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The Naturalist's Corner: Even bad days can be good
Published: 2017-05-10 15:45:55This past weekend, May 6-7, was the 34th annual installment of the Great Smoky Mountains Birding Expedition (GSMBE.) The expedition began in 1984 as the brainchild of author, naturalist George Ellison of Bryson City, master birder Rick Pyeritz of Ashevil...
Read MoreMoonshine stills weren’t the only stills
Published: 2017-05-03 15:21:03All this spring, golden birch catkins were dangling throughout the woodlands of the Smokies region. These are the male, pollen-carrying part of the sweet birch (Betula lenta), also known as black, cherry, or mahogany birch. . They served as a reminder th...
Read MoreA fox sighting is always a delight
Published: 2017-04-05 15:52:06In the natural world here in the Blue Ridge, there are certain visual images that rivet the attention of human beholders. One such is a timber rattlesnake suddenly encountered in the wild. That sight literally galvanizes the senses. The vibrating rattle-...
Read MoreSpecial places define us
Published: 2017-03-22 16:42:11One never tires of discovering special places here in the southern mountains. Through the years, such places readily become old and reliable friends. . The little cove we live in several miles west of Bryson City is one such place. Surrounded on three si...
Read More‘Doc’ Bennett was truly a man of the mountains
Published: 2017-03-08 19:23:04I have files in my computer containing articles I’ve forgotten that I wrote until, by chance, I run across them while looking for something else. This one appeared in the Smoky Mountain Neighbors, a weekly tabloid published in the late 1980s into the 1...
Read MoreOld-time surveyors used some interesting tools, markers
Published: 2017-02-22 15:34:07“The line runs down the meander of the ridge to where Bossy dropped her first calf.” “The line runs to where a block of ice stood in the road.” “Proceed for about the distance it takes to smoke two cigarettes.” . Through the years, my wife an...
Read MoreThe copper run in the Great Smokies
Published: 2017-02-08 16:59:17The worldwide annual production of “high conductivity copper” had by 1899 risen to 470,000 tons, of which 300,000 tons were used in the burgeoning electrical industry to produce various types and gages of copper wire. . W.S. Adams — an investor bas...
Read MoreA search for Horace Kephart’s alcove
Published: 2017-01-25 16:25:58The setting for Horace Kephart’s posthumous novel Smoky Mountain Magic (2009) is the Cherokee Indian Reservation, Bryson City and Deep Creek — places familiar to most readers of this column. The main character, John Carrabus, spends much of his time ...
Read MorePainting helps Swain County artist heal
Published: 2017-01-18 15:29:10Barbara Robinson can find artistic inspiration wherever she may be. Sometimes it’s looking out over Frye Mountain from her art studio window at home, while at other times perhaps a particular barn she spots while driving through Swain County will pique...
Read MoreNothing like old-time boardinghouses
Published: 2017-01-11 17:27:37Editor’s note: This column first appeared in The Smoky Mountain News in January 2011. 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 ab...
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