The 27th annual Taste of Scotland Festival will be held June 19-21 at a variety of locations around Franklin.

The festival is a celebration of the heritage brought to these mountains, that of the Scots and Scots-Irish, along with celebrating the historic relationships with the Cherokee.

A prominent regional storyteller, Davy Arch will join the “Conversations with Storytellers’ series at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 11, at Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center in Waynesville.

Arch tells Cherokee stories and presents lectures on Cherokee history and culture. He also demonstrates carving, flint knapping and mask making. Using artwork from different mediums, he describes both Cherokee history and contemporary Cherokee life. 

A first-of-its-kind exhibition centering Native voices, perspectives and creativity in response to the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, the exhibition “Unrelenting: Cherokee People and the American Revolution” is currently being showcased at the Museum of the Cherokee People (MotCP) in Cherokee. 

There is a Cherokee legend where an elder tells his grandson a story about two wolves. It goes something like this. 

“Son, within all of us is a battle of two wolves. One is evil. He is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.”  

A new Office of Internal Audit and Ethics report investigating Qualla Enterprises LLC Board of Managers, received June 8 by the Cherokee One Feather, determined managers Morgan Owle-Crisp, Jacob Reed and Albert Rose had not breached the Eastern Band’s Code of Ethics.

Friends, family and allies dressed in red, some with signs like “no more stolen sisters” and “gun violence is on the rise,” gathered on May 5 at Oconaluftee Island Park. They’d shown up for the Qualla Boundary’s seventh annual missing and murdered Indigenous relatives/people march, coinciding with national week of action events across the country in communities impacted by what some scholars describe as a “a modern form of genocide.”  

When Patrick Lambert first sat down to write his book “The River: A Cherokee Principal Chief’s Fight for Family, Truth, and Vindication” in 2024, he intended it to be about personal finance. 

Somewhere along the way, he ditched the original theme, opting for a more vulnerable story. Lambert, former principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, decided to share his perspective about his 2015-2017 tenure and why it was cut two years short. But he also wanted to talk about growing up, dropping out of high school, getting a law degree, building a casino regulatory framework from scratch — all as much a part of his life as his impeachment, the main thing he feels he’s been remembered for.

Tribal council on May 7 took multiple steps to protect Qualla Boundary rivers and forests, both through supporting land management practices and standing against environmental harm. Among those was a resolution “supporting the removal of Ela Dam and the restoration of Longperson” — which called the dam “obsolete” and noted that it “impairs our watershed.” 

An April 25 Qualla Boundary town hall about data centers, featuring three speakers instrumental in the fight against hyperscale expansion on Indigenous land, both generated support for a tabled tribal council moratorium and explained the myriad ways these facilities can harm environments and cultures alike.  

As the weather gets nicer and spring slowly transitions to those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, a bevy of longtime and beloved festivals start to pop up in the picturesque mountain communities here in Western North Carolina. 

These annual gatherings are a way to bring all of us together after an extended period of hunkering down during the winter months. Filled with locals and visitors alike, all those present partake in numerous activities and avenues to support those in your town.