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.
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.
REGIONAL-The ongoing conflict over usage rights on the Chattooga River is worth following, if, for no other reason, as a harbinger of things to come.
In its December issue, Blue Ridge Outdoors writer Graham Averill does a nice job of making the issue clear, and the magazine throws in maps, a timeline and a “headwaters highlights” section.
Here is Averill’s lead:
For three decades, paddlers have yearned to paddle the pristine waters of the Upper Chattooga River. Earlier this year, the U.S. Forest Service finally granted limited access of the Upper Chattooga to paddlers, but a flurry of legal threats—including a legal challenge from the paddling community—prompted the Forest Service to rescind their decision a few weeks ago, once again leaving boaters high and dry.
Paddlers have been banned from the entire 21-mile headwaters of the Chattooga and its tributaries since 1976, after the U.S. Forest Service divided the river in two parts due to a series of user conflicts. Citing fistfights, slashed boats, and gun play, the forest service separated the two user groups: Boating would be allowed on the lower Chattooga, but the upper 21 miles of the river and its headwaters would be reserved for fishing.
Another clip:
Many conservation groups, including Georgia Forest Watch and the Chattooga Conservancy, support the current zoning of the river into boating and non-boating sections. Other popular recreation areas like Tsali and Bent Creek are also zoned; some trails allow mountain bikes, ATVs or horses, while others are designated foot traffic only. Anglers also support the current zoning of the Chattooga, saying that it’s a more-than-equitable compromise: the 36-mile lower Chattooga is given to boaters, while the 21-mile upper Chattooga is protected for fishermen and hikers seeking a wilderness experience.
Ironically, no parties concerned in the Chattooga access issue seemed to be happy with the Forest Service’s recent decision. Soon after it was announced, the Forest Service was threatened with legal action from all sides: four separate appeals were filed by boaters, anglers, and conservation organizations. As a result, the Forest Service withdrew its decision to fully consider the concerns raised by the user groups.
Averill sources the Cullowhee-based group American Whitewater quite a bit in the story, and offers quotes from all sides.
The final stretch of the Whitewater River is the part that I will never see, since it is lost forever beneath the waters of Lake Jocassee, built by Duke Power in the 1970s. Among the worlds lost to the Jocassee damnation was the trail of the French botanist Andre Michaux who explored the Keowee and its headwaters in 1878 and 1788.
Somewhere between the Whitewater and the Toxaway Rivers, he took notes on one unusual plant. The subsequent efforts of botanists to find the Shortia galacifolia described by Michaux continued for a century before the mystery of the Oconee Bells was finally solved.
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.
REGIONAL–It’s a familiar complaint in the mountains: tax money, like water, runs downhill to Raleigh and never comes back.
The Asheville Citizen-Times‘ Joel Burgess contributed a history yesterday of western North Carolina’s under-representation in high-power state politics, quoting WCU faculty member Richard Starnes along the way and naming Jackson County’s Lacy Thornburg as an exception to the rule.
Here’s an excerpt:
With a few notable exceptions, including former House Speaker Liston Ramsey and Govs. Jim Holshouser and Dan Moore, modern mountain politicians have struggled to make a dent in Raleigh’s power structure. Reasons trace back centuries, scholars say, and range from geography to old grudges.“It has to do with the low population and also that WNC has often charted its own political path,” said Richard Starnes, head of the history department at Western Carolina University.
-and-
The list of western politicians who have held great sway in the Tar Heel State largely begins and ends with one man — former House Speaker [Liston] Ramsey.
REGIONAL–Dave Tabler’s Appalachian Historyblog touches on an interview with herbalist Tommie Bass (1908-1996), and Bass’s take on giving money to politicians. Here’s Bass:
I figured . . . the fact of the business is a fellow running for office, a man or a woman, I’m like the little boy was about the peckerwood.
Peckerwood pecked a hole in a hollow tree and he went in there, and the little boy he drove a peg in behind it. Somebody said to him, “Son,” said, “you shouldn’t of done the little bird that way.” [And the boy said], “Well the son-of-a-gun pecked in, now let him peck out”.
And so I’m that way about a politician. If he wants to get into office, let him get in there (chuckles), but I ain’t gonna try to help him. Course, if he’s a good guy, I’d talk for him, but as far as paying him in there, I don’t go along with that.
REGIONAL–Western Carolina University associate professor Anna Fariello takes an in-depth look at the extraordinary world of Cherokee basketry in her new book “Cherokee Basketry: From the Hands of our Elders”, just out from the History Press of Charleston, South Carolina.
An author, editor and former research fellow at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Fariello most recently turned her attention to Cherokee basketry, a thousands-year-old tradition, passed from mother to daughter, that she believes is integral to Cherokee culture. Fariello’s new book, titled “Cherokee Basketry: From the Hands of our Elders,” studies Cherokee baskets and basket-makers who lived during the first half of the 20th century.
The project reinforced Fariello’s understanding that for Cherokee people, “the making of things is significant to their culture and their identity,” a concept foreign to many people in contemporary, mainstream culture, she said. The Cherokees’ use of natural resources as basket materials gave Fariello an appreciation of the environmental sustainability and ecological balance also inherent in the culture.
CULLOWHEE – Native American artist and activist Shan Goshorn will visit Western North Carolina in November for a talk at Western Carolina University and a demonstration at the Oconaluftee Institute for Cultural Arts.
“Pieced Treaty,” wood pulp splints and commercial dye, 20 by 20 by 26 inches, by Shan Goshorn, 2007.
An artist working in a variety of media, including paint, photography and mixed-media, Goshorn will speak about the progression of her work and her art as an expression of her activism during an artist’s talk at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, in Room 130 of the Fine and Performing Arts Center on the WCU campus. The event is free and open to the public.
From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, Goshorn will lead a workshop demonstrate her process of hand-tinting black-and-white photography at OICA, 70 Bingo Loop in Cherokee. The workshop is limited to 25 people and includes lunch and supplies, although participants may bring their own black-and-white prints, in a matte finish. No artistic background is required.
Goshorn is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and lives in Tulsa, Okla. An artist for more than 25 years, she has exhibited work across the United States, Canada, Europe, China and Africa. Her work addresses contemporary American Indian and human rights issues, including Indian stereotypes and treaty violations. For example, Goshorn wove “Pieced Treaty,” a basket in the traditional Cherokee “spider’s web” pattern, from paper printed with tobacco agreements between the state of Oklahoma and the Cherokee Nation.
“‘Pieced Treaty” refers to the continual breaking of agreements,” Goshorn said. “I deliberately left the basket unfinished because the negotiations appear to be ongoing.”
The piece won first place in the basketry division of the 2009 Red Earth Festival’s artist competition and has been purchased by the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institution. Goshorn’s work is featured in numerous other collections, including the Institute of American Indian Art; in Cherokee, her work is in the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Harrah’s Cherokee Hotel and the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual.
The WCU School of Art and Design and the Oconaluftee Institute are co-hosts of Goshorn’s visit. The visit is funded by the Cherokee Preservation Foundation and the Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources, an initiative operated through Western Carolina University’s Cherokee studies program.
The Oconaluftee Institute partners with Southwestern Community College and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to offer an associate’s degree in fine arts. An agreement with WCU allows graduates to enter the university as juniors pursuing the bachelor of fine arts degree.
REGIONAL–It’s no secret that in North Carolina, with its appointed and influential Department of Transportation Board, road construction is heavily politicized. That’s a foregone conclusion in the “good roads state“.
And one of the crown jewels of politicized road-building is I-40 west, which, just under half a century ago, was routed through particularly inhospitable country at the behest of well-connected state and regional leaders. A series of enormous rock slides has been the legacy.
When the slide-prone gorge route was first proposed, leaders from Madison County and the Asheville area had pushed for another route, one that would have sent I-40 through the French Broad River Valley in Madison, close to where U.S. 25/70 runs now.
“Lots of people these days will say highway decisions are all politics — well, hell yes, they are,” said Jody Kuhne, a state engineering geologist with the N.C. Department of Transportation.
“Back at that time, Haywood County had a large paper mill, major railroad access and other industry, and Madison County just didn’t have that, except some in Hot Springs. So, sure, they out-politicked Madison. The road went where the action was.”
FRANKLIN–On Saturday, November 7, come celebrate ten years of stewardship on the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee’s Tessentee property in Otto. The Celebration begins at 11:00 and continues until 4:00 and includes music by the Frog Town 5, tours of the property, annual conservation award presentation, and demonstrations by Cherokee artisans and others. All activities are FREE for the entire
Tessentee Bottomland Preserve. Ralph Preston photo.
family, and food may be purchased on-site from Big Mountain BB-Q. In November of 1999 LTLT purchased 60 acres at the confluence of Tessentee Creek and the Little Tennessee River. This was the first land protected on the free-flowing Little Tennessee, and now a decade later – with 30 land protection projects – more than 5200 acres and 35 miles of river frontage have been conserved.
LTLT’s purchase of the Tessentee Bottomland Preserve not only launched an extraordinary river corridor conservation initiative, it also created a laboratory for land restoration and stewardship in the valley. At Tessentee LTLT purchased an old dairy farm with diverse soils, abundant water, and an historic farmstead. LTLT conducted a detailed inventory and sought expert advice in developing a management plan to restore the rich and diverse natural and cultural heritage resources found here in the heart of the upper Little Tennessee River Valley.
The riverbanks have been stabilized and reforested, and a wetland area has been partially restored. LTLT began their invasive exotic plant control program at Tessentee and initiated the long process of converting fescue pastures to more diverse grassland habitats and open woodlands.
At Tessentee LTLT first began its collaboration with Cherokee artisans in the management and harvest of rivercane. This collaboration has expanded to the establishment of experimental plantations of butternut and white oak for production of other traditional artisan materials. The Tessentee Preserve is stop #53 on the NC Birding Trail with the preserve’s bird list at 115 species and butterfly list at 42 species and counting. Here one can hike the most extensive trail system found on any LTLT property. Volunteers have also helped to restore the historic farmstead – by restoring the apple house, smoke house, and in recent months the foundation of the historic farmhouse.
Now a decade later, the Tessentee Preserve is a rich mosaic of wildlife and plant habitats, and it serves as a microcosm of LTLT’s stewardship and restoration work in this historic valley. It is a wonderful place to walk and to appreciate the extraordinary richness and diversity of the upper Little Tennessee.
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.
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.
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.”
CHEROKEE-“We stand on the edge of becoming a truly unique voice in the world for indigenous art and culture,” said Joel Queen, new program coordinator and instructor at the Oconaluftee Institute for Cultural Arts in Cherokee.
Queen, whose art is displayed in such places as the Smithsonian Institution and the British Museum in London, says that art is the same language wherever you go. “The language of our Cherokee art is so storied with paintings, weaving, wood crafts, stonework and ceramics and I’ve spent my life creating in the Cherokee mediums,” said this enrolled member of the Eastern Band. “I’ve been able to make a successful living at it but now it’s time for me to give back and that’s why I chose to work with OICA.”
Master Cherokee potter Joel Queen, the new program coordinator and instructor at the Oconaluftee Institute for Cultural Arts in Cherokee, demonstrates a unique technique of using a cloth diaper to allow movement and expansion of clay. Luzene Hill, OICA program outreach coordinator, watches as Queen molds the strip of clay inside as he begins creating a piece of pottery.
His students, like Mike Taylor of Cherokee, respect the artistic heritage Queen brings to the institute. Members of Queen’s family have been potters for nine generations. “A lot of potters will keep their family secrets but I believe in sharing and in keeping the traditions alive so they don’t get lost,” said this grandson of potter Ethel Bigmeat. “One of the reasons to create art is so people can see their past and their future.”
“Part of our strength at OICA comes from our generational teachers like Joel and John Grant, who teaches wood and stone carving,” said Luzene Hill, program outreach coordinator for the institute.
“We give students a foundation in traditional methods, but we also give them the freedom to create contemporary art,” said Hill, an artist whose work is exhibited in private and corporate collections across the country.
Students of all skill levels are welcome at the institute, a joint endeavor of the Eastern Band, Southwestern Community College and Western Carolina University.
Students can earn an associate of fine arts degree from Southwestern. If they want to continue their education they can transfer to Western Carolina University, or any other college in the state university system, as a junior to pursue a bachelor of fine arts degree.
“Not all of our students want to go for a higher degree and we help them find their place in the market,” said Queen. “That’s important- they can be a great artist but if they don’t know how to market their work, they won’t be able to make a living from it.”
“Joel has his own business and gallery so he is the perfect person to help our students with marketing,” said Hill.
At present the classes are small enough that instructors can individualize a program around the student’s skill level.
Queen said part of his job is “taking students’ love of creating and helping them through the steps to achieve the vision they think their piece should look like. My job is to challenge them, to help them push their boundaries and see just how far they can go.”
But before they push the envelope and break all the rules, Queen teaches his students just what the rules are –rules he has learned from a personal mastery of clay and from knowledge and talent passed down from eight generations before him who sifted and kneaded hand-dug clay, stamped it with hand-carved wooden paddles and fired it in traditional pit fires.
“Here at the institute we respect and honor the traditions of our Cherokee ancestors. But after students master technique, we encourage them to show innovation and creativity,” said Queen. “For our Cherokee culture to evolve, our art must evolve first…and art is the same language, no matter where you go.”
While the institute is a mix of traditional and contemporary, the students are also a mix. About half are Cherokee and the others represent a mix of cultures, according to Hill, an EBCI enrolled member.
“The more students we get, the more programs we can offer,” she said. For more information, call 497-3945 or stop by the new location at 70 Bingo Loop Road in Cherokee.
DILLSBORO–Vietnam veterans and those who lost a loved one in the war will have an opportunity to remember their fallen heroes when the Vietnam Veterans Moving Wall comes to Dillsboro’s Monteith Park, Oct. 15-19.
The wall is a half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. It has traveled to hundreds of sites across the county since 1984, and will be on display 24 hours a day while in Dillsboro.
On the Vietnam Veterans Moving Wall are the names of 58,253 soldiers who gave their lives, including about 1,300 unaccounted for and considered missing in action. Thousands visit the moving wall each year to see the names and pay tribute to those who served.
Veteran John Devitt conceived the idea of a traveling wall upon visiting the memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1982. He teamed with veterans Norris Shears and Gerry Hayer to create this moving tribute to their fellow soldiers.
It was first displayed in Tyler, Texas, in October of 1984. Now there are two replicas which travel throughout the country each year from April through November.
Dillsboro’s effort to host the wall was spearheaded by local veteran Allen Fields, who owns a small music gift shop and recording studio called A House Beside the Road.
For more information, call the Jackson County Visitors Center at (800) 962-1911, or visit www.MountainLovers.com.
HIGHLANDS–California actor Lee Stetson will take on the likeness of John Muir in a performance Friday at the Highlands Playhouse. The show, called “An Evening With John Muir”, is sponsored by the WNC Alliance and the Jackson-Macon Conservation Alliance.
Tuckasegee writer Thomas Crowe previewed the performance in the most recent issue of the Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle; here’s an excerpt:
While the Sierras were [Muir's] preferred stomping grounds, he did travel, throughout his lifetime to many areas of the country, including the western N.C., mountains.
As if by some kind of time-warp or reincarnation intervention, Muir will be returning to the mountains of western N.C., for the first time since his visit in 1867 as part of his now-famous 1,000-Mile Walk.
As a walk (in to the body of California-based actor Lee Stetson) Muir will be giving talks in Asheville and Highlands that relate some of his most remarkable adventures in the wild, including a remarkable “tree ride” in a windstorm, a “sleigh ride” on a snow avalanche, his “interview” with a bear, and a face-to-fang encounter with a rattlesnake. Muir’s true wilderness tales are liberally salted with his wilderness philosophy–all around the theme of the health and invigoration one acquires when one fully and joyfully engages wildness.
But even more important to us, here in the Smoky Mountains, he will be talking about his time spent here in the western Carolina mountains.
North Carolina petitioned the federal government in 2006 for increased protection of wilderness areas, but Washington failed to act.
Last week, two dozen U.S. senators, including Greensboro’s Kay Hagan, filed the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2009 aimed at preventing all development in 58.5 million acres across the country. Some 151,000 acres in Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests in North Carolina’s mountains would be covered.
Various levels of protection apply in national forests. While roads provide important access to some public lands, others should be left in their natural state. The preservation of additional pristine wilderness would be a priceless gift to future North Carolinians.
