Virgin’s bower is a favorite mountain wildflower
It’s late July and before long summer will be slip-sliding toward autumn. The gap between now and then is often overlooked…
Read More
A rich newspaper account of Bryson City circa 1910
Despite the boosterism (and alliteration) that permeated a front page layout (perhaps instigated by the ever-energetic Jack Coburn, who is…
Read More
Just sit on the porch and breathe
I write this down in the country again ... seated on a log in the woods, warm, sunny midday. Have…
Read More
Bracken among the world’s most common plants
“Here and elsewhere, bracken is such an aggressive plant that one wonders why it has not taken over the world.”…
Read More
Learning bird songs is an art unto itself
Editor’s note: This column first appeared in a May 2009 issue of The Smoky Mountain News. In the opaque early-morning…
Read More
Zeke’s gone, but leaves us a blank verse sonnet
Two German shorthaired pointers named Maggie and Zeke were our constant companions for years. When we went bird watching along…
Read More
The forlorn calls of the yellow-billed cuckoo
Editor’s note: This column first appeared in The Smoky Mountain News in May 2008. O Cuckoo! Shall I call thee…
Read More
The sacred animal that walks like a man
Editor’s note: This column first appeared in an April 2003 edition of The Smoky Mountain News. Bears have always held…
Read More
Old-time dentistry just plain hurt
Old-time dentistry as practiced here in the Smokies region wasn’t pretty. All of the descriptions I have found make it…
Read More
Birch stills were once plentiful in the mountains
Throughout spring the pendent catkins of sweet birch (Betula lenta) will be dangling gracefully in the wind in rich woodland…
Read More
Colorful reminders of long-ago homesteads
A chimney standing all alone where a fire burned a house down long ago … a crumbling stone wall overgrown…
Read More
The woodcock — secretive, rotund and acrobatic
While walking stream banks or low-lying wetlands, you have perhaps had the memorable experience of flushing a woodcock — that…
Read More
One of the Smokies’ finest poets
Editor’s note: This Back Then column by George Ellison first appeared in the Feb. 15, 2012, edition of The Smoky Mountain…
Read More
Did the southeastern Native Americans take scalps?
(Editor’s Note: Readers should be cautioned that several of the descriptions of scalping and related practices presented in this column…
Read More
German utopian wanted a community in Cherokee
Note: This is the second of a two-part series about Christian Priber, an utopian socialist whose beliefs — including free…
Read More
A German idealist sought refuge among the Cherokee
Christianus Gottlieb Priber was born in Zittau, Germany, where he was the son of a beerhouse owner. In October 1722,…
Read More
Blue jays arouse mixed feelings among humans
Everyone knows what a blue jay looks and sounds like in a general sort of way. Their incandescent blue plumage…
Read More
Cherokee used toxins to stun fish
People sometimes wonder if the prehistoric Cherokees used any sort of poisons on their blowgun darts. These darts (slivers of…
Read More
The quandary that is book shelving
The books have once again piled up in stacks up to three feet high in many corners of the house.…
Read More
High-elevation overlooks are awe-inspiring
High-elevation overlooks are one of our finest natural resources. These vantage points allow us to rise above our everyday humdrum…
Read More
When they bloom, ‘fall’s a-coming’
Late summer has slid into early autumn. The end of summer officially arrived with the autumnal equinox of Sept. 23,…
Read More
To free your mind, just get outside and walk
In the June 14, 2004, issue of The New Yorker magazine, there was an essay titled “Blocked! Why Do Writers…
Read More
Logging has always been dangerous work
Steam and water-powered sawmills were established here in the Smokies region during the 1870s and 1880s. But full-fledged industrialized logging…
Read More
Time to enjoy the bounty of your flower garden
[Before moving on to the primary subject of this column (yard gardens), I’d like to share some impressions with you…
Read More
Cherokee had uses for many local plants
For the ancient Cherokees and other southeastern Indian tribes, the greatest causes of illness were the spirits of vengeful animals.…
Read More
What’s a naturalist?
Trying to answer that question, the first source I resorted to was, of course, the Oxford English Dictionary. Therein I…
Read More
Early book gives vivid descriptions of WNC
Those who read this column regularly are aware of my interest in the early descriptive literature of Western North Carolina.…
Read More
The day lily is a beautiful, hardy outlander
How many naturalized plants do you recognize from your vehicle this time of year as you drive around taking care…
Read More
Perhaps ‘possums are figuring it out
I bless my lucky stars that I’m a columnist assigned the pleasant task of writing about this region’s natural and…
Read More
A blemish by any other name
Systems of mature trees and shrubs are covered with blemishes that signal age: cankers, seams, burls, butt scars, sterile conks,…
Read More
The honest little bird
On one level, the natural history of a region consists of its terrain, habitats, plants, animals and how they interrelate.…
Read More
Moonshine stills weren’t the only stills
All this spring, golden birch catkins were dangling throughout the woodlands of the Smokies region. These are the male, pollen-carrying…
Read More
A fox sighting is always a delight
In the natural world here in the Blue Ridge, there are certain visual images that rivet the attention of human…
Read More
Special places define us
One never tires of discovering special places here in the southern mountains. Through the years, such places readily become old…
Read More
‘Doc’ Bennett was truly a man of the mountains
I have files in my computer containing articles I’ve forgotten that I wrote until, by chance, I run across them…
Read More
Old-time surveyors used some interesting tools, markers
“The line runs down the meander of the ridge to where Bossy dropped her first calf.” “The line runs to where…
Read More
The copper run in the Great Smokies
The worldwide annual production of “high conductivity copper” had by 1899 risen to 470,000 tons, of which 300,000 tons were…
Read More
A search for Horace Kephart’s alcove
The setting for Horace Kephart’s posthumous novel Smoky Mountain Magic (2009) is the Cherokee Indian Reservation, Bryson City and Deep…
Read More
Delving into the origin of Native American words
Editor’s note: This article was first published in The Smoky Mountain News in December 2003. Tuckaseigee, Oconaluftee, Heintooga, Wayah, Cullasaja,…
Read More
A new, excitable girl in our quiet cove
Essays and columns are difficult to categorize. Dividing them into the formal and informal is about all anyone can agree…
Read More
Come winter, trees reveal their blemishes
Like an old man’s face, mature hardwood tree trunks are covered with blemishes that signal age: cankers, seams, burls, butt…
Read More
When frost comes, we know winter has arrived
The first frost serves as a given year’s most distinctive dividing line. It’s hard to pinpoint just when winter becomes…
Read More
Witch-hazel has adapted as a late flowering plant
Editor’s note: this article first appeared in a November 2003 edition of The Smoky Mountain News. If you take a…
Read More
Robin redbreasts are a perennial favorite
Our elementary school primers were populated by robins pulling worms out of holes. They appeared on television screens on Saturday…
Read More
Bryson City and the widow Cline
Before the settlement named Charleston became the village named Bryson City in 1889, it was a tract of land known…
Read More
Water was not always taken for granted
Old-time mountaineers often picked their home and church sites according to the location and purity of springs. They were connoisseurs…
Read More
It’s ragweed that is the real culprit
“Hay fever: An acute allergic condition of the mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract and the eyes, characterized by…
Read More
Buckeyes both a good luck charm and a poison
A large buckeye tree overhangs and supports the swinging gate leading into and out of our pasture. Since we are…
Read More
Not a lot known about Bryson City’s namesake
Two well known sites in Swain County were named for Col. Thaddeus Dillard Bryson, a significant figure in Western North…
Read More
Lungwort used for making beer, bread
Lungwort is the leaf-like lichen common on tree trunks several feet or more above ground level. It resembles liverwort but…
Read More
