Additional Discovery of Trails and 1837 Government Spy Mission

by Lamar Marshall, Wild South Cultural Heritage Director

“Trails of the Middle, Valley and Out Town Cherokee Settlements” is a partner project of The Mountain Stewards and Wild South that aims to document the historic native trails that connect Western Northern Carolina.

The project is being finalized for presentation to the Cherokee Preservation Foundation who funded the project and the Tribal Heritage Preservation Office who will manage the distribution and access to the work.

Pictured: Don Wells (left) and Robert Wells (right) of partner Mountain Stewards with Tom Belt (center), Cherokee Language Revitalization Program talk trails.

– 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.

Black Warrior's Trail -
Kathleen Marshall - Copy Editor
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