The Majesty of Trees

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May 19th 2011

Published: February 17th 2012

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Great Smoky Mountains

Central Great Smoky Mountains, as seen from the trail from Clingman's Dome.

Today is my first day in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

It’s the most popular national park in the US.

Part of the reason is that many of the land gifts for the park came on the condition that it would never charge an entrance fee.

People think the park was created to preserve the mountains.

It was actually created to preserve what is ON the mountains, the most biologically diverse environment in the United States.

The Smoky Mountains contain the widest range of climate zones in the eastern United States, and they were beyond the reach of the glaciers during the last ice age.

The natural result is that these mountains contain a wider variety of plants and animals than anywhere else in the country, and many of them are endangered.

It also contains the most old-growth forest east of the Mississippi.

Today, I head into that wonder.

Museum of the Cherokee

Before doing so, I explored something nearly as old as the mountains themselves, Cherokee culture.

The Cherokee Indians have lived at the foot of the Smoky Mountains for thousands of years.

Many of them now live in a town called Cherokee.

Much

Welcome to Cherokee

A typical scene in downtown Cherokee

of it is now a cheesy tourist trap aimed at travelers heading to the national park; the gift shops, hotels, and attractions are Indian themed (and Indian owned) but cheesy none the less.

Mixed in are much better things, of which the best is the Museum of the Cherokee.

It tells the story of the tribe, from their own point of view.

The museum has three main focuses: Cherokee culture, Cherokee crafts, and Cherokee history.

They are woven together through the exhibits.

I found the first two the most interesting, because they are the part I haven’t seen elsewhere.

The displays open with a short film.

It’s shown in a building designed to look like an old Cherokee house.

The film tells several Cherokee myths.

The first, and most important, is the creation myth.

At the birth of the world, the entire globe was water, except for an island in the air.

All animals, including humans, lived on the island.

They sent out the Great Buzzard to scout for more land to live on.

There wasn’t any.

The bird then flew very close to the water,

Sequoyah Statue

Statue of Sequoyah, the creator of the Cherokee written language. It is carved from a single log of the tree named after him, the sequoia.

and whatever it touched became solid land.

Where it kept its wings flat and soared became plains, and where it flapped its wings hard became mountains.

The highest of all became the Great Smoky Mountains, the Cherokee heartland.

Another important myth is the gift of fire.

The first fire in the word happened when a great tree on an island exploded into flame.

The animals got together to find a way to fetch the flame for themselves.

One by one they went over to the island, and everyone was burnt.

Finally, the little water spider took a turn.

When the spider got to the island, she spun a basket from her web.

She used the basket to pick up an ember, and brought it back.

This myth has two messages: one can be great regardless of physical standing, and basket makers should be held with highest respect.

It’s no coincidence that the Cherokee are still considered some of the best basket weavers in the world.

After the film, the exhibits are arranged chronologically.

Myths and stories are interwoven throughout.

Corn

Historic Cherokee baskets

Historic baskets at the Museum of the Cherokee. They rank among the best Native American artwork in the United States.

is now considered the American Indians staple plant, but it really didn’t appear until fairly late historically.

Trade brought corn from Mexico, which had to then be bred by local farmers to find a variety that could survive the climate.

Corn was held to be a sacred food, and a purification ceremony had to be performed before eating it.

This section has entire walls of crafts.

Cherokee men were skilled carvers, and created everything from hunting tools to ceremonial bowls.

Cherokees were also skilled potters.

Pride of place, of course, belongs to baskets.

The museum has dozens of examples, from both historic and current artists.

Most of them are so well made they are watertight.

Cherokee life, and the museum displays, changes with European settlement.

The English viewed the Cherokee as trading partners.

Deerskin was hugely popular in Europe, and the English traded goods for skins.

While this brought many new things to Cherokee life (the most important being shotguns), the museum also points out trade had the effect of making the Cherokee dependent on the English.

Eventually, several

Cherokee Alphabet

A display of the Cherokee alphabet, designed by Sequoyah

groups of Cherokee leaders sailed to England and met English politicians.

The most important was Attakullakulla, a chief who served as a liaison with English settlers for a half century.

This section has an exhibit on the man who may be the most famous Cherokee of all, Sequoyah.

He developed the Cherokee written language.

He, like all Cherokees, was illiterate.

He noticed how the English traders had writing, and how it allowed them to keep records.

He decided to create something similar for the Cherokee.

Spoken Cherokee words have a very specific sound pattern, starting with a consonant and ending with a vowel.

He split the words into their phonemes, and created symbols to match.

Cherokee is one of the few written languages where every word is spelled exactly like it sounds.

Things changed after American Independence.

American settlers wanted land, and saw the Cherokee as a hindrance.

It culminated with the election of Andrew Jackson (see Life on the Frontier of Change) in 1828.

Jackson maneuvered the Indian Removal Act through Congress a year later, which authorized the US Army to remove all Indian tribes east

Trail of Tears

A portion of the diorama showing the horror of the Trail of Tears

of the Mississippi to what is now Oklahoma.

The museum has an entire room discussing how the tribe responded to these events.

Certain factions believed the best course of action was to cut the best deal they could, while others were determined to stay in the mountains forever.

One of these factions, called the Treaty Party, cut a deal with the US government in 1835 to leave in return for twenty million dollars (which was a lot of money at the time) and help with resettlement.

Even though only a minority of Cherokee had signed this treaty, Jackson used it as the pretext to remove the entire tribe.

The majority resisted.

The war was brutal and short.

Very quickly, soldiers rounded up all Cherokee they could find and confined them to army forts.

The museum describes them as concentration camps, and has enough eyewitness accounts from missionaries and others to make a good case.

From here, tribe members were forced to walk west.

This event ultimately became known as the Trail of Tears.

The museum has a map of the route.

Conditions

William Thomas

William Thomas, the lawyer who helped hundreds of Cherokee remain in their traditional homeland. They formed the nucleus of the current tribe.

were brutal, and over half the tribe members died.

Prepare for a serious gut punch while viewing this part of the museum.

All this brings up an important question: given that the Cherokee were removed, how are they still here? The museum has the answers.

One reason is that many tribe members hid deep in the mountains, evading US Army patrols for over a decade.

Soldiers did catch some, which they then publically executed as a warning to others still in hiding.

An equally important reason is the work of two men, a chief called Yonaguska and a lawer named William Thomas.

Thomas had grown up in Cherokee territory as the son of a white trader, and knew the tribe members well.

Yonaguska, who refused to leave the Smoky Mountains, turned to him for help.

He discovered a loophole in the treaty.

It allowed tribe members to renounce their membership and become US citizens.

Once naturalized, they had the right to own personal property, anywhere they wanted.

Through skillful maneuvering, Will Thomas managed to obtain roughly two million of the treaty payment.

Yonaguska and

Western North Carolina from Clingman's Dome

The mountains of western North Carolina, seen from the parking lot for the Clingman's Dome trail. The view faces southwest

his followers then used this money to buy land at the foot of the Smoky Mountains.

The state of North Carolina quickly figured out what was going on, and used endless maneuvers to try to stop them.

Thomas managed to defeat the attempts.

It took a decade, but a thousand Cherokee individuals ended up owning land.

They called their settlement the Qualla Boundary.

In 1902, this settlement was officially recognized as an Indian Reservation, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee could once again become an official tribe.

It is now the largest Indian reservation east of the Mississippi.

The museum finishes with a discussion of modern Cherokee life.

Its important point is that the tribe, and its culture, has survived.

Traditions are still passed from generation to generation as they always have.

This is symbolized by a sacred wampum belt from the early 1700s, which legend states will never break as long as the tribe lives.

It has survived at least one fire.

The belt was lost for a century after the Trail of Tears, but was finally found in Oklahoma.

Newfound

Dying fir trees

Dying fir tree forest along the Clingman's Dome trail.

Gap

After Cherokee, I headed into the park.

I took the road that virtually every visitor drives at some point, Newfound Gap.

It passes directly over the range, and is the most direct route into the high peaks.

Along the way, it passes through many different climate zones, thanks to changes in elevation.

As every guide book likes to say, the drive starts in North Carolina, and ends up in northern Canada.

The change in vegetation is noticeable from the road.

It starts of as a lush deciduous forest.

Heading up, colder deciduous trees such as maple and oak take over.

These in turns are replaced by birch and pine.

Finally, the slopes are covered in hardy fir trees.

I need to point out that in an open car the temperature drop is as noticeable as the changing scenery.

Clingman's Dome

The drive culminates at Newfound Gap.

It has a huge view into North Carolina, and a smaller one into Tennessee.

At this point, a traveler has a choice to make.

A spur road climbs very close to the highest mountain

Intact fir forest

Living fir forest along the Appalachian Trail near Clingman's Dome

in the park (and the third highest in the eastern US), Clingman’s Dome.

Newfound Gap gives a good idea of what conditions will be like up there.

It was clear enough that I went up.

Reaching territory like this by car is very rare.

The road terminates at a cold rocky parking lot with a view to die for.

It covered western North Carolina from Asheville to the western border.

Mountains stretched in all directions.

As it turned out, this was the best view I would have that day.

From the parking lot, a paved trail heads up the actual dome.

It tends to take a while to hike.

The trail is steep, for one thing.

It’s also at high altitude, and many people are not used to the thinner air.

I had enough mountain hiking experience that I adjusted pretty quickly.

The trail goes through fir forests.

A large percentage of the older trees are dead.

This is mainly due to a parasite from Europe, the balsam woolly adelgid, which is eating and killing the trees.

Mixed in with

Clingman's Dome observation tower

The surreal spaceship like observation tower at the top of Clingman's Dome

the dead trees are younger alive ones, along with birch trees and berry bushes.

Near the top of the dome, a rocky path splits off the main trail.

It quickly connects with the Appalachian Trail.

I enjoyed the path because it goes through one of the only patches of fir forest which is still intact.

This forest is old growth.

Underneath the trees were downed logs which were covered in moss.

Back on the main path, it reaches the observation tower at the top of the dome.

The tower was built in the 1950s, and looks it.

The tower itself looks vaguely like a space ship.

A long curving ramp spirals from the tower to the ground.

Surrounded by dead fir forest, it looked really out of place.

The view from the top was a disappointment.

As it turns out, a cold front was passing through Eastern Tennessee at the moment.

That side of the view consisted entirely of fog.

The North Carolina view looked exactly like what was visible in the parking lot.

The hike was worth taking for the

My first bear sighting

The first wild bear of this trip. Look for the black lump in the center of the photo, to the left of the tree stump. I took this with camera zoom.

environment, not the view.

One the way down the trail, I had a rite of passage moment.

All National Park guidebooks, and many visitors, talk about bear sightings.

It reaches the point where a park visit feels somehow incomplete without one.

Great Smokey Mountains is one of the best parks to see a bear, because it has one of the highest densities of black bears in the system, two per square mile.

One the way down the trail, I noticed a gaggle of people along the side of the path.

They were excitedly talking and clicking cameras.

The seasoned park visitor recognizes this immediately as a wildlife jam (see Jungle Paradise).

When I got there, I finally saw my first wild bear.

It was roughly one hundred yards away from the trail (the minimum safe distance, it’s worth noting) eating berries.

I felt a combination of excitement and fear.

Bears are majestic animals, which can kill very quickly when provoked.

Heading down from Newfound Gap, the journey is reversed from going up, for the most part.

The view is not as

Chimney Tops Picnic Area

Beautiful building from the Civilian Conservation Corps at the Chimney Tops Picnic Area

good, however.

This part of the road follows a river valley, where the trees block the view.

Cove Hardwoods Trail

Those trees are the reason for my next stop.

These valleys feature deep soil and lots of rain.

They produced lush forests that were stunning until they were cut by early settlers.

Some parts of this old growth survived until it was protected by the park.

The Cove Hardwoods trail goes through one of them.

The trail starts at the Chimney Tops Picnic Area, which was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

Some of the buildings feature beautiful stone architecture.

The trail goes up the hillside and into a ravine.

It follows the ravine for a while and then climbs a ridge.

It then reaches a second stream in a wide valley, which it then follows up the mountainside.

Until this point, the forest has been second growth.

The trees here are dense, and they all have small trunks.

When the trail reaches the valley, it’s now in old growth.

It takes a bit of time to

Young forest along the Cove Hardwoods trail

Typical second growth forest along the Cove Hardwoods trail. Note the dense trees with small trunks, and the heavy undergrowth.

notice the differences, but it soon becomes obvious.

The trees here reach to the sky.

They block out all light, except for small shafts.

The trees are also much further apart.

More importantly, they are all different sizes.

Big old trees and younger skinnier ones are mixed together, instead of only the skinny trees from earlier.

Lastly, there is very little understory, except for the occasional lilac bush.

The tall trees block out the needed light.

Being in this forest was a profound experience for me.

This forest has been here undisturbed for literally thousands of years.

Remember that these mountains were never covered by glaciers.

I felt like a visitor to another time.

There was no wind, so the forest was almost silent.

I felt I had reached a truly sacred space.

In the eastern United States, there are very few places like this left.

Dixie Stampede

My final site for the night provided the biggest contrast possible to what I had seen before: Pigeon Forge.

This Tennessee town has been making money off visitors to the park

Old growth along the Cove Hardwoods Trail

Old growth forest along the Cove Hardwoods Trail. Note the wide range of tree sizes, the relatively open space, and little undergrowth.

since it was founded.

The best way to describe it is to start with a typical lowbrow beach resort.

Make it larger, much tackier, and stick it in a mountain valley; and one has Pigeon Forge.

Any sort of cheesy entertainment imaginable (and some that should never have been imagined) are available here somewhere.

For better or worse, the town is an unmissable (and nearly unavoidable) side of the Smokey Mountains experience.

I knew early on that I would not be able to take much of Pigeon Forge, and needed to be very selective about what I chose to see.

I ultimately chose the Dixie Stampede dinner show.

It’s one of many attractions were people eat dinner (almost always Southern cooking of some sort) while watching a live performance.

Dixie Stampede is owned by singer (and Country Hall of Fame member) Dolly Parton.

She grew up around here, so it has a slight authenticity that most others lack.

Be warned in advance that for people who don’t like her music, a visit here will trigger a heart attack.

The food was average.

The show was significantly

Cove stream

a plant-filled stream along the Cove Hardwoods trail.

above that.

It’s a horse riding showcase, with some incredible stunt work thrown in.

One rider stands up in the saddle and then jumps over a flaming fence.

Another catches and releases an aerialist suspended from the ceiling by a wire.

In one segment, cowboys herd actually buffalo through the arena.

The show features a pig race, a chicken race, and even a hobby horse race (with participants selected from the audience).

Tying it all together is a vague story about the settling of the American West.

When Dolly herself appears on video at the end to sing her tribute to the American pioneer spirit, visitors either want to either cheer in their seats or throw up.

I personally considered the show as fun as a visit to a state fair, compressed into ninety minutes.

Sure, it’s corny as heck, but the participants are aware of this and embrace it fully.

The people behind World of Coca Cola (see Atlanta Glamour and Surrealism) could learn from this place.

In Pigeon Forge, there is only one appropriate lodging, a motel from the fifties with enough neon to cause eye damage and

Welcome to Pigeon Forge

A typical street scene in Pigeon Forge. Pull out the cheese grater and prepare to have fun!

prices that look like misprints.

Unfortunately, an internet search revealed that every hotel of this type remaining is also a roach trap.

I went with the next best thing, an independent hotel from the early seventies that has been lovingly kept up but otherwise unchanged.

I stayed at the Valley Forge Inn.

It says something about Pigeon Forge that the folder my room key came in also held a packet of coupons for local attractions.

Additional photos below

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