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Wild South identifies, preserves, and restores culturally significant resources and landscapes on our public lands. As a people, we have lost much of our naturalness and connection to the natural world.
Yet, we remain connected to living ecosystems. Our food, medicine, clothing, traditions, and recreation are directly dependent on the sustainable use of working, intact, healthy ecosystems.
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 – a Travel through Time
It was a hot day even at 5000 feet elevation when we parked the car at Indian Gap on the crest of the Great Smoky Mountains and began mapping the route of the ancient, aboriginal Indian Gap trail that connected the hunting grounds of Kentucky with the Cherokee heartland of Western North Carolina.
Armed with ten years of research, fifty years of cross-country experience, maps, GPS, food and water, the two person Wild South team (Duke intern Kevin Lloyd and myself) started south toward Qualla Boundary, home of the Eastern Band of Cherokees which lay about fourteen miles away. Of course, it would take many days to map the route across the rugged terrain we were about to encounter.
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 by Lamar Marshall Remnants of ancient trails can still be found today throughout the Southeast. The Indian trail system, which climaxed around 1800, laid the blueprint for the basic circuitry of our modern road and interstate system. The early routes were logical and inevitable--the result of thousands of years of Native Americans' interactions with animals, tribal migration, relocations, population shifts, and lifestyle changes due to European contact and trade. |
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Wild South is working with the Mountain Stewards of Georgia to identify old growth trail marker trees that were used along Native American trails, with the uniquely shaped trees serving as guides. Oaks were primarily chosen, but beeches have been utilized where available. |
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Cultural Heritage
