The Southern Highland Reader

GSMNP–Congressman Heath Shuler recently helped secure a $13 million down-payment from the federal government to help put an end to the nearly-seven-decade controversy over a road once planned along the north shore of Lake Fontana.

The payment, part of a larger, undisclosed sum, would compensate Swain County for the federal government’s choice not to build the road, which was promised in 1943.

National Parks Traveler writer Danny Bernstein gives a history of the controversy here.

Here’s an excerpt:

The North Shore Road issue was revived again in 2001 when former Congressman Charles Taylor, a Republican from western North Carolina, obtained $16 million for further construction of the North Shore Road. This set off a process that looked into the environmental impact of a 35-mile road. The National Park Service held public input forums in various locations around the Smokies and accepted comments from anyone in the U.S. on various ways to resolve the 1943 agreement. Thousands of pages were generated, reviewed, and discussed. Descendants of the original settlers were the only ones who wanted a road in the park. Almost all comments were against the road and for a financial settlement with Swain County, where Fontana Dam is located, one of the four parties to the original agreement.

In December 2007, the Department of the Interior made a decision that officially called for a yet-to-be-specified multi-million-dollar monetary settlement to Swain County instead of a road through one of the most pristine and untouched areas in the East. Though the park is now protected and the North Shore Road will never be built, Congress still has to approve the funds to settle the 1943 agreement.

GSMNP–Smoky Mountain News outdoor writer Don Hendershot wrote last week that the 2010 omnibus spending bill, due to be signed in a couple of weeks, might  include the long-awaited cash settlement that would (in theory) lay to rest Swain County’s North Shore Road controversy.

Hendershot quotes anonymous sources, and hints that the dollar amount could be greater than the projected $30 million.

Here’s an excerpt from Hendershot’s story:

After more fits, there was another start at construction back in 2000 when then Rep. Charles Taylor and then Sen. Jesse Helms appropriated $16 million for construction of the North Shore Road. Even though the $16 million was about $550 million short of the estimated cost of such a road, the appropriation spurred some Swain County residents to action.

The Citizens for the Economic Future of Swain County was created in 2001. Although totally lacking in acronym-imagination, the CEFSC did strike a chord with many Swain County residents and environmental groups with its proposal for a cash settlement in lieu of the improbable North Shore Road. Through some mathematical calisthenics the group came up with a settlement figure of $52 million.

Read the whole piece here

See a timeline through 2001, also from the Smoky Mountain News, here.

GSMNP-The Knoxville News-Sentinel reported over the weekend about cautious optimism on the part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials about their efforts to curtail the invasion of the hemlock woolly adelgid.

An excerpt:

“The work to preserve Eastern hemlock trees and forests in 2009 progressed and showed successes despite increased decline and obvious mortality of trees throughout the park,” the report states.

“‘Cautiously optimistic’ is a good term for it,” said park spokesman Bob Miller.

A three-pronged strategy, using a combination of predatory beetles, foliar treatments and systemic treatments, is being followed to destroy hemlock woolly adelgids on the trees.

Because of cost, accessibility issues and priorities given to most-visited areas, the treatment area is limited in scope and includes about 132,000 hemlocks in the park.

Read the story here.Read a post at Ruminations from the Distant Hills here.Our post “Saying Goodbye to the Hemlock”, from last year, is here.

BRYSON CITY–Jim Casada churns out an amazing amount of outdoors writing for the Smoky Mountain Times, and his current series of book reviews is invaluable.

His most recent column takes a lengthy look at these hiking guidebooks of the Smokies:

Ken Wise’s “Hiking Trails of the Great Smoky Mountains.”

Russ Manning’s “100 Hikes in the great Smoky Mountains National Park”

“The Best of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: A Hiker’s Guide to Trails and Attractions” by Russ Manning and Sondra Jamieson

Danny Bernstein’s “Hiking the Carolina Mountains.”

“North Carolina Hiking Trails” by Allen de Hart

Johnny Molloy’s “Trial by Trail: Backpacking in the Smoky Mountains,”

Michal Strutin’s “History Hikes of the Smokies”

Casada’s closing paragraph:

By all means, seek some armchair adventure through works such as those mentioned above, but the ultimate adventure, whatever the season, comes through being on the trail. Whether it’s a leisurely walk up lower Deep Creek – the sort scores of folks make daily – or one of those strenuous 20-plus mile ventures my brother Don enjoys, to be afoot in the park is to tread paths of wonder.

Read Casada’s column here.

GSMNP–National Geographic Traveler, in its sixth rating of worldwide travel destinations, calls the Great Smoky Mountains National Park “a national treasure surrounded by a bathtub ring of ugly, unplanned development.”

An excerpt from a story on the matter from the Knoxville News Sentinel:

The survey of 437 experts, which including travel writers, historic preservationists, ecologists and others, placed the Smokies in the next-to-worst category: “Places with Troubles.”

The judges whose comments were published with the story were slightly more lenient on the North Carolina side of the Smokies than the Tennessee side, which one judge described as displaying “the worst excesses of mass tourist development … ”

Tourism officials from Tennessee told the News Sentinel that the rankings were inherently biased against more popular and accessible locations.

Read the Knoxville News Sentinel story here.
Read the National Geographic Traveler story here.

GSMNP–Those thumps you heard earlier were tourism folks fainting dead away at the news that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will close its wildly popular Cades Cove loop for three months in the spring for repaving and sprucing up.

An excerpt from the Knoxville News Sentinel:

The park examined a “full range of options” to do the work, according to Superintendent Dale Ditmanson.

All would have required unsuitable detours for the 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles that enter the cove each day, Ditmanson said.

Night-time work also was considered, but the road would have had to be closed for the rebuilding of the sub-base.

The park chose to close the road and recycle it in place as the most efficient and “environmentally responsible” way to complete the work, Ditmanson said.

Read the story here.

REGIONAL–The Southern Appalachian Bear Study Group, a group of biologists from Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia who study black bear populations, think that the current population of bears across the Southern Appalachians is the highest on record.

An excerpt from Morgan Simmons’ story in the Knoxville News Sentinel:

The latest UT studies put the black bear population in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at around 1,500, or about two bears for every square mile of the park.

The number of bears taken by legal hunting in Tennessee has increased dramatically since 1982, when the harvest was only 21 bears. In 1997, hunters harvested a record 370 bears. Many biologists thought the population had peaked that year, but then came the 2008-09 hunting season, when Tennessee hunters harvested 446 black bears for yet another record.

[Research ecologist] Frank Van Manen said that while the region may be biologically capable of supporting even more bears, it’s clear that in some areas, the population has reached its cultural capacity as determined by people’s willingness to tolerate bears visiting their bird feeders or breaking into their homes.

Read the story here.

GSMNP–Great Smoky Mountains National Park managers have announced that the Park’s cooperating partner, Great Smoky Mountains Association, has just published and released its newest book, Smoky Mountain Magic, a novel by Horace Kephart.

Horace Kephart

Although completed in 1929, two years before the author’s death, the novel was never published until now.

Cathy Cook, Chief of Resource Education and Science at the Smokies said, “We had no idea that a Kephart novel even existed. The unpublished manuscript for Smoky Mountain Magic was handed down within the Kephart family until it was finally brought to the attention of park superintendent, Dale Ditmanson, by Libby Kephart Hargrave, the author’s great-granddaughter, at one of this year’s 75th Anniversary celebrations.

The typewritten manuscript was complete, having gone through numerous drafts and revisions over the course of the eight years that Horace Kephart labored over it.”

Smoky Mountain Magic’s fictional story takes place during the summer of 1925, mostly along the Deep Creek watershed in the Great Smoky Mountains, but also in a thinly-disguised Bryson City (called Kittuwa) and the Cherokee Indian Reservation. Characters include a mysterious stranger (who resembles the author in his youth), a greedy land baron, a cadre of mountain folk ranging in constitution from stalwart to conniving, a beautiful botanist, a Cherokee chief, and a witch. The novel fits the adventure story genre of the day with a bit of romance interwoven.

The famed author and outdoorsman first came to the Great Smoky Mountains in 1904 looking for a fresh start in life. He moved into an abandoned cabin on a tributary of Hazel Creek, a remote area even by early 20th century southern Appalachian standards. There Kephart befriended his independent and self-reliant neighbors and pursued his passions for hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, and generally living off the land.

The result of his time in what Kephart described as the “back of beyond” were Our Southern Highlanders, the classic work on the people of the Smokies, and Camping and Woodcraft, the definitive work on enjoying the out of doors. Both works are still in print and continue to nurture an enthusiastic following.

During the 1920s, Kephart and his friend and fellow hiker George Masa began a vigorous campaign to have the Great Smoky Mountains protected as a national park. Kephart wrote letters, articles, and a booklet championing the cause, and Masa contributed his breath-taking landscape photographs.

Together they raised awareness of the significance and beauty of the Smokies and sounded the alarm over the devastation being caused by unsound, industrial logging operations. Both Kephart and Masa figure prominently in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park segment of a new 12-hour documentary series by Ken Burns entitled “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” which will begin September 27 on PBS.

For their successful effort, both Kephart and Masa have neighboring mountains named for them. A stream, trail, and camping shelter in the national park also bear Kephart’s name.

The 248 page Smoky Mountain Magic is now available in both paperback ($12.95) and hard cover ($19.95). All proceeds are being donated to the Horace Kephart Foundation (in support of the annual Horace Kephart Days Celebration in Bryson City), Great Smoky Mountains Association, and Friends of the Smokies.

SYLVA-Horace Kephart is well known for his explorations in what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and for his writings about the area and its people. The new Ken Burns documentary on our National Parks features Kephart’s significant role in the creation of Park.

Now, a long-lost novel by Kephart has been found and just been published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association, 80 years after Kephart completed the manuscript in 1929.

Video from the Great Smoky Mountains Association:

City Lights will host a reading from the novel by Kephart’s great-granddaughter, Libby Kephart Hargrave, on Tuesday, October 20th at 7:00 p.m.

Hargrave wrote a foreword for the book, detailing how it came to be published after having laid so long only in manuscript form. George Ellison wrote the introduction, which gives further background and places the novel in the full context of Kephart’s legacy. Elizabeth Ellison’s watercolor is featured on the book’s cover, and Ron Rash’s praise also appears on the cover: he calls the book “a remarkable and illuminating read.”

As Ellison points out in his introduction, Kephart was an excellent listener, and in his time in the Hazel Creek community, he listened to residents tell about their lives. Both his ear for dialogue and his appreciation for a good story are revealed in the novel, which is set in Deep Creek, near Bryson City.

The story features Cherokee lore, as well, and some fantastical elements. too. According to Ellison, “Creating a dreamscape is not the sort of stylistic device a reader familiar with Camping and Woodcraft and Our Southern Highlanders would have expected from Kephart, not even in a novel.”

But at its heart, Smoky Mountain Magic is a story of both romance and adventure.

At the City Lights program devoted to the book, Hargrave will talk about bringing the manuscript to publication and will read selections from it. She will also take questions from the audience.

More reading …

Gary Carden reviews Smoky Mountain Magic in the Smoky Mountain News.

Bryson City Book Premiere and Signing to be Hosted by Kephart Family

In honor of the recently rediscovered and published novel Smoky Mountain Magic, the Kephart family and the Swain County Chamber of Commerce

invites the public to a premiere party that will feature readings from the novel as well as an opportunity to have your copy signed by a relative of the famed author.The event, which will be held at the historic Calhoun House Hotel located indowntown Bryson City, is scheduled for Sunday, October 18, 1 – 5pm. After a short program that will include naturalist George Ellison, GSMNP Superintendant Dale Ditmanson, representatives of the Great Smoky Mountains Association which is responsible for the publication of the novel, and great-granddaughter Libby Kephart Hargrave, family members will be available for signing and conversation. Music will be provided by the talented Lee Knight, and refreshments will be provided.

CHEROKEE–In early September, the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Carly Harrington put together this overview of Qualla Boundary economic conditions, and talked to some folks that might not otherwise be heard in such a piece; among them, Leon Grodski and Natalie Smith, owners of Tribal Grounds Coffee and well-known multimedia artist Davy Arch.

The general theme: while the influence of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino has its pluses and minuses, the influx of cash that the casino brings is giving the Cherokee greater opportunity to control their economic destiny.

An excerpt:

While roadside shops continue to hawk their fake American Indian wares, locals say they are trying to get away from such “shot glass” tourist attractions, focusing instead on authentic Cherokee history and heritage.

“The tribe is spending money to create a nicer experience that’s more culturally oriented and authentic. The goal is to move away from the touristy trinkets from China,” Groski said.

After the park opened, people from other places were attracted to the area by the lure of tourism and its financial prospects. The tribe, in need of money, allowed them “to market their junk.”

“They wanted any kind of business they could get. We weren’t generating revenue to support the infrastructure,” Arch said, noting that there’s more tolerance and acceptance of the Cherokee culture today.

“Things are looking up. We have more control of our destiny now than the last couple hundred years. It’s changing.”

Read the piece here.

REGIONAL–On Sunday, the Charlotte Observer’s Bruce Henderson outlined the challenges faced by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

His lead:

Having just celebrated its 75th birthday, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park finds its future threatened by wavering public support for America’s green places.

The problem passes from one generation to the next: a chronic lack of financial support in the past, declining visits now and a future shaped by today’s children who are spending far less time in the outdoors.

Another excerpt:

Kids don’t play outdoors – splashing in creeks and chasing fireflies – as they once did, numerous studies and most parents will attest. Increasingly sedentary and overweight, they’re more likely to be mesmerized by a Wii than a salamander.

“Nature-deficit disorder,” author Richard Louv called it in an influential 2005 book. Research has linked lack of unstructured time outdoors to childhood depression, anxiety and behavioral problems.

“If they don’t have those experiences, then we’re worried that it won’t be a priority for future generations to keep natural areas and a clean, healthy environment,” said Lisa Tolley, who heads the N.C. Office of Environmental Education.

The whole story here.

GSMNP–A Tennessee man has a date with a magistrate after his pit bull severely injured a deer near Elkmont last week.

The unleashed 100 lb. dog attacked a mature 130 lb. buck, and the deer was so badly wounded that it had to be euthanized.

A news report is here, but the online National Parks Traveler goes into more depth, discussing past incidents:

An excerpt:

A … spokesman at the park said such incidents are fairly rare in the Smokies, and described another situation several years ago that illustrates the value in the “leash law” for protecting pets as well as wildlife. In that case the dog was riding in the bed of a pickup truck which was being driven through the Cades Cove area.

The dog spotted a black bear, jumped out of the truck, and headed for the bear, which was large enough that it wasn’t intimidated by the dog. A chase ensured, and the dog became the prey, running back toward the owner, who had stopped his truck alongside the road. In this case, the pursuing bear reportedly broke off the chase when the dog ran into a group of people who had gathered to watch the action. That case fortunately ended without further incident for both the dog and the bear, but this one could have taken a nasty turn.

Read the post here.