2023 HIGHLANDS NC EXPERIENCE GUIDE
There’s something about Highlands that’s irresistible to storytellers. The Cherokee had a wealth of stories about the landscape and creatures that lived here. According to Cherokee legend, Whiteside Mountain, with its 750-foot-tall cliffs (the highest shear cliffs in the eastern U.S.), was home to the monster Spearfinger; its exposed cliffs were created when a large rock bridge to her dwelling sheared off.
Balancing out the terror found in some Cherokee tales were the clever raccoons, fearless ravens and dogs – lots of dogs. Cherokee dogs were always getting into mischief; yet, by the end of the tale, they’d ultimately do the right thing. When Highlands founders Samuel Truman Kelsey and Clinton Carter Hutchinson drew lines from Chicago to Savannah and from New Orleans to New York City, they called upon their talents as storytellers and marketers to produce an eight-page pamphlet extolling the virtues of this tiny corner of Western North Carolina. Though they envisioned a vast commercial hub, they were exuberant in painting a picture of a landscape blessed with abundant pure water and clear air that would prove a bounty for enterprising farmers and a tonic for those suffering from emphysema and consumption. Kelsey and Hutchinson even included a note in their pamphlet to assure wary New Englanders that the in- habitants of the area were good, honest folk who would welcome everyone and who bore no ill-will in the wake of the Civil War. While they missed the mark on Highlands becoming a great trading center and commercial crossroads, they were on the money about the welcoming nature of the population and the rich environment. In fact, writers responded to the clarion call and began to visit and live in this little town, discovering events, ex- periences and people that fueled their writing. Consider Margaret Morley, whose 1913 account, “The Carolina Mountains” spotlights Highlands. She wrote,
“Nowhere in the mountains does one find more beauti- ful natural growths than at Highlands, where the laurel and rhododendron grow to trees, and flaming azaleas set whole mountain-sides ablaze.” From their perch on Holt Knob, poets Bess Hines Harkins and Butler Sterling Hawkins won national acclaim for their concise observations.
Consider the wisdom embedded in Bess’ “Not Beary Funny:”
A bit of advice, my friend: PLEASE DON’T FEED THE BEARS but if you do, I’m telling you you’d better say your prayers For when you run out of food the bear won’t understand he’ll think you’re holding out on him and go her a piece of hand! So PLEASE DON’T FEED THE BEARS Observe this without fail Or you may know how old Jonah felt When he woke inside the whale!
Pat Conroy, considered one of the preeminent figures in contemporary Southern literature, spent time in Highlands during Word, Wine & Friends Weekends, held several years ago at Old Edwards Inn. Accompanying Conroy was
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