Now & Then

Exploring the Great Smokey Mountains

I’m more of a hill person than I am a mountaineer, but it was very interesting to me to visit the Great Smokey Mountains in western North Carolina several weeks ago. We made our church’s retreat center on Lake Junaluska our headquarters for the several days we were in the area, and each day we would strike out on a day trip to a different destination.

Lake Junaluska is named for a chief of the Cherokee Indians from back in the early 1800s. Our church has a large training and retreat center along the western edge of the lake, with cabins, museums, bookstores, motels and educational facilities. Chief Junaluska in the first decade of the 17th century led his people in seeking peaceful and positive relationships with the white settlers who were coming into the southeast states, including helping General Andrew Jackson in putting down the aggressive “Red Stick” Creek Indian warriors in the decisive battle of Horseshoe Bend, Ala., in 1814, bringing an end to the War of 1812.

But Chief Junaluska was to be hugely disappointed when General Jackson became president of the United States, and initiated the massive Indian Relocation of the 1830s, now remembered as the Cherokee Trail of Tears. Most of the Cherokee people and the Indians of other tribes from the Carolinas, Georgia and Alabama were relocated to Oklahoma Indian territory.

However, while we were in the Great Smokies, I learned that today there is a Cherokee Indian Reservation in the area. It seems that not all the Cherokees were rounded up and relocated in 1837. Some took to the remote high mountain areas, and were able to survive there, thereby succeeding in staying on a part of their ancient homeland.

In later presidential administrations, these eastern Cherokees were able to win official U.S. recognition for the Cherokee Reservation which exists today in the Great Smokey Mountains and the Oconaluftee River Valley.

One of the main Cherokee towns in the area is named Cherokee, N.C., perhaps not surprisingly.

It is quite a tourist town, with many shops catering to travelers and vacationers. Along State Hwy. 19, between Cherokee and the little town of Maggie Valley, is a huge Harrah’s Casino. We avoided that place, but it was obvious that a huge number of tourists stop in there to be relieved of some of their money. We spent several hours at the Museum of the Cherokee Indians, a rather new and very interesting place, very informative about the life and culture of the Cherokees in these mountains and river valleys.

Cherokee, N.C., has the distinction of being located at the end of two major parkways. The Blue Ridge Parkway extending south and west from the state of Virginia comes to an end at Cherokee, and the GreatSmokey Mountain Parkway extends from I-40 east of Knoxville, Tenn., southwards through Gatlinburg and comes to its southern end at Cherokee, N.C.

Some of our most scenic drives were on the Parkway leading north and west from Cherokee, N.C.

I found myself fascinated with the mountain streams. I took lots of camera shots of the water cascading over rocks and outcroppings, forming white water in places and small waterfalls in others. Just as I always enjoyed being on Otter Creek at home, it was real fun to me to listen to the waters of those mountain streams, sometimes with little rippling sounds, and sometimes with the roar of a torrent.

I also really enjoy looking out from the heights of the mountains. The feeling of vastness doessomething to you just in the looking. I think at the height of the Smokies, at Clingman’s Dome, we were at about 6,400 feet elevation. That’s getting up there. From those heights, one is also aware of being away from most of the signs of civilization, other than the roads, the vehicles and the few park structures. It is hard to imagine how the Cherokees of the 1830s managed to survive there. They would not have been able to grow much to eat. They must have found small animals and birds to hunt for food. Just being in the mountains is restful and inspiring; but it is hard to imagine how a people could succeed in living out there in that wild.

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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history.

He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Community, Pages 5 on 08/03/2011