Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CherokeeIndianinwardressforfivedollars,butnotmanypeopleseemedinterestedinthis
and the model Indians sat slumped in chairs looking as listless as the bears. I don't think I
had ever been to a place quite so ugly, and it was jammed with tourists, almost all of them
also ugly-fat people in noisy clothes with cameras dangling on their bellies. Why is it, I
wondered idly as I nosed the car through the throngs, that tourists are always fat and dress
like morons?
Then, abruptly, before I could give the question the consideration it deserved, I was out of
Cherokeeandinthenationalparkandallthegarishnessceased.Peopledon'tliveinnation-
al parks in America as they do in England. They are areas of wilderness often of enforced
wilderness. The Smoky Mountains were once full of hillbillies who lived in cabins up in
the remote hollows, up among the clouds, but they were moved out and now the park is
sterile asfarashumanactivities go.Insteadoftryingtopreserveanancient wayoflife,the
park authorities eradicated it. So the dispossessed hillbillies moved down to valley towns
at the park's edge and turned them into junkvilles selling crappy little souvenirs. It seems
a very strange approach to me. Now a few of the cabins are preserved as museum pieces.
There was one at a visitors' center just inside the park, which I dutifully stopped to have
a look at. It was exactly like the cabins at the Lincoln village at New Salem in Illinois. I
had not realized that it is actually possible to overdose on log cabins, but as I drew near the
cabin I began to feel a sudden onset of brainstem death and I retreated to the car after only
the briefest of looks.
The Smoky Mountains themselves were a joy. It was a perfect October morning. The road
led steeply up through broadleaved forests of dappled sunshine, full of paths and streams,
andthenhigherup,openedouttoairyvistas.Allalongtheroadthroughtheparktherewere
lookout points where you could pull the car over and go “ooh!” and “wow!” at the views.
They were all named for mountain passes that sounded like condominium developments
for yuppies-Pigeon Gap, Cherry Cove, Wolf Mountain, Bear Trap Gap. The air was clear
and thin and the views were vast. The mountains rolled away to a distant horizon, gently
shading from rich green to charcoal blue to hazy smoke. It was a sea of trees-like looking
out over a landscape from Colombia or Brazil, so virginal was it all. In all the rolling vast-
nesstherewasnotasinglesignofhumanity,notowns,nowatertowers,noplumeofsmoke
from a solitary farmstead. It was just endless silence beneath a bright sky, empty and clear
apart from one distant bluish puff of cumulus, which cast a drifting shadow over a far-off
hill.
The Oconaluftee Highway across the park is only thirty miles long, but it is so steep and
winding that it took me all morning to cross it. By 10 A.M. there was a steady stream
of cars in both directions, and free spaces at the lookout points were hard to find. This
