Smokies comprises only one chapter of Martin’s 139-page book. As Martin began to research, he realized that Masa’s images were far more wide-ranging than he’d originally thought, capturing wild places from Chimney Rock and Mt. Mitchell to Shining Rock, the Nantahala River Valley, Highlands Plateau and Mt. Oglethorpe in Georgia. The chapter divisions reflect this diversity. Blasting debris “For me it was, thank God there’s a from the road cut deadline, because I is visible down could have just kept on the slope and into with this book forever,” the ravine in said Martin. Masa's 1929
image of Cullasaja Falls. George Masa/Donated photo
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Smoky Mountain News
Masa’s life was prolific but short. He died of tuberculosis in 1933, one year before the park was established, at about 51 years old. Neither he nor Kephart, who died two years earlier, saw their life’s work come to fruition. Despite his enormous contributions to the Smokies and the Southern Appalachians as a whole, Mesa narrowly avoided landing in the “dustbin of history,” Martin wrote. The second edition of “Guide to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park” did not credit him, his photographs were often hijacked, and getting a Smokies peak named after him took nearly three decades. He was never buried in the park, next to Kephart, as he had desired. “As much as Masa was loved by his close friends and hiking companions, one cannot help speculating upon the persistent and rising anti-Japanese sentiments at the local and national levels when considering such rejections then, and in later acknowledging his contributions to the Smokies park movement,” Martin wrote. Martin thinks that Masa would be shocked to see how Western North Carolina has changed in the last 100 years. Indeed, Martin, who moved here two decades ago, is shocked by how much it’s changed in the last 20 years. “It feels like a big wave is washing over this place right now,” he said. Masa, Kephart and their companions may have had a similar feeling as they watched the timber companies bring acre upon acre of virgin forest to the ground. The park was their answer to the crisis of their day, which makes Martin wonder who will become the Masas and Kepharts of the 2020s and how they will address the crises facing the mountains now. “There are some things that make a person optimistic to live here. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder what this place is going to be,” he said. “It’s just changed so much.”
Lauded as a “historic game-changer” for wildlife conservation in the United States, the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act last week passed the House of Representatives in a 231-190 vote. If it becomes law, RAWA, also called H.R 2773, will amend the PittmanRobertson Wildlife Restoration Act to provide an additional $1.4 billion in dedicated funding each year to improve habitat, recover wildlife populations and restore infrastructure for both natural systems and outdoor recreation opportunities. Of the $1.4 billion, North Carolina will receive up to $25 million, with Native American tribes receiving $97.5 million. The money is to come from the general fund. “Recovering America’s Wildlife Act is the most important piece of wildlife legislation in the past 50 years,” said Tim Gestwicki, CEO of North Carolina Wildlife Federation. “Wildlife in our state and across the country are in crisis, and this bold, bipartisan bill will tackle the problem at scale without new taxes or regulations.” From mountains to coast, North Carolina is home to more than 1,500 nongame fish and wildlife species and over 6,000 plant species. RAWA funding would help implement Congressionally
mandated state wildlife action plans, which identify more than 12,000 wildlife and plants that need conservation assistance nationwide. Currently, North Carolina gets about $1 million each year for this purpose through state and tribal wildlife grants. Species such as pollinators, frogs, turtles, songbirds, shorebirds, freshwater mussels and oysters often receive neither the attention nor funding they need for recovery. The bill had 194 cosponsors, of whom 42 were Republican and 152 were Democrat, but many Republican supporters dropped off in the final vote. Only 16 of the 231 aye votes came from Republicans. Of North Carolina’s 13 House representatives, 10 signed on as co-sponsors — five Republicans and five Democrats. All five N.C. Republicans ultimately voted against the bill, however. N.C. 11 Rep. Madison Cawthorn voted no and was one of three N.C. representatives not listed as a cosponsor. His office did not return a request for comment on the vote. The legislation now goes to the Senate. A similar bill introduced there in July 2021 has 35 cosponsors — 18 Democrats and 16 Republicans with one Independent. N.C. Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr are among them. Follow the bill’s progress at congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/housebill/2773. — Holly Kays, outdoors editor
June 22-28, 2022
record-breaking 14.1 million visits logged last year alone. For the first mile or so of Martin’s hike, a “constant stream of hikers” passed by, the trailhead crowded with families, groups of friends and one large group from a boys’ outdoor camp. Charlies Bunion is full of “numerous visitors drinking in the view and snapping smart-phone photos.” It’s a striking comparison, Martin said — on one side, the lonely landscape of the past, capturable only through the skillful hands of an artist devoted enough to lug a cumbersome, heavy set of equipment to the ends of the earth. On the other, a well-traveled icon, photographed hundreds of times per day at the push of a button. Some places, though, have taken the opposite journey. Three Forks, for example, a nearly inaccessible spot in the eastern part of the park that is still “one of the wildest places in the East,” is even wilder today than it was when Masa went there, Martin wrote. Unable to find the old manway Masa used, Martin and his wife failed on their first attempt to reach it. “When we finally made it to Three Forks on our second attempt, I felt a sense of timelessness like I had never experienced before — the forest primeval, untouched by senseless modern human hands,” Martin wrote. “The place was fairy tale-like in its appearance, Jurassic in its feel.” It was a startling contrast to Newfound Gap, now one of the most visited national park viewpoints in the country. While Masa is known mainly for his photography of the mountains that would one day become a national park, the
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jagged length of ridgetop outcrop that Masa captured in power and light. His wish for his final resting place to be next to his close friend Horace Kephart was never realized, but perhaps this is close enough.” The isolated mountains that Masa roved in the early 1900s are now home to the country’s most popular national park, with a
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