Stuck in a stinky situation
Hopefully, any encounter you have with a skunk will be a sighting, not a spraying. Neither my wife nor I…
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Squirrel stories
It seems to me that the general reputation of squirrels has declined within my own lifetime. I don’t recall hearing…
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Cast out the castor
The gardening season is upon us. Many gardeners here in the Smokies region are familiar with mole bean plant, also…
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The doghobble’s claim to fame
Whenever I’m conducting a native plant identification workshop, I try to note several regional plants — one each in the…
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The Asian connection
I’ve never been to Asia, but ever since I was a youngster I have, from time to time, fantasized about…
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Mountain lion lore
I frequently hear from people who have spotted a mountain lion in Western North Carolina. Or at least they think…
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The Underground Panthers
A hunter was in the woods one day in winter when suddenly he saw a panther coming toward him and…
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Table Mountain pine
Have you ever been walking one of the wind-swept, sun-bitten, high-elevation rock outcrops in the Smokies region when you suddenly…
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Gilfillan’s Burnt House to Paw Paw
Several weeks ago I was perusing the used bookstores in Asheville, where there are, somewhat surprisingly, at least four excellent…
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Lyon was among WNC’s notable botanist
Andre and Francois Michaux, and John Fraser, and soon to be followed by Thomas Nuttall, Asa Gray, and Moses Ashley…
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Civil War in the Smokies
The war in the Smokies proved to be an intensely personal conflict. A curious conjunction of terrain, history, politics and…
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Mystery of the coveted mad stone
Last week’s Back Then column described a deer hunt conducted by Quill Rose and his relatives and neighbors in the…
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The thrill of the chase lives on
Through the years, I’ve written at every opportunity about Aquilla (Quill) Rose — Civil War veteran, fiddle player, storyteller, moonshiner,…
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A locust by any other name
I’m fairly good at the identification of deciduous trees during the flowering and fruiting seasons, when one can observe bark,…
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The grumpy traveler department
From time to time, I’ve contemplated compiling an anthology of travel writing from Western North Carolina. Such a volume would…
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Time to think about gardening in ‘06
Have you started making your 2006 gardening plans yet? It’s time. The garden catalogs started arriving in the mail several…
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James Mooney’s devotion to WNC
For 36 years, from the time he launched his career with the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1885 until his…
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The little things in life
I’m sure you’ve noticed it’s the little things that, in the long run, mean the most in life? That’s a…
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Traditional Cherokee dyes
“Woven goods—baskets and mats—document what women did, when, and how. They illuminate the work of women who transformed the environments…
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The boats that once plied mountain waters
When one thinks about navigation in regard to the rivers here in the Smokies region, its old-time ferries and modern-day…
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A long tradition of greenery and Christmas
Christmas greenery is a Southern Appalachian specialty. This region has been furnishing the eastern United States with quantities of various…
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Making use of natural surroundings
When the Cherokees emerged as a distinctive culture more than a thousand years ago, they situated themselves so as to…
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Requiem for a heavyweight
The eastern hemlock has long been one of my favorite trees. Like many people reading this column, my wife, Elizabeth,…
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Poetic license never hurts a good tale
Accounts of events always vary, especially when one is supposedly factual and one is admittedly fictional. Here's an instance.
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More than armchair historians
Every regular reader of this column has an interest in this region’s history. But most of us are, more or…
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