Category: Appalachian Mountains
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Before funeral homes became common in the mountains, families brought their dead home, kept watch through the night, and fed the people who came through the door. I grew up in the rural mountains of Western North Carolina, and some of my earliest memories of death happened inside family homes. In the 1970s, both of…
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National parks across Appalachia give millions of people a place to drive, hike, explore, and experience these mountains firsthand. The Blue Ridge Parkway carries travelers through miles of mountain scenery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park draws visitors into forests and valleys, and New River Gorge brings people to trails, bridges, and historic places. Keeping these…
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A federal grant program meant to help farmers gain access to land, equipment and markets was cut in the spring. A court ruling has restored some of the money, yet many Appalachian farmers are still waiting to see what comes next. Farming in Appalachia has never been an easy way to make a living. The…
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How Appalachian food went from necessity to something a fancy restaurant might charge you to discover Some of the foods that tell you the most about where you come from are the ones you never thought twice about eating. For me, squirrel gravy belongs near the top of that list. I grew up in western…
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Washington can spend lavishly on presidential grandeur while asking poor Americans to accept cuts to the programs that help them survive. In Appalachia and across the country, people understand a hard winter. Especially these days. They understand what it means to watch the temperature drop while an electric meter keeps turning and a monthly check…
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Cherokee National Forest Faces a New Fight Over Its Roadless Lands The Cherokee National Forest covers some 660,000 acres across East Tennessee, stretching from the Virginia line south toward Georgia and forming one of the largest pieces of public land in the state. Its mountains hold headwater streams, steep coves, hardwood forests and some of…
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September comes to Appalachia with a change in the air. The change begins high along the ridges, where the first nights of cold reach the trees before the valleys feel them, and by dawn the hollers hold a thin white fog that drifts above the pastures and settles along the creek bottoms. Summer remains in…
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Dolly Parton, Wendell Berry, and the Appalachia that raised me There are losses that belong to a family, losses that belong to a town, and then there are losses that seem to reach across an entire world. This week has brought me two of those losses. First came Dolly Parton, whose death on August 25…
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A mountain range carries no awareness of where a state ends. It gives no attention to borders drawn across a map, changes no part of its character at a checkpoint, and asks no question about whether the people living along its slopes call themselves American or Canadian. The Appalachian Mountains have followed their ancient course…
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Growing up in Spillcorn, a little community tucked back in the hills outside Marshall, the apple tree that meant the most to us grew wild along the dirt road heading up to the cemetery. Family only ever had one name for it. Crow Egg. Tart and red with speckles on them all over, and when…
Echoes of Appalachia 