By Jamie Goodman When you drive by the tiny red house on Hill Street near downtown Boone, it looks like any other college-student dwelling— a small, square, structure with an apartment perched atop a one car garage. Upon closer inspection,…
Blog Archives
Notice!! This is data about which features this issue contains. Delete this description to rebuild the list.[“2009-issue-5-octnov”,”allposts”,”voice”,”av-bookclub”,”across-appalachia”,”editorial”,”viewpoint”,”inside-av”,”naturalistsnotebook-voice”,”hiking-highlands”,”featured”]
Dolly Parton: Conserving American Icons
By Joe Tennis “In my Tennesse mountain home, life’s as peaceful as a baby’s sight…crickets sing in fields nearby,” sings Dolly Parton. Parton has come back to her Tennessee mountain home to help celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding…
Grandfather Mountain Goes Green…er
Story by Julie Johnson From the famous mile-high bridge, Grandfather Mountain’s 3,300 acres spread across the landscape, their leafy canopy blanketing a wealth of biodiversity nestled in ridges and valleys. In addition to preserving this exceptional landscape, Grandfather Mountain, Inc.,…
Great Smoggy Mountains?
Coal-fired Power Threatens to Further Deplete Air Quality Story by Sarah Vig In almost all respects, Great Smoky Mountains (GSM) National Park’s list of attributes reads like a conservationist’s wish list: largest old-growth forest east of the Mississippi, largest spruce…
The True Value of State Parks
By Maureen Halsema Today there are over 6,600 state parks covering 14 million acres across the nation. Each year, these parks draw millions of visitors across Appalachia. Tennessee State Parks alone average 25 million annual visitors. North Carolina has about…
Neighbors Play Role in Parkway’s Prospects
Story by Sarah Vig The Blue Ridge Parkway may be America’s longest national park, measuring out at an impressive 469 miles in length, but it is also its narrowest—the average width of the park’s right-of-way is only 400 feet on…
Celebrating our National Treasures
By Maureen Halsema A distinctive blue mist settles over the Great Smoky Mountains, winding roads criss-cross the rolling hills of southern Appalachia offering unmatched views from the Blue Ridge Parkway, and visions of autumn colors from Shenandoah’s Skyline Drive take…
Species Invaders
By Maureen Halsema Southern Appalachia is under attack. Half of the imperiled species in the region are at risk from invasive species. Some particularly damaging species include, the hemlock woolly adelgid, the emerald ash borer, the gypsy moth, the tree-of-heaven,…
Protecting our Public Lands
The Struggle For Conservation Continues Parks and forests seem as American as apple pie and the flag today, so it might be surprising that there was ever any controversy.Yet the early advocates of parks and protected forests were often outraged…
Across Appalachia Shorts
Kentucky Institutes Task Force on Biofuels A task force on biofuels and biomass appointed by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear held their first meeting in September. The group was formed as part of Kentucky’s recent energy initiative, titled “Intelligent Energy Choices…
