I look at this photo of New Found Gap taken with my cell phone and think: This is like viewing the splendor of the Smokies through a cardboard tube. It just doesn’t capture the breath-taking beauty of the mountain range. The Cherokees called the mountains “blue, like smoke” which gives a sense of their ethereal majesty.
When you look from an observation pullout on New Found Gap, you see layer after layer of upward graceful curves in the distance, and you are reminded of the “Misty Mountains” projected on the screen for Lord of the Rings. They are a wonder. But I cannot transcribe the glory of traveling through the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains Park , a beautiful morning’s drive on a clear day.
Admittedly the spare tourist refuge of Cherokee, NC is an anti-climax after this. With a casino and dozens of Indian craft and souvenir shops, Cherokee can be a disappointment. We enjoyed the buffet at Granny’s Kitchen, but it was standard Thanksgiving fare. No venison in sight.
The Cherokee Museum is more instructive and traces the tribal history from the “archaic” and “mastodon” periods to the present. You can appreciate that a civilization existed in the Smoky Mountains and valleys before the white man shoved it into Arkansas and Oklahoma.
“The Museum of the Cherokee Indian is an interpretive site on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. Exhibits tell the story of the Trail of Tears through artifacts, artwork, audio narration, and life-sized figures.”
“Experience 13,000 years of Cherokee history, from the time when mastodons roamed the southern Appalachians to the present day. This story is told through computer generated animation and special effects, life-sized figures, artwork, and priceless artifacts.”
We are learning how the Native peoples of the United States were terrorized and removed by the intruding White people. Our American history textbooks did not give an objective view of the Cherokees and their battle to save their land. Here is commentary from James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me:
All recent textbooks tell how Andrew Jackson and John Marshall waged a titanic struggle over Georgia’s attempt to subjugate the Cherokees. Chief Justice Marshall found for the Cherokees, whereupon President Jackson ignored the Court, reputedly with the words, “ John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” But no textbook brings any suspense to the issue as one of the dominant questions throughout our first century as a nation. None tells how several Christian denominations–Quakers, Shakers, Moravians, some Presbyterians– and a faction of the Whig Party mobilized public opinion on behalf of fair play for the Native Americans. By ignoring the Whigs, textbooks make the Cherokee removal seem inevitable, another example of unacculturated aborigines helpless in the way of progress. (p. 132)
Early in the conflict with Georgia, some of the Cherokees retreated into the Smokies and hid from the troops attempting to herd them west. Many later remained in North Carolina and became known as the “Eastern Cherokees,” whereas those who were pushed into Arkansas and Oklahoma were known as the “Western Cherokees.”
On the trip north back through the Park, the traffic stopped for three elk casually crossing the road. One female elk paused on the median for a snack, and she is the only one who stood still long enough to photograph.
It was one of those extraordinary days when photographs did not capture the joy and depth of the occasion. You know, you really had to be there.