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WCU - Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

Smoke Rings from the Smokies

  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10993.jp2
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  • “Smoke Rings from the Smokies” is a short article by Lockey Powers about a bear hunt recalled by Horace Kephart in his book “Our Southern Highlanders.” Horace Kephart (1862-1931) was a noted naturalist, woodsman, journalist, and author and promoter of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Kephart’s “Camping and Woodcraft” was first published 1906; “Our Southern Highlanders” was published in 1913.
  • Kephart, Horace ( From Bowman Estate. Source and date unknown Smoke Rings From The Smokies Bits of News, Features and Comment Concerning the Land of the Great Smoky Mountain? J£K mal Park By &.*,« LOCKEY POWERS Horace Kephart in his book "Our Southern Highlanders" tells his interesting experiences on a bear hunt with some mountaineers, in the Smoky Mountains. They started early. "There was still no sign of rose- color in the eastern sky when we sallied forth. The ground to use mountaineer's expression was 'all spewed up with frost/ Rime crackled underfoot, and our mustaches soon stiffened with the icy wind." Kephart writes that he was given a stand, and the others moved off. "By jinks, it was cold! I built a little fire between the buttressing roots of a big mountain oak, but still my toes and fingers were numb." The hunt took place in November, and sometimes the Smokies have frost in July . .. not a usual thing, however. Kephart was astounded by the few clothes the mountaineers could get along with in the cold weather. Some mountaineers can sleep out all night with no extra clothes, and the ground will be frozen, and the trees coated with rime. Well, we get soft in the city. "Away out yonder beyond the mighty bulk of Clingman Dome which, clack with spruce and balsam, looked like a vast bear rising to contemplate the northern world, there streaked the first faint, nebulous hint of dawn. Presently the big bear's head was tipped with a golden crown flashing against the scarlet fires of the firmament, and the earth awoke." Isn't that a perfect description of the early morning? Kephart continues with a little of the wild life around him. "A rustling some hundred yards below me gave signal that the gray squirrels were on their way to water. Out of a tree overhead hopped a mountain 'boomer' (red squirrel), and down he came, eyed me and stopped. Cocking his head to one side he challenged peremptorily: 'Who are you? Stump? Not a stump. What the deuce?' I moved my hand and away he scampered. "Somewhere from the sky came a strange, half-human note as of someone chiding: 'Wallace, Wallace, Wat!' I could get no view of the trees. Then the voice flexibly changed to a deep-toned 'Cologne, | Cologne, Cologne' that rang like a bell through the forest aisles. "Two names uttered distinctly from the air! Two scenes conjured in a breath, vivid but unrelated as in dreams: Wallace ... an iron- bound Scottish coast; Cologne . . . tall spires, and the cliffs along the Rhine. What magic had flashed such pictures upon a remote summit of the Smokies? "The weird speaker sailed into view ... a raven. Forward it swept with great speed of ebon wings, fairly with gunshot for one teasing moment. Then, as if to mock my gaping stupor, it hurtled like a hawk far into the safe distance, whence it flung back loud screams of defiance and chuckles of derision. "Aye, it was good to be alive, and to be far, far away from the broken bottles and the old tin cans of civilization, "For many a league to the southward clouds covered all the valleys in billows of white, from which rose a hundred mountain tops, like Islands in a tropic ocean. My fancy sailed among and beyond them, beyond the horizon's rim, even unto those far seas that I had sailed in my youth, to the old times, and the old friends that I should never see again, "A groundhog sat up on a log and whistled after a manner of his own. He was so near that I could see his nose wiggle. A skunk waddled around for 20 minutes, and once came so close that I thought he would nibble my boot. I was among old mossy beeches, scaled with polyphori, and twisted into postures of torture by their battles with the storms. "Incessantly came the chiu-ehip- cluck of ground squirrels, the saucy bark of the grays, and great chirruping among the boomers which had ceased swearing and were hard at work." Kephart never got a bear, and neither did any others in the party that day . . , some c^ the mountaineers said it was because he had the wrong sort of a dream, and then he told it before breakfast... which is certainly a very bad sign.

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Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

This digital collection was created to contribute to the public's understanding of the forces and ideas that led to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934. The most vi...

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