Not all of Deep Creek’s mile-long tubing course is fast-moving water. At the end of the upper “whitewater” section, Deep Creek widens at a deep swimming hole that provides a refreshing pause from tubing.

The Deep Creek Recreation area is just inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, two miles north of Bryson City. There’s camping, picnicking, hiking trails, trout fishing and three beautiful waterfalls. Tubes can be rented from several vendors near the park entrance. Where else can you have a day of great fun for less than five bucks?

What’s more ‘heritage’ than an old-fashioned sack race? No wonder it’s a highlight of  Swain County’s annual Heritage Festival held Memorial Day weekend.

If you enjoy the nostalgia of small town street festivals, come to the North Carolina Smokies July 4 weekend for Bryson City’s annual Freedom Fest. The day includes a 5K footrace, pet show, kids area, “tater” cook-off, arts and crafts, and live entertainment. The festival concludes with the largest fireworks display in the Smokies at 10 pm.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s Mountain Farm Museum is a re-creation of the many household gardens that were once common throughout the Smoky Mountains. Located near the Cherokee entrance to the Park, the living museum accurately demonstrates the farming methods and crops of the nineteenth century, including the hollyhocks that were often grown along the split-rail fence lines. Photo by Jennifer Wilson.

Smoky Mountain Jetboat Rides are a popular attraction on the 400 foot-deep Fontana Lake. Riders are thrilled to experience the boat’s trademark Hamilton spins – a flat spin within the boat’s own length. Yet the biggest surprise may come when the 11-passenger craft ventures up the relatively shallow Nantahala River to the base of Wesser Falls. How is this possible? Drawing just four inches of draft, the New Zealand-style jet boat rides like a ski on the surface of the water, enabling it to go where no other speed boat would dare go.

In addition to providing safe and thrilling rides, Smoky Mountain Jetboats also manufactures the boats in their Bryson City plant.

Photo by J.R. vanLienden

Each evening, Monday thru Saturday, Mort and Lainey White’s Hemlock Inn serves a tasty smorgasbord of down home southern cooking served family style at large round tables with lazy Susans. Of the dozens of dishes they serve, one of the most requested is the sweet and savory casserole shown above — the Bryson City Inn’s signature Vidalia Onion Pie.

Vidalia Onion Pie
10-12 soda crackers
1 pound Vidalia onions
1/3 stick margarine
1 cup white sauce
1/4 pound sharp cheese

Melt margarine and pour half into the crushed crackers. Blend well. Save enough cracker crumbs to sprinkle over top. Press cracker crumbs into pie pan.

Slice the onions thin and saute in remaining margarine until tender but not brown. Put onions on the pie crust and pour over white sauce to which the sharp cheese has been added and melted. Sprinkle a few cracker crumbs over top and bake in 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Serves 8.

Favorite White Sauce
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
pinch of salt
1 cup milk

In heavy saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour, and slowly add milk. Stir constantly with whisk until thick. Yield: 1 cup.

With supermarket strawberries available year ’round, it’s easy to forget the taste of fresh-picked, locally-grown berries. But May is the time to enjoy the real thing.

In the Bryson City area, two local growers have fields where you can pick your own or purchase containers of freshly-picked berries. Above, Brynnae Rhinehart of Bryson City samples a berry at Darnell Farms, just east of Bryson City on Highway 19. The other is Shelton Family Farm on Thomas Valley Road in Whittier.

Products made from locally-grown berries are also appearing on Bryson City’s retail shelves. Molly Shaw is an elementary school teacher whose award-winning strawberry jam is available at the Cottage Craftsman and the Fryemont Inn. And an area winery, Calaboose Cellers, uses local berries in their “Up The River” strawberry-rhubarb wine, which is served onboard the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad excursions, and is available at the Cottage Craftsman.

With all there is to do in the North Carolina Smokies, sometimes the best getaway involves doing next to nothing.

Photo by J.R. vanLienden

Constructed in 1908 and used by the County until 1980, the historic Swain County Courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

The building was designed by Frank Pierce Milburn and R. S. Smith. Milburn was a prolific architect of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who designed major public buildings in almost every southern state. His work ranged from county courthouses to state capitols, including the South Carolina State House and the old Florida Capitol. Smith worked in Asheville, first with Richard Morris Hunt at Biltmore Village, and then independently.

Falls City Construction Company, of Louisville, Kentucky, built the structure in just six months, at a cost of approximately $35,000. Records show the commissioners authorized the company to get “a tower clock with metal Bell for a cost of $850”.

Today, the first floor is used as a senior center by the State of Franklin Services. And yes, the clock and bell still work.

With Fontana Lake filling up right on schedule, the season’s first big fishing event gets underway at 7 a.m Saturday May 2 at the Almond Boat and RV Park near Bryson City, NC. The 16th Annual Bass Tournament and Barbecue will feature music, food, raffle prizes, and huge cash prizes for the tournament winners! All proceeds benefit the West Swain Volunteer Fire Department. To register, contact Jim at Almond Boat and RV Park 828-488-6423; Casey at Smoky Mountain Lakes and Marine 828-488-2424; or stop by Clampitt Ace Hardware in downtown Bryson City 828-488-2782.

Fontana Lake boasts one of the most diverse fish populations anywhere in the country, including Large and Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, Crappie, Bream, Muskie, Catfish, Steelhead Trout and White Bass. The website GreatSmokies.com has more information about Fontana Lake and fishing in the NC Smokies.

Photo by J.R. vanLienden

Over the past week, the valleys around Bryson City have turned lush green and the Spring color is just beginning to creep up the hillsides, providing stark contrast with the still-wintry mountains above. It will be a few more weeks before the “greening up” of the mountains reaches the highest peaks of the Great Smokies.

This makes the next few weeks a fascinating time to drive in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park or along the Blue Ridge Parkway. You can literally watch the seasons change with each change in elevation.

For years, the father-son team of Philip and Ronnie Lindsay have won the Swain County log-sawing championship, hands down. No one else has even come close.

Will this be the year that someone comes forward to challenge them? To find out, be at the Swain County Heritage Festival, Memorial Day weekend May 23, at the Riverfront Park in Bryson City.

The tension mounts!

April signals the beginning of whitewater rafting on the Nantahala River. From now through October, more than 200,000 paddlers will ride the eight mile course that snakes through the scenic Nantahala Gorge just west of Bryson City. With its Class II and III rapids, the “Nanty” is a family river, suitable for just about every generation (children must be at least seven years old or at least 60 pounds). Yet it’s challenging enough for the US Olympic Kayaking Team, which often trains there.

National Geographic Adventure and ABC’s Good Morning America’s “Vacationland” series named the Nantahala River the number one place to spend a wet and wild vacation in the US. Watch GMA video.

Trips can be scheduled with a number of Nantahala outfitters. A variety of trips are offered and each company seems to add its own personal touch. All outfitters provide approved life jackets and most provide a wet suit and/or paddling jackets during the cooler months. And like the family pictured above, all rafters are required to have safety instruction before they are allowed on the river.

Photo by J.R. vanLienden

When the weather forecast calls for a wet rainy weekend, that could be the very best time to visit the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina …especially if you love waterfalls. It’s when the creeks and rivers are in their finest whitewater form.

Indian Creek Falls is always beautiful. But it has never looked better than in the above photo, which was shot a few hours after a heavy Spring rain swept through the Park. Indian Creek is one of three scenic waterfalls in the Deep Creek Area of the National Park two miles north of Bryson City. All are within a mile of the trail head parking lot.

You’ll find information on these and other waterfalls in the Bryson City area on the Waterfalls page of the Bryson City Smoky Mountain Vacation Guide web site.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians opens its hatchery-supported tribal waters for fishing on March 28, one week ahead of the North Carolina state trout season. Cherokee’s “Enterprise Waters” include more than thirty miles of clear, stocked streams and three easily accessed ponds. The Fisheries & Wildlife Management program, which manages the tribal trout hatchery, will have stocked 20,000 pounds of rainbow, brook, brown and some golden trout for opening day.

The cost of a tribal fishing license, which is all you need to fish tribal waters, is $7 per day, $14 for two days, $20 for three days and $28 for five days. A $200 annual permit is good March 28, 2009 through February 28, 2010. The daily creel limit is 10 for adult anglers and a parent/guardian with a child or children.

The tribe offers three handicapped fishing piers which can accommodate wheelchairs. One is located at the fishing ponds in Big Cove and two are along the Oconaluftee River in downtown Cherokee.

Cherokee also features a catch & release fly fishing only section — more than two miles long — which begins at the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge on Big Cove Road and ends at the River Valley Campround. This section of stream requires a catch & release special use permit for $20 which is good for a 365 days from the date of purchase and at least a daily tribal fishing permit.

Photo by J.R. vanLienden

From the very top of the Smokies at Clingmans Dome, Sharon McCarthy (aka “Smoky Scout”) surveys the mountains that have become very familiar to her over the past year. She’s in the process of hiking all 900 miles of trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to raise money for the Girl Scouts in North Carolina.

Sharon anticipates that her final hike will be the Old Sugarlands Trail near the Sugarlands Visitor Center on April 11. Including the additional miles she’s walked to access each of the trails, she will have hiked more than 1000 miles altogether. It’s a feat that will reward her with membership in the elite 900 Miler Club, a group that has added just 250 hikers since its founding in 1995.

You can read Sharon’s journal on her blog “Great Smoky Mountains Girl Scout Challenge“. And while there, why not support the Girl Scouts with an online contribution?

Photo by Jim McCarthy

Throughout 2009, extra attention will be focused on The Great Smoky Mountains National Park as the nation’s most visited national park celebrates its 75th Anniversary year. In the North Carolina Smokies, the anniversary season gets underway next weekend with the seasonal opening of the historic Mingus Mill. Built in 1886, the historic water-powered grist mill is just a half-mile from the Oconaluftee visitor center in Cherokee.

A complete schedule of 75th anniversary events in Bryson City and surrounding North Carolina communities can be found on the Bryson City website. In addition to the official anniversary events, there’s a wealth of information on things to to in the North Carolina Smokies. Information on all 2009 events is available on the Park’s official 75th anniversary web site. Photo by J.R. vanLienden.

“Old Clampitt”, as it’s known in Bryson City, is the antithesis of the modern big box store. It’s an old-fashioned country store where you can still find such uncommon necessities as beekeeping supplies, horse tack and chicken feeders. The venerable N.C. Clampitt Hardware Store is the oldest continuously-operated business in Swain County and a fixture on Bryson City’s Main Street for generations. In 1982, when owners Monte and Diana Clampitt expanded the business into larger space just three doors down the street, they kept the old store open, to the delight of locals and visitors alike. Above, shopkeeper Teresa Maynard shows an old-fashioned crock jug to Sevierville visitors Tom and Linda Lakey.

When artist and photographer Charles Heath first opened his Bryson City Gallery, he did not realize that his grandfather had once worked in the same building. Then he learned that the Depot Street structure had once been occupied by Slayden Flakes Distributors, the wholesale grocery company where his grandfather Charley Browning was employed.

Charles’ family has long been a part of Bryson City and Swain County, North Carolina. His great-grandfather Samuel R. Patterson (1928 photo below) served the county as Register of Deeds and later as Swain County Sheriff in the 30s and 40s. That’s his badge, below.

February arrived in the North Carolina Smokies on a blast of frigid arctic air. With temperatures remaining below freezing for several days, the creeks, ponds and rivers all turned to ice …including the Tuckaseigee, shown here where US 19 crosses the river just east of Bryson City.  Photo by Jennifer Wilson.