanists seem much more comfortable contemplating the creation of heath balds rather than grassy balds. Heath balds are named after the assemblage of

bushes and shrubs that grow there. Blueberries, huckleberries, azaleas and rhododendrons belong to the heath or Ericaceae family of plants — invaders that quickly move in after disturbances such as fire. They establish quickly, can handle poor soil conditions and grow densely successfully blocking the propagation of woody species, creating a self-perpetuating ecosystem.

Early settlers clearing land and then introducing free ranging stock created many of the region’s grassy balds, but others contain relic species like mountain oat grass that predates European settlement. Some theorize these balds could have evolved during the last Ice Age when it was too cold for even spruce and fir to get established. Grazing beasts like mammoths, followed by bison, elk and deer nibbled down vegetation, which continued as Native American and European settlers used the balds for hunting game and keeping livestock.

Roan Mountain State Park, located near the Tenneesee-North Carolina border, offers up prime examples of heath and grassy balds. The rhododendrens atop Roan Mountain’s 6,327-foot peak cover an area of 600 acres, the largest display of blooming rhododendron to be found anywhere in the world today.

The Forest Service also maintains grassy balds at Max Patch, a major landmark on the Appalachian Trail with 360 degree views of the Bald Mountains, the Unakas to the north, the Great Smokies to the south, and the Great Balsams and Black Mountains to the southeast.

In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Gregory Bald includes about 10 acres of grassy meadow, maintained by the Park Service, surrounded by azaleas, blueberries and other ericaceous plants. Late June and early July are spectacular on Gregory Bald as the azaleas that have crossbred create spectacular firey hues.

Below the northern hardwoods and balds come the oak-pine and cove hardwood forests, which establish based on the ground’s moisture content. The xeric (dry) oak-pine forests include chestnut oak, scarlet oak, southern red oak, black oak, pitch pine, Virginia pine, white pine, shortleaf pine, black gum and sourwood among others.

Cove hardwoods are dominant in wetter areas. Lloyd calls the cove hardwood forest the “rock-star of plant communities.” This

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Witch-hobble, or Viburnum lantanoides, mingles with ferns on the Appalachian Trail near the North Carolina/Tennessee border. FILE PHOTO

forest type may contain 40 to 60 different species of trees and shrubs including basswood, magnolia, tulip popular, dogwood, sugar maple, yellow buckeye and northern red oak within a quarter of an acre.

Dr. Alan Weakley, assistant adjunct professor and director of the UNC Herbarium at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, notes two cove forest subdivisions â&#x20AC;&#x201D; rich and acidic. Rich coves have few shrubs in the understory but lots of wildďŹ&#x201A;owers like trillium, bloodroot, fringed phacelia, anemones and others that ďŹ&#x201A;ower before the trees leaf-out. Acidic coves often have hemlock and sweet birch in the canopy and rhododendron and dog hobble in the understory.

Weakley said that while we can protect or preserve an area by creating a park, or a wilderness or a conservation easement, that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily protect the ďŹ&#x201A;ora and fauna of the area.

Invasive species such as the adelgids and emerald ash borers and non-natives plants like princess tree and kudzu donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t recognize boundaries; nor does air pollution, acid rain and/or climate change. The Southern Applachiansâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; diversity is complex, aweinspiring and terribly threatened. These forests hold treasures and secrets from millions of years of evolution and our actions at this point in history will determine what these forests will look and be like in the future. To learn about a landscape is to learn to love it â&#x20AC;&#x201D; not just for how it looks but for what it means to our overall environment and its role in creating a sense of place. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We only love the things we know, and we only protect the things we love,â&#x20AC;? Weakley said.

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The path to the blacksmith’s shop is lined with rhododendron as visitors pass over a modern bridge.

Seeing the forest for the trees PHOTOS BY MARGARET HESTER

S

liding Rock and Looking Glass Falls mark the winding roadway through the Pisgah National Forest to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Perhaps lesser known, the Cradle of Forestry is a unique 6,500-acre Historical Site that offers a well-preserved, interactive look into forest conservation and an industry that helped define the mountains of North Carolina.

The Cradle of Forestry’s history of conservation dates back to the Biltmore Estate’s construction and reforestation of overly farmed land that once surrounded it. Frederick Law Olmsted, the founding father of American landscape architecture and designer of New York’s Central Park, had been hired to design the grounds of the Estate. His vision for Biltmore included a small pleasure ground and garden, a major arboretum and nursery, and a systematically managed forest. A conservation-minded man, Olmsted felt creating a managed forest at Biltmore was important because it could serve as an example for the rest of the country.

Olmsted ensured the long-term success of the estate’s forestry program by persuading Vanderbilt to hire a trained forester named Gifford Pinchot in 1892.

Pinchot implemented a unique management plan that included identifying tree species, growth conditions, and volumes of timber per acre and improving tree growth with selective thinning. The plan, which was designed to

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improve the forest while returning a profit to the landowner, was the first of its kind in America and served as a national model. German forester Dr. Carl A. Schenck took charge of Biltmore’s forest in 1895, which at the time totaled over 100,000 acres. In 1898, he established the Biltmore Forest School—the first of its kind in the country. During its 15 years of existence, the school educated more than 300 students, many of whom served as the first generation of American foresters.

The Cradle’s Forest Discovery Center celebrates Vanderbilt, Pinchot, Schenck and the beginning of forestry in America through a brief video and two guided trails that lead visitors back in time to seven historical buildings, a 1915 Climax logging locomotive and an antique portable sawmill.

On Sept. 27, National Public Lands Day, the Cradle of Forestry will offer free admission and welcome volunteers to help maintain Pisgah National Forest.

Volunteers may register for projects by calling 828.877.3130.

On Oct. 4, more than 80 traditional craftsmen, exhibitors, forestry students, and entertainers gather at the Cradle of Forestry for the Forest Festival Day and John G. Palmer Intercollegiate Woodsmen’s Meet, a lumberjack competition.

For more information, visit cradleofforestry.com.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

Many forestry students were told, “find yourself a place to stay.”

Settlers who lived on the land left behind cabins in which students sought shelter. This particular cabin (right) was referred to as “Hell Hole.” A portable sawmill (below) was used to cut logs into boards that were then loaded onto wagons and hauled out of the forest, leaving the waste to decompose naturally.

With the sound of a hammer and the scent of coal in the air, blacksmiths were vital members of the Biltmore Forest School. Two blacksmiths traveled 14 miles from Brevard to share the work. Iron-working skills were needed in order to keep wagons on the road, logging equipment functioning and working horses shod.

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When walking the first of two trails, “The Biltmore Campus Trail,” it’s almost as though one is walking a path to the past.

The 1-mile trail begins with winding paths that highlight the natural curves of the landscape.

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

Schenck, the keeper and facilitator of the Biltmore Forest School, used a converted abandoned barn as his main office. He graded papers, planned projects and prepared lectures in this space. His secretary, Eleanor Ketchum and his bookkeeper, Dan Marshall also used the space.

This two-story home (right), known as the Ranger House, is the first stop on “The Biltmore Campus Trail.” Originally constructed in 1882, the building housed Ranger George Gillespie, his family and eight forestry students. The side garden was also used as a seedlings nursery for school projects. Washday (below) called for everyone to tend to his or her own laundry. Clothes were boiled in a kettle over an open fire—saving the most soiled clothing for last— using “Octagon” or homemade soap. Clothing and bedding was hung on nearby tree branches and fence rails to dry.

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SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

SHOP • EAT • HIKE • GOLF • EXPLORE • SHOP • EAT • HIKE

Across

1 George Masa had a reputation as a ____ photographer 5 Type of vegetation covering much of the Southern Appalachians 9 “You Can’t Go Home Again” by Thomas Wolfe is one 10 Speedy waters 11 Trail hikers should always carry one 12 Medical group that handles emergencies, abbr.

13 Aphid like insect which has destroyed many of the spruce-fir trees in the Smokies 15 Glacier formed lakes 16 Over 8 hours work in a day, abbr.

17 Former N.C. State University point guard “____” Webb 19 “__ I ruled the world … ” 21 Pivotal figure in the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, George ____ 25 Torrents 26 Rejection 27 Sharp projection in a rock formation 29 Large rodent 30 Letters after P 31 Carry out 33 Your friends, goes with kin 35 Mountains that are part of the Southern Appalachian range (goes with 25 down) 36 Means of access to a trail, often 38 Type of hardwood with a mountain trail named after it 40 Wear away soil 41 Squirrels' nests

c ro s swo rd :

ACROSS THE MOUNTAIN

MARGARET HESTER PHOTO

Down

1 Rippling water 2 Painting outside (French expression) (3 words) 3 Bird of the Smokies, the ____ Bunting 4 Type of lettuce 5 Symbol for iron 6 Designer of the grounds of the Biltmore Estate, Frederick ____ 7 An arborist is an ___ in tree health and care 8 Melts, like snow off the mountains in spring 12 Article checker 14 "___ a Wonderful Life" 18 Trained forester hired by Vanderbilt to handle the Biltmore estate's forestry program, Gifford ____ 20 Evergreen tree 21 Masters degree 22 Traveled in curves, to and fro, like a river perhaps 23 Wine region in Italy 24 Type of fir tree once common at high elevations in the Smokies 25 See 35 across 27 Computer program 28 Employ 32 Boat equipment 34 "Top Gun" star initials 35 Bottom of a river 37 Back __ back 39 The Southern Appalachians are unrivaled in the ___ for aquatic diversity

Answers can be found on page 79. By Myles Mellor • ilovecrosswords.com WWW.SMLIV.COM

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d i re cto r y :

SELECT LODGING

BLOWING ROCK INN & VILLAS Come to Blowing Rock Inn & Villas for your next getaway to the High Country of Western North Carolina. Our motel is located just 1 mile off the Blue Ridge Parkway in beautiful Blowing Rock. Trade the hustle and bustle of city life behind for cool, fresh mountain air!

788 U.S. Hwy. 321 Bus. • Blowing Rock, NC 800.295.7921 • blowingrockinn.com BOYD MOUNTAIN LOG CABINS AND CHRISTMAS TREE FARM Featured in 2011 Southern Living Best Weekend Getaways. Enjoy a peaceful country setting in charming authentic log cabins, 1-4 bedrooms, located on 130 beautiful acres. Full kitchens, wood burning fireplaces, Wifi, & A/C. The cabins overlook the Smoky Mountains, a Fraser Fir Christmas tree farm, 3 stocked fishing ponds, flower and vegetable gardens. Hiking trails to the top of Boyd Mountain, volleyball, basketball and badminton, swimming hole in the creek, sledding in the winter. Open every season.

Waynesville, N.C. 828.926.1575 • boydmountain.com HEMLOCK INN This historic inn, set just off Main Street in downtown Blowing Rock, is only steps

from shopping, restaurants and event activities. Eighteen unique rooms, including suites with fully-equipped kitchens. All rooms are non-smoking.

Rooms feature private baths, cable TV, air conditioning, phone services, microwave ovens, refrigerators and WiFi. Take away the unnecessary stress and time spent planning your vacation by taking advantage of a variety of packages offered throughout the year.

Downtown Blowing Rock, N.C. 828.295.7987 • hemlockinn.net MOUNTAIN JOY COTTAGES Our Maggie Valley cabins offer all of the modern conveniences you would expect with year-round access and seclusion that very few can offer. Relax in our peaceful country setting, surrounded by a panoramic mountain view. All of the cabins have wood-burning fireplaces, cable TV with HBO, BBQ grills, picnic tables, central heat and air, and fully equipped kitchens. Located in the center of activities and high in the North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains, Mountain Joy Cottages is open all year long.

888.926.1257 mountainjoycottages.com SMOKETREE LODGE Smoketree’s cozy atmosphere and prime location allow its visitors the choice of enjoying the peace and solitude of the Blue Ridge Mountains or the opportunity

of partaking in the many activities available in the High Country!

11914 NC Hwy. 105 S. • Banner Elk, NC 800.422.1880 • smoketree-lodge.com THE SWAG COUNTRY INN Chosen by readers of Conde Nast Traveler magazine as the #2 Best Small Hotel in the Unites States, the secluded hideaway itself consists of 250 private acres. The main lodge and cabins, consisting of 15 rooms, are built of 17th and 18th century hand hewn logs and local field stone. Join us for our 30th season to experience just how remote, rustic, refined and remarkable it can be at 5,000 feet. 3 gourmet meals are served daily, with turn down service each evening.

Waynesville, N.C. 800.789.7672 • theswag.com THE WAYNESVILLE INN GOLF RESORT & SPA This resort has been welcoming visitors to the mountains with southern hospitality since the 1920s. Traditional resort amenities include historic and mountain view lodging, 27 holes of championship golf, restaurant and tavern, plus outdoor event space and pro shop. Convenient location provides easy access to shopping, skiing, fishing, hiking and more.

176 Country Club Dr. • Waynesville, NC 800.627.6250 • thewaynesvilleinn.com

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ca le n d a r :

UPCOMING

Calendar listings feature only a selection of our region’s widely varied events. Get out and discover what you’re missing, and then share your adventures with Smoky Mountain Living on Facebook and Twitter!

August Dirty Dancing Festival

DONATED PHOTO

With nearly 15 million “Likes” on Facebook, the cultclassic film Dirty Dancing continues to magnetize swooning adorers generation after generation, and Lake Lure takes much pride in being the backdrop for this iconic American dance drama. Proof of this force of nature is also found at Lake Lure's annual Dirty Dancing Festival where fans can relive their favorite movie moments with a film screening, live music, dance performances and lessons, games and the crowd-favorite "Lake Lift" competition. Aug. 15-16, Lake Lure, N.C. 828.693.9708.

Smoky Mountains Songwriters Festival

Wonder of Hummingbirds Festival Visit the Ijams Nature Center for renowned speakers on nature topics, live animal demonstrations, guided nature walks and vendors selling food and drinks, locally made arts and crafts, bird feeders and supplies, garden items, and a “Bargain Barn” selling gently used books and nature-related themes. A special children’s area will offer educational activities for kids and child-focused nature walks.

Aug. 23, Ijams Nature Center, Knoxville, Tenn.

865.577.4717.

Civil War Memorabilia Show For a window into the past, come to the Smoky Mountain Military and Relic Show. The two-day event, in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., is to feature troves of Civil War relics, including muskets and other firearms, photographs and uniforms. Aug. 23-24, Smoky Mountain Convention Center, Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

865.908.3015.

Labor Day Party on the Lake Looking for an entertaining way to spend what is considered the unofficial end of summer outdoors?

Party on the lake at Fontana Village Resort, where cookouts, live music and games are scheduled for Labor Day weekend. The festival, called LakeAlooza, first was organized at the lake’s marina five years ago. It is to end with fireworks at 10 p.m. on the village green. Aug. 29 to Sept. 1, Fontana Village Resort, Fontana Dam, N.C. 828.498.2211.

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STORYTELLING IN JONESBOROUGH Willing to lend an ear? Come hear a tale by one of many storytellers scheduled to appear at the International Storytelling Center in coming months. More than two dozen renowned storytellers are scheduled to appear this year at the center, in Jonesborough, Tenn., as part of its Teller-in-Residence series. Besides narratives, the storytellers offer workshops and shows for children. Until Nov. 1, International Storytelling Center, Jonesborough, Tenn. 423.753.2171.

Smoky Mountain Folk Festival This 43rd annual event held on the shores of Lake Junaluska brings two days of mountain folk music and dancing with open jams beginning at 5 p.m. and shows in historic Stuart Auditorium. Bring an instrument or simply enjoy hearing others play. Aug. 29-30, Lake Junaluska, N.C. 828.452.1688.

Boomsday The nation's largest Labor Day weekend fireworks show will light up the sky over Knoxville in a jawdropping spectacle choreographed to an original soundtrack. Fireworks begin at approximately 9 pm (even if it rains!) and will create a rumble to remember. Aug. 31, Volunteer Landing, Knoxville, Tenn. 865.342.9108.

September Mountain Song Festival Hosted by the Grammy award-winning Steep Canyon Rangers, this remarkable bluegrass celebration is sure to get your toes tapping with Della Mae, the Kruger Brothers, Chatham County Line and the Rangers themselves among others. Sept. 12-13, Brevard Music Center, Brevard, N.C. 800.514.3849.

Rhythm and Roots Reunion The streets of Bristol, Va., fill with folk musicians from across the Southern Appalachians each

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

September, as part of a festival celebrating the musical heritage of the region. The festival, the Rhythm and Roots Reunion, was started after Congress designated the city as the birthplace of country music. Besides the dozens of stages set up around downtown, there are food and craft vendors, and many downtown stores stay open late. Sept.

19-21, Bristol, Va. 423.573.4898.

Flock to the Rock A haven for birds and their enthusiasts alike, Chimney Rock State Park is to host an outing centered on all things birds. The outing, Flock to the Rock, is in its sixth year. It includes a range of learning programs, from bird walks by local experts to photography workshops to dissections of owl pellets. More than 130 such species are seen throughout the state park, in western North Carolina, each year. The outing is scheduled at the same time as a hawk migration, with dozens, even hundreds of the birds expected to pass through the park on their route south. Sept. 20-21, Chimney Rock State Park. 828.625.9611.

DONATED PHOTO

For those seeking to explore the musical roots of the Southern Appalachians, this festival offers a window into the heart and soul of a region considered the birthplace of country and bluegrass music. The Smoky Mountains Songwriters Festival runs for four days, with shows on a number of stages around downtown Gatlinburg, Tenn. For the songwriters, it is not only seen as a platform to draw attention, but also to share the stories behind their songs, many of which have emerged as hits in the country and bluegrass scene. The festival, started three years ago, also includes a series of songwriting workshops and competitions for aspiring and emerging songwriters and bands. Aug. 21-24, Gatlinburg, Tenn.

865.604.9066.

Bring Back the Monarchs To learn about the monarch butterfly, come to a presentation by a naturalist and a master gardener at the Cradle of Forestry. The multimedia program is meant to offer a glimpse into the life cycle and migration pattern of the butterfly. It also is to include lessons on raising it in classrooms and growing its only food source, milkweeds, which is disappearing from North American fields. The main presenter, Ina Warren, is a conservation specialist with Monarch Watch, an outreach program at the University of Kansas. She has studied the butterfly in its wintering grounds, in central Mexico, and has helped more than a dozen groups establish habitats for it. Sept.

21, Cradle of Forestry, near Brevard, N.C. 828.877.3130.

Asheville Quilt Show This judged show awards more than $8,000 in prize money, and for its 32nd year bears the theme “Quilts: For Inspiration to Creation.” Sept. 26-28, WNC Agricultural Center, Fletcher, N.C. ashevillequiltguild.org.

Carolina Craft Day For a glimpse into the craftsmanship of the Southern Appalachians, come to Carolina Craft Day at the North Carolina Arboretum. The fair is scheduled to run in the Education Center at the nearly 450-acre garden, in the Pisgah National Forest. There will be craft demonstrations and juried artworks and crafts, along with plant displays and live music. Sept. 27, North Carolina Arboretum, Asheville, N.C. 828.665.2492.

October Chestnut Celebration For the past 25 years, the American Chestnut Foundation has worked to reintroduce the namesake tree to forests across the eastern part of the country.

So it is marking its anniversary with a celebration of its restoration program at Meadowview Chestnut burr.

Research Farms, in DONATED PHOTO Meadowview, Va. There will be live music, wagon tours of the chestnut orchard at the research farm and visits to its laboratory, where scientists conduct genetic research. Oct. 11, Glenn C. Price Research Library, Meadowview, Va. 276.944.4631.

Church Street Arts & Crafts Show Downtown comes alive with the 11th annual craft show known as one of the finest juried shows in the region. There will be live music, clogging, demonstrations and food. Oct. 11, Waynesville, N.C. 828.456.3517.

Apple Harvest Festival Celebrate the mountains’ seasonal harvest of apples with cider, fried pies, produce in bulk, live music and

Submit your calendar listing To submit an event for possible inclusion, email calendar@smliv.com.

Calendar event publication is at the sole discretion of Smoky Mountain Living.

Submissions without detailed information and photos included will not be considered.

dance, crafts and demonstrations. Oct. 18, Waynesville, N.C. 828.456.3517.

Harvest Festival Come sing and dance amid the natural splendor of autumn in the Southern Appalachians at the Harvest Festival. The event, which has taken place for years, is scheduled to run at the Stecoah Valley Cultural Center for three days, starting with a campfire and storytelling. Beyond live music, it has drawn dozens of vendors who display arts and crafts and includes weaving and knitting demonstrations. A bluegrass concert is scheduled for the evening on the second day, and hymns from a gospel choir are to mark the end of the event the following day. Oct. 17-19, Stecoah Valley Cultural Center, Robbinsville, N.C. 828.479.3364.

November Unicoi Wine Festival Come spend the day tasting wine at a festival amid the natural splendor of the North Georgia mountains. The Unicoi Wine Festival, in its second year, is to feature wines made in White County, part of which stretches into the Chattahoochee National Forest. The daylong festival also is to include food from local restaurants, live music and local artworks. Nov. 1, Hardman Farm, Sautee Nacoochee, Ga. 706.865.5356.

DONATED PHOTO

Crossword answers Puzzle is on page 75.

FOLK ART FESTIVAL For a taste of 19th century farm life, come to the Fall Folk Arts Festival, a weekendlong event including baked goods, bluegrass music and a farmer’s market including, corn, pumpkins and squash. The festival is scheduled at the Exchange Place, in Kingsport, Tenn., a historical farmstead comprising nearly a dozen buildings dating to the early to mid-1800s. The farmstead works to preserve the customs of that period, offering demonstrations from blacksmithing to candle and soap making. Sept. 27-28, Exchange Place, 4812 Orebank Road, Kingsport, Tenn. 423.288.6071.

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d e p a r t m e n t :

MOUNTAIN VIEWS

Welcome to my jungle

BY BILL STUDENC

O

ne of the best things about living in Western North Carolina is that those of us who call these mountains home get to enjoy all four seasons. That’s also one of the worst things about living here—especially if one has a yard to maintain.

Four seasons of weather means four seasons of landscaping, planting, mulching, pruning, aerating, fertilizing, mowing, weedwhacking, edging and raking. As James Taylor might have sung if he wasn’t rich enough to afford someone else to take care of his yard, “Winter, spring, summer or fall, all I get to do is crawl… out of bed on the weekend to tackle the yardwork.”

The cycle begins early every spring, when suburban homeowners go into a flurry of activity. An intense desire to keep up with— or outdo—the Joneses, whose lush lawn rivals the fairways of Augusta National in terms of breathtaking verdancy, drives the frenzy along with those incessant Lowe’s commercials and ubiquitous ads featuring an annoying Scotsman braying for us to feed our lawn, FEED IT! Inevitably, March machinations result in a multitude of May, June and July mowings. After applying fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and all those other cides in an effort to beat back the crabgrass and clover and foster the fescue, missing just one weekend wielding the Briggs and Stratton-powered blades of fury cues Guns ‘n’ Roses: “You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby!”

I often find myself wishing I had the same attitude toward lawncare I enjoyed early in my tenure as a homeowner: As long as it’s green and nontoxic and has no thorns, who cares if the vegetation in the yard is merely weeds? Just mow it short … and squint when you look at it. As the wise sage Homer (Simpson) once said, “There’s nothing wrong with crab grass. It just has a bad name, that’s all.

Everyone would love it if it had a cute name like ‘Elf grass.’”

Of course, there was the time when Mother Nature had other plans for my weekend of labor, as several days of heavy rainfall washed the lawn improvement chemicals out of the yard, down the hill and into the woods behind the house. At least we had the greenest poison ivy in the neighborhood. Somehow I don’t think the Joneses found themselves the least bit envious.

The outdoor workload increases incrementally when summer gives way to fall and the yard chores begin to multiply like rabbits on Viagra. Early fall is the worst, when the mighty oaks drop their acorns and the grass continues to grow. It happens at least once a year—I’ll be mowing the lawn and an acorn will fly out from the rear of the machine and pop me square in the, ahem, acorns.

Then, after the first frost, it’s time to dust off the leaf-blower and the rake. My approach used to be to wait until every last leaf had fallen and then rake—once, and only once. With the tall oaks and

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hickories that surround our house providing welcome shade during the heat of summer, however, that strategy just won’t work anymore. The massive mounds of flora flotsam and jetsam get so huge that the gas-powered blower won’t budge them, the wooden handles of the rakes splinter beneath the weight, and the blisters on my hands have blisters.

So each week of autumn I wage an epic battle of man against nature. Usually, nature wins. Every blast of wind sends hundreds of leaves spiraling to earth, and I, like a suburban Sisyphus, am condemned to spend eternity raking and blowing leaves off the lawn only to see them replaced tenfold the next day.

Winter offers no respite, as I find myself shoveling 18 inches of what the weatherman called “80-percent chance of rain” from the

MANDY NEWHAM-COBB ILLUSTRATION

“There’s nothing wrong with crab grass. It just has a bad name.”

— Homer Simpson

driveway and tending to our decorative landscaping. We added a pondless water feature to our backyard a few years ago. While the artificial (although quite realistic) waterfall is practically maintenance-free, when temperatures plunge to sub-Arctic levels, I bundle up like Nanook of the North, venture out onto the frozen tundra with a mattock in one gloved hand and a bucket of hot water in the other to bust up and/or melt the ice and get the waterfall flowing again. The neighbors probably think I’m burying a body in the backyard like a scene from “Fargo.”

Only now, after a few decades worth of four seasons worth of lawn-care labor, have I finally reached the logical conclusion—the best tool to deal with landscape issues in the mountains is the checkbook. Just pay somebody else to do it.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN LIVING VOLUME 14 • ISSUE 4

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Come see what three hundred Million years of landscaping looks like.

Folks have been coming to Grandfather Mountain for generations. For the views, the hiking, the animals - and to see what happens when you let nature take its course. w w w. g ra n d f a t h e r. c o m

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GRANDFATHER速 MOUNTAIN WONDERS NEVER CEASE