Archived Mountain Voices

Wednesday, 06 February 2008 00:00

Dr. Elisha Mitchell

While scanning the shelves of a rare bookstore in Asheville several months ago, I happened upon a regional volume by Elisha Mitchell I’d been seeking for many years. Titled Diary of a Geological Tour by Dr. Elisha Mitchell in 1827…

Wednesday, 13 February 2008 00:00

Upper world guardians

We are all fascinated by birds. In addition to being pretty (even buzzards are pretty in their own way), they can sing and fly. Unlike me, many of you can actually sing; so, you will not be as awestruck by…

Wednesday, 20 February 2008 00:00

Highlands plateau still a world of green hills

Several years ago I wrote about Bradford Torrey’s A World of Green Hills, which was published in 1898 by Houghton Mifflin and Co. The book is divided into two parts, equally devoted to Torrey’s travels in Western North Carolina and…

Wednesday, 27 February 2008 00:00

Alum Cave for a breath of fresh air

I recently happened upon an interesting article that described an excursion made in 1860 to the Alum Cave on the Tennessee side of the present-day Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Titled “A Week in the Great Smoky Mountains,” it was…

Wednesday, 05 March 2008 00:00

An early account of Western NC

While crossing the Blue Ridge north of present Asheville in the early 1540s, Hernando de Soto’s scribes entered some brief descriptions of the landscape in their journals. In all likelihood, a letter written in 1674 by Abraham Wood, a Virginia…

Wednesday, 18 July 2012 13:41

Looking for carnivorous plants in WNC

Some plants like Jack-in-the-pulpit and Dutchman’s-pipe have evolved methods of entrapping insects in their flowers so as to assure pollination. But only a few plant species in North America actually devour insects so as to obtain life-giving sustenance. The carnivorous…

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 14:29

Random thoughts and voices

Here I sit by my window watching the creek go by with nothing in particular to write about except the random thoughts and voices in my composition book: “Negative capability is the gift of being in the world without any…

Wednesday, 04 July 2012 00:00

Lesser known plants after more tangible awards

For me, those plants found here in the Smokies region that have verified practical human uses are, in the long run, of more interest than those with often overblown reputations for sacred or medicinal uses. For instance, the history of…

Wednesday, 27 June 2012 14:13

Combating things that sting and itch

This is about critters and plants that sting and itch. There are lots of things out there in the woods that can cause discomfort or worse: hornets, poison ivy, poisonous serpents, poison sumac, ants, skunks, no-see-ums, and so on. Two…

Wednesday, 13 June 2012 19:12

The feisty, showy and talented grosbeak

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about scarlet tanagers, a showy rather common species I assumed most were familiar with. But at least 10 readers emailed or otherwise contacted me to say they had located and seen their first…

Wednesday, 06 June 2012 13:32

Almost everything you wanted to know about sassafras

Season in and season out, one of the more interesting common plants in our woodlands is sassafras, which may be shrub-like or attain heights of 130 feet as part of the forest canopy in rich cove hardwoods. In spring, well…

Wednesday, 30 May 2012 14:01

Its a scarlet tanager kind of year

“The scarlet tanager flies through the green foliage as if it would ignite the leaves. You can hardly believe that a living creature can wear such colors.” — Henry David Thoreau This seems to be a scarlet tanager kind of…

Wednesday, 23 May 2012 13:28

The allure of Panthertown Valley is timeless

The announcement in November 1989 that the remote 6,300-acre Panthertown Valley tract in Jackson County had passed into the public domain was welcome news for knowledgeable outdoor enthusiasts throughout the southeastern United States. After years of private management, this truly…

Wednesday, 16 May 2012 13:28

The beetles beneath the ground

“Ere the bat hath flown His cloister’d flight … to black Hecate’s summons The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done A deed of dreadful note.” — Shakespeare, Macbeth There are a…

Wednesday, 09 May 2012 13:37

Intricate flora sometimes defy description

Through the years I have attempted to describe the flora of the Smokies region for newspaper, magazine and book readers. I have learned that describing the “botanical architecture” of trees, flowers, fruits, etc., can be tricky business. Drafting a “sketch”…

Thursday, 03 May 2012 02:12

Twice sold lands now part of Bryson City

This is the peculiar story of the land transactions, disputes, and incidents that led to the establishment of Bryson City and the construction of its first jail. This town was a village named Charleston before it became Bryson City in…

Wednesday, 25 April 2012 13:39

Black locust a favorite for its strength

All of the spring flowering plants are early this year by as much as two to three weeks. Black locust is no exception. Their beautiful creamy-white pea-shaped flowers form dependent clusters so fragrant that the air is heavy with scent…

Wednesday, 18 April 2012 12:53

Cherokee masks come in many guises

A mask is a mechanism employed to cover the face as a protective screen or disguise. For protection, they have been utilized for centuries by medieval horsemen, welders, fencers, hockey goalies, and so on. Their most intriguing uses, however, have…

Wednesday, 11 April 2012 14:18

WNC border may have been drawn “under the influence”

Editor’s note: This column first appeared in The Smoky Mountain News in April 2002. Have you ever looked at a map of North Carolina and wondered how in the heck the Old North State came to be shaped like that?…

Wednesday, 04 April 2012 13:05

When the kingfishers return

Belted kingfishers are one of my favorite birds, so much so that I wrote a poem years ago about anticipating their return to our creek each spring titled “Kingfishers Return.” A pair fishes along the small creek on our property…

Wednesday, 28 March 2012 12:52

Nomenclature has meaning when it comes to plants

What’s in a name? Well, sometimes a lot, especially when you’re considering the names we assign plants. The striking little early wildflower of deciduous woodlands with its yellow reflexed petals, long red stamens, and lush brown dappled green leaves goes…

Wednesday, 21 March 2012 14:15

Learning and writing haiku

Lots of people write haikus or haiku-like verse. This past year we had several haiku-writing fests at our house. House rules during Lands Creek haiku fests are that each haiku must be of three lines with a 5-7-5 syllabic structure.…

Thursday, 15 March 2012 04:46

The art of interviewing — let’em do the talking

When I started writing features for a newspaper in the late 1980s, I didn’t have much of a clue as to what I was doing. I was working as a “stringer” for a regional insert called “Smoky Mountain Neighbors,” which…

Wednesday, 07 March 2012 14:44

Flowers are beautiful reminder of early settlements

As indicated in recent Back Then columns, I've been of late walking some of the old trails along creeks in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that were as recently as the early 1940s populated to a considerable extent. Occasionally,…

Wednesday, 29 February 2012 22:28

Different tribes treated captives differently

I conduct workshops on Southeastern Indian history and culture at the John C. Campbell Folk School for two full weeks a year and for various Elderhostels throughout the year. One topic that surfaces quite often is the manner in which…

Wednesday, 22 February 2012 21:27

Pileated woodpeckers a mainstay in the mountains

The tapping of pileateds ... means attachment to a nest site and attachment of the members of a pair to each other . . . When one pair of pileateds is especially excited about meeting its mate, it bends its…

Wednesday, 15 February 2012 14:05

One of the Smokies’ finest poets

Olive Tilford Dargan is fairly well known in literary circles as the author of From My Highest Hill (1941), a delightful collection of autobiographical stories set in Swain County, originally published as Highland Annals in 1925. But she is also…

Wednesday, 08 February 2012 21:54

Geronimo’s brush with Western North Carolina

The names Geronimo and Gen. George Cook are interwoven in the lore of northern Mexico, southeastern Arizona, western New Mexico and the Indian territories in Oklahoma. An association with the Smokies region and the remnant Eastern Band of Cherokees in…

Wednesday, 01 February 2012 21:56

Poetic writing by a true mountain woman

I am the summer … I am the firefly and the moon … the rain on the leaves the swamp orchids and the blackberries. — Emma Bell Miles In chronological order, ten of the most informative and/or entertaining books…

Thursday, 26 January 2012 03:42

The fascinating story of the Plott hound

A new book has been published that will be of particular interest to area hunters, outdoorsmen, and dog lovers. It will also be of considerable value to those concerned with the region’s human history. The Story of the Plott Hound:…

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 14:57

Beech tree retains its tropical bark characteristics

A concept among biologists is that of “keystone species:” plants or animals with a pervasive influence on community composition and inter-reactions. In the eastern United States — especially here in the southern highlands — the beech tree is such an…

Wednesday, 11 January 2012 15:37

Holing up is common for poisonous snakes in winter

Where do the poisonous snakes go in winter? In the Smokies region we have two poisonous species: timber rattlesnakes and copperheads. Cottonmouth moccasins are often reported, but that species is found no farther inland than about the fall line, which…

Thursday, 05 January 2012 03:55

The playful raven is a Smoky Mountain favorite

Along with plants like red spruce, Fraser fir, yellow birch, mountain maple, mountain ash, Canada Mayflower, witch-hobble, and bluebead lily, as well as animals such as the northern flying squirrels, black-capped chickadees, winter wrens, and northern water shrews, ravens are…

Wednesday, 28 December 2011 14:11

The poetry in a weather’s sharp vision

Note: This essay was originally written for The Smoky Mountain News. It was subsequently revised and collected in Mountain Passages, which was published by the History Press (Charleston, S.C.) in 2005. This time around it has been re-revised and a…

Wednesday, 21 December 2011 15:13

Navigating the waterways of WNC

When one thinks about navigation in regard to the rivers here in the Smokies region, it’s old-time ferries and modern-day canoes, kayaks, rafts, tubes, and motorboats that come to mind. But there have been other sorts of navigation involving flatboats,…

Wednesday, 14 December 2011 21:58

The light of winter is ‘tricky business’

Winter Light So much light in what we call the dark of the year, a flashing and glittering of light … Should it surprise us, having known the holes of darkness in the longest days? — William Bronk, “A Bright…

Wednesday, 07 December 2011 14:45

Going back to explain ‘back of beyond’

Most of us at one time or another hanker for a place where we can get away from it all for awhile … recharge our batteries as it were. But some yearn for a place where they can hide away…

Wednesday, 30 November 2011 21:40

Feeling sprightlier on an early winter day

Sometimes I find myself walking without having made a conscious decision to do so. My body seems to feel the need for a stroll without having consulted my brain. My feet find their way, as if they had eyes of…

Wednesday, 23 November 2011 15:15

Thanksgiving and lungwort bread

I have perused Kephart’s Camping and Woodcraft many times, but somehow or other had consistently overlooked his entry on lungwort bread (vol. 1, pp. 324-325): On the bark of maples, and sometimes of beeches and birches, in the northern woods,…

Wednesday, 16 November 2011 14:29

A poetic tribute from a son of the Smokies

The second volume of an anthology of nature writing from Western North Carolina and the Great Smokies that I edited will be published in a couple of weeks by The History Press in Charleston, S.C. The first volume (1674-1900) offers…

Wednesday, 09 November 2011 20:25

Ginseng, ferns and an ancient dialect

“Sang” redux. Several weeks ago I wrote about ginseng. I have, in fact, been writing about ginseng for years. There seems to be a never-ending general interest in the plant. Its only rival would be ramps. Come spring, I will…

Wednesday, 02 November 2011 20:10

Masks are mirrors looking back at us

A mask is a mechanism employed to cover the face as a protective screen or disguise. For protection, they have been utilized for centuries by medieval horsemen, welders, fencers, hockey goalies, and so on. Their most intriguing uses, however, have…

Wednesday, 26 October 2011 13:06

Casual, unplanned — and heavenly

You don’t have to live in a cabin to get cabin fever. You can come down with a bad case of cabin fever — which I think of as “the doldrums” — even if you live in a snazzy mansion.…

Wednesday, 19 October 2011 13:47

An early description of Haywood’s vegetation

Roland M. Harper was born in Maine but spent practically his entire professional life in the South, where his work embraced studies in plant geography, forestry, systematics, human demography, and economic botany. Harper’s extensive field work resulted in the discovery…

Wednesday, 12 October 2011 14:47

Civil War crossing of Smokies was memorable feat

The war in the Smokies proved to be … a curious conjunction of terrain, history, politics, and culture ... a tragic division of loyalties … a brutal partisan conflict where men left homes and wives and children and trekked north…

Wednesday, 05 October 2011 14:01

Old-timers and their colorful plant names

It’s that time of the year, and the hills are alive not with music but “sang” hunters. As of now a dried pound of “green gold” is bringing about $500 and might rise before the ginseng season closes for good.…

Wednesday, 28 September 2011 13:39

An Appalachian ‘original genius’

(Note: Since its publication several years ago, this column about Evan O. Hall has sparked a number of comments. Something about Hall’s indefatigable and self-reliant cleverness reminded people of someone they, too, had known in days gone by.) Back in…

Wednesday, 21 September 2011 14:51

Shooting frogs through the car window

This is about frogs. Of late, I’ve been thinking about them … especially the frog that snores. As I recently discovered, there is a fairly common species here in the Smokies region that emits snore-like vocalizations. More about that in…

Wednesday, 14 September 2011 12:26

Otters are what beautiful aspires to be

Earlier this week about nine in the morning, I was standing on the Everett Street bridge in the heart of downtown Bryson City. Looking down I saw two otters in the dark-tinted currents of Tuckasegee. I retrieved my binoculars from…

Wednesday, 07 September 2011 14:24

Monkshood — both beautiful and deadly

Usually I locate rare plants by visualizing them and visiting likely habitats. It’s as if I can will them into existence. But this time was different. It was just suddenly there. By chance, while looking for another plant, I literally…

Wednesday, 31 August 2011 13:26

Screech owls don’t really screech

The Eastern Screech Owl has the broadest ecological niche of any owl in its range. It occurs east of the Rocky Mountains, where it is a permanent resident of both rural and urban habitats from south of the Canadian boreal…

Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:40

Oliver deserves more credit for his writing skills

I started to write this column about Duane Oliver before I discovered that he has just published what he tells me is his “last cookbook.” We’ll see. This one is titled The North Shore Cookbook. It is a follow-up to…

Wednesday, 17 August 2011 14:22

Our unique geography leads to unusual names

About a year and a half ago I wrote a column titled “Mountain Topography and Language Lend Themselves to Colorful Names” that sparked a number of e-mails and letters. Obviously there are other folks out there who enjoy thinking about…

Wednesday, 10 August 2011 14:03

Late summer is an awesome time to botanize

Spring is the appointed time for the various wildflower pilgrimages and outings that attract thousands of visitors to the mountains of Western North Carolina each year. In April and May, it’s a piece of cake to locate spring beauty, hepatica,…

Wednesday, 03 August 2011 13:45

Add acreage to your spiritual landscape

Lots of folks like to study those molded relief maps of the region, the ones that show the upraised contours of the mountain ranges. Some have even pieced together the maps for the Southern Blue Ridge Province from Southwestern Virginia…

Wednesday, 31 December 2008 16:17

Winter wear

(Note: A version of this essay will appear in an upcoming issue of “Chinquapin: The Newsletter of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society,” for which George Ellison writes a quarterly Botanical Excursions column.) Several weeks ago, the nighttime temperature dropped below…

Wednesday, 17 December 2008 15:06

Taking a likin’ to the lichen

On a winter walk you will encounter numerous evergreen plants. None is more mysterious or delightful to behold than the lowly lichen. Except for pollution, nothing much disturbs lichens. They grow ever so slowly, as little as one millimeter a…

Wednesday, 03 December 2008 13:23

My birding through the warbler

It wasn’t until the late 1970s that my wife, Elizabeth, and I first started birding in a systematic fashion. That is, we began learning to distinguish species by their calls and songs as well as by their distinctive markings. For…

Wednesday, 27 July 2011 14:50

Charlie’s Bunion and early history of the park

(Editor’s note: This column first appeared in The Smoky Mountain News in July 2005.) Are you by chance looking for a high-elevation day-hike that embodies quite a bit of the region’s human history? If so, try the moderate to steep…

Wednesday, 20 July 2011 14:37

Constructing your own coffin

A portion of this Back Then column appeared in SMN in August 2004 as “A Box to Call Your Own.” It has been rewritten and expanded. The notes regarding ancient (pre-Cherokee) burial practices can be found online: www.handsontheland.org/HistoryExploration/cultural_comparison/archives.cfm?cl=death&site=&period=0) When…

Wednesday, 13 July 2011 12:56

‘Big Ice’ links flora and fauna here and in Asia

When walking a trail in the Smokies (or Nantahalas or Great Balsams or wherever) here in the southern Blue Ridge, I sometimes pause to observe the landscapes and flora and imagine that I’m in the mountains of northern Japan or…

Wednesday, 06 July 2011 11:37

The mystery of mountain ferns

Identifying ferns is an entirely different process than, say, identifying wildflowers or trees. They don't display flowers, showy fruits, or bark patterns. What they do display are myriad leaf (frond) forms and highly distinctive, if minute, spore cases. Once you…

Wednesday, 29 June 2011 19:57

Plant life distinct to the southern Blue Ridge

The elevations of the southern Blue Ridge province above 4,000 feet can be thought of as a peninsula of northern terrain extending into the southeastern United States, where typical flora and fauna of northeastern and southeastern North America intermingle. Through…

Wednesday, 22 June 2011 14:15

Blundering upon a Smokies icon

I’ve always been interested in the processes by which we discover things. Being a naturalist, I’m most interested in the processes by which entities like birds, plants, special places, etc., are located. I’m a firm believer that preparation generally pays…

Wednesday, 15 June 2011 13:26

Common ash tree deserves more attention

“How many thousand-thousand of untold white ash trees are the respected companions of our doorways, kindliest trees in the clearing beyond the cabin? No one can say. But this is a tree whose grave and lofty character makes it a…

Wednesday, 08 June 2011 20:41

Tasty right off the shrub

ELDERBERRY WINE There’s a fly in the window A dog in the yard And a year since I saw you … Feeling fine on elderberry wine. Those were the days We’d lay in the haze Forget depressive times Round a…

Wednesday, 01 June 2011 20:15

A voice heard in the distance

Rural residents know the yellow-billed cuckoo as the “rain crow” or “storm crow” because its guttural “ka-ka-kow-kow-kowlp-kowlp-kowlp” seems to be sounded just prior to a late evening thunderstorm. (The distinctive “kowlp-kowlp-kowlp” portion of the call sounds something like a small…

Thursday, 26 May 2011 04:53

Serpents elicit mixed responses among humankind

Serpents are among the world’s most storied creatures. We are at once attracted to and repelled by them. Many view them as the “personification” of evil. The ancient Cherokees portrayed the close relationship of good and evil in several of…

Wednesday, 18 May 2011 20:50

Magnolias not just a Deep South species

Mention magnolias and images of plantations and mint juleps come to mind. But here in Western North Carolina we have an array of magnolia species that thrive in an upland hardwoods setting. These trees are most noticeable, of course, in…

Wednesday, 11 May 2011 20:55

A treasure that deserves reprinted in 1933 ‘Guide’

More than a few readers of this column collect books associated with the Smokies region. A friend who spends most of his waking hours either fishing the backcountry trout waters in the Smokies or plotting ways to do so brought…

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 20:30

Native cougars no longer grace these mountains

Have you ever seen a mountain lion here in the Smokies region? I haven’t. In fact, the only one I’ve ever viewed outside of a zoo was somewhere near Crystal River, Fla., back in the early 1990s. It bounded out…

Wednesday, 27 April 2011 20:23

A look back at Kephart’s cabin

As part of this coming weekend’s third annual Horace Kephart Day, a group of 20 or so participants will visit Kephart’s cabin site on Hazel Creek, where he resided from 1904-1907. In that regard, I thought it would be appropriate…

Wednesday, 20 April 2011 12:33

New GSMNP visitor center is worth a trip

This past Friday (April 15) I attended the dedication ceremony for the new Oconaluftee Visitor Center on the North Carolina side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Cherokee. I wouldn’t normally enjoy a program made up of eight…

Wednesday, 13 April 2011 19:59

Book captures the essence of waterfalls

Flowing water was the primary agent that sculpted the mountains as we know them today. Long before the first Europeans arrived, the ancient Cherokees had developed ceremonials focused on the spiritual power of running water. One of the prized sites…

Wednesday, 06 April 2011 19:58

In the beginning… some very eloquent sentences

As I begin writing this it’s midnight, April 4-5, 2011. When insomnia strikes I always look for something to read. At times I just rummage around in various books rereading and studying familiar passages. Some were encountered in recent years…

Wednesday, 30 March 2011 19:46

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, and protrusions in the form of bracket fungi. Cankers are diseases in which lesions caused by a wide range of…

Wednesday, 23 March 2011 20:08

The rushing of wind through a hemlock

From my window, as I write this, I can see across the creek and down into a pasture where my wife’s horse is grazing. The creek and pasture are lined with trees and shrubs: maple, basswood, rosebay rhododendron, spicebush, beech,…

Wednesday, 21 January 2009 15:57

Getting to know liverworts

Some years ago, when I was first interested in plant identification, I became curious about liverworts. They are one of the distinctive plant groups (like fungi, lichens, mushrooms, etc.) without advanced vascular systems. The very name “liverwort” was intriguing, but…

Wednesday, 14 January 2009 14:38

An interested observer

omething banged against the office window above my desk. I assumed it was a bird of some sort. And since my office is upstairs over Main Street just off the town square in Bryson City — where the bird population…

Wednesday, 07 January 2009 13:51

Wolf lore

In the beginning, the people say, the dog was put on the mountain and the wolf beside the fire. When winter came the dog could not stand the cold, so he came down to the settlement and drove the wolf…

Wednesday, 16 March 2011 19:50

Cherokee’s own big fish legend

Editor’s note: This George Ellison column first appeared in The Smoky Mountain News in March 2005. “Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the Fish’s belly …. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the…

Wednesday, 09 March 2011 21:24

Archery lessons with James Dickey

During the course of a recent interview for a literary magazine, I was asked: While in grad school at the University of South Carolina, you began an association with James Dickey. What was it like to hang out with one…

Wednesday, 02 March 2011 21:16

Walking a mountain gives it life

Hiking a designated trail involves prescribed origins and destinations, whether it be a four-mile jaunt from Clingman’s Dome to Siler’s Bald in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park or a 2,000-mile trek from north Georgia to Maine along the Appalachian…

Wednesday, 23 February 2011 21:11

A first-hand account of the Indian wars

I spent some time last week reading about the 18th-century Indian wars in Western North Carolina. These were the Cherokee battles with the British along the Little Tennessee and Tuckaseigee rivers in 1760 and 1761, as well as the Rutherford…

Wednesday, 16 February 2011 21:02

Tragedy and the Ghost Dance’s demise

(Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series regarding the Cherokee Ghost Dance.) A recent column focused on a so-called Ghost Dance movement that took place among the Cherokees in 1811-13. That, of course, was almost 80 years…

Wednesday, 09 February 2011 20:47

Oil lamps are useful… and nostalgic

Editor’s note: The second installment in George Ellison’s research into the Ghost Dance has been delayed due to the inability to reach certain sources. Look for the article in next week’s Smoky Mountain News. This article first appeared in SMN…

Wednesday, 02 February 2011 21:22

Ghost Dance has a long history in Cherokee

(Note: This is part one of a two-part series regarding the Cherokee Ghost Dance. Part two will present Michelene Ethe Pesantubbee’s conclusions and perspectives on the movement.) The belief in the coming of a messiah, or deliverer, who shall restore…

Wednesday, 26 January 2011 21:25

Dogs that make our lives whole

If you don’t like dogs, come back next week. Dogs have been an integral part of my life since I was a boy. My first dog -– part something, part something else –- was named Rascal. He was my boyhood…

Wednesday, 19 January 2011 20:11

Nothing like old-time boardinghouses

Are there boardinghouses still operating here in the Smokies region? There are, of course, hotels, inns, bed-and-breakfasts, and motels galore. But I’m wondering about the true, old-fashioned boardinghouse, which flourished throughout the region until the middle of the 20th century.…

Wednesday, 12 January 2011 13:38

Coming across words to remember

Editor’s note: George Ellison is snowed in without an Internet connection. This column first appeared in The Smoky Mountain News in January 2003. Tuckaseigee, Oconaluftee, Heintooga, Wayah, Cullasaja, Hiwassee, Coweeta, Stecoah, Steestachee, Skeenah, Nantahala, Aquone, Katuwah, and on and on.…

Wednesday, 05 January 2011 21:02

Search Content

Most Popular