UT's Energy, Environment
and Resources Center Presents
Smoky Mountain
Resource Issues in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
SIGHTLINE
WINTER/SPRING 2002
Vol. 3 No. 1
Cades Cove
Crunching Numbers, Counting Bugs
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Editor: David Brill; Assistant Editor: Constance Griffith; Writers: Kris Christen, Lisa Byerley Gary, Elise LeQuire, Dennis McCarthy, and Becky Nichols. Graphic Designer: Lisa Byerley Gary.
SIGHTLINE is published on behalf of
Great Smoky Mountains National
Park
by the
Energy, Environment and Resources
Center (EERC)
at the
University of Tennessee.
EERC conducts research designed to promote real-world solutions to problems in the fields of energy, environment, technology, and economic development.
For additional information, write EERC, 311 Conference Center Building, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, call 865-974-4251, or visit our Web site at http://eerc.ra.utk.edu.
SIGHTLINE is sponsored by:
and
Cades Cove
A Sightline Special Issue
Anyone who has toured the 11-mile-loop road that encircles Cades Cove will understand why the Cove is Great Smoky Mountains National Park's (GSMNP) most popular destination.
The Cove receives so many visitorssome 2 million per year, in factthat it ranks in the top 10 percent of National Park Service units in the United States.
Most visitors arrive hoping to hear old planks creak underfoot as they explore pioneer cabins that retain the look and smell of age and hard use. Or to glimpse
deer browsing in mist-shrouded meadows. Or to watch west-facing slopes catch and hold the last rays of the setting sun. Or to soak in the vibrant orange, gold, and red foliage that burnishes the mountains in fall.
From the modern visitor's perspective, the Cove, with its abundant wildlife, meandering creeks, spreading meadows, looming walls of protective mountains, and blessed isolation, might inspire visions of utopia.
It held similar appeal for European-American settlers, who arrived in the early 1800s to clear the land, raise livestock, cultivate crops primarily corn and wheat and hew homes from the surrounding forest.
As it wasCades Cove was a farming community for decades before it became part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Ten carefully preserved homesites and churches and a functioning grist mill survive in the Cove and provide visitors a glimpse into Cades Cove life of more than 100 years ago.
But long before white settlers arrived, Cherokee Indians lived and hunted in the Cove, which sat at a crossroads of Cherokee trails linking settlements outside the region.
Though the Cove exudes a simple charm, it has posed a complex management challenge for the Park Service since GSMNP was established in 1934. This special edition of Sightline, devoted entirely to Cades Cove, addresses the Cove's ecological health, its past and present management schemes, and some of its more pressing resource issues.
Among these issues are traffic congestion on the narrow, one-way road (see "Trapped in the Cove" on page 6), Park
Service efforts to battle invasive plant and animal species and reintroduce natives (see "Combating Alien Invaders" on page 16), the changes wrought by former human habitation and current visitation (see "The Cove's Changing Landscape" on page 13), the challenges inherent in a preservation ethic (see "What Might Have Been" on page 3), and an assessment of the Cove's geology and its current plant and animal communities (see "Field and Stream" on page 9 and "Crunching Numbers" on page 19).
Though much has been written about the Cove over the years, we believe this issue of Sightline provides a new look at a very old place and, in the process, provides modern visitors with information that can help them better appreciate the Cove while helping to preserve its unique qualities.
David Brill, Sightline Editor