Smoky Mountain Air

On this episode of Smoky Mountain Air, we look back at an interview we recorded this summer with Vesna Plakanis, owner of A Walk in the Woods, a tour guide service specializing in knowledge of edible and medicinal wild plants, backpacking, and outdoor skills and survival, as well as local human history here in the Smokies. A Walk in the Woods has helped more than 100,000 people explore the Smokies since 1998.

We spoke with Plakanis at the height of summer, and she described some of the best wild edibles for that season. Please remember that picking plants is prohibited in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but some fruits, berries, nuts, and certain mushrooms may be gathered for personal use within limits. No wild mushroom should be eaten unless its identification is absolutely certain, which usually requires an expert to determine. ­Many mushrooms are poisonous, some deadly, and the responsibility for eating any mushroom or fungus rests with the individual. 

As Vesna Plakanis told us, she has been foraging for wild edibles since childhood with her family. Her lifetime of outdoor experiences eventually led her, and her husband Erik, to become expert naturalists. We spoke with Plakanis on an online video chat.

Go online to AWalkInTheWoods.com or send an email to [email protected]  to inquire about their program offerings.

“Early 20th century hikers in the Great Smokies were likely to encounter a small Japanese man on the trail. He was 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighed a little more than 100 pounds. He might have been burdened with a pack containing a heavy camera, tripod, and accompanying equipment. Or he might be pushing the front wheel of a bicycle connected to handlebars with an odometer attached, a cyclometer, that he used to measure trail mileages. Any conversation with this diminutive man would have entailed responses in broken English. And as likely as not, he would have been accompanied by men and women, his friends, who frequently hiked with him. Years later this same man received a letter written April 20, 1932, from the associate director of the National Park Service, Arno Cammerer, that stated in part, ‘You surely are the Great Smoky Mountains patriot…’”

That's a short excerpt from Bill Hart's article about the enigmatic photographer who was born in Japan but came to America and gave his heart to the Great Smoky Mountains region. His name was George Masa, and Hart's article appeared along with a selection of Masa's photographs in one of our ‘missing issues’ of Smokies Life, Volume 2, #2. These missing issues are no longer in print but are available to view online at SmokiesInformation.org/MissingIssues. 

Our guests Janet McCue and Paul Bonesteel are in the process of co-authoring a biography of George Masa. McCue is an independent writer and researcher, co-author of Back of Beyond: A Horace Kephart Biography, and collaborator on many Kephart projects. She is the former director of Mann Library at Cornell University.

Paul Bonesteel is a filmmaker, director, and founder of Bonesteel Films, a production company based in Asheville, NC. His documentary film The Mystery of George Masa (available on Vimeo with promo code "Masa") explores the compelling story of the immigrant who came to the mountains of Western North Carolina, gained employment at the grand Grove Park Inn, connected with many of Asheville's most influential residents, and found his passion in photography and hiking with his friends in the Carolina Mountain Club.

We spoke with McCue and Bonesteel on an online video chat while they were in their respective states of New York and North Carolina.

A digitized collection of George Masa’s photographs can be found online in the virtual "North Carolina Room" of Buncombe County Library's website. 

Stephen Lyn Bales is the former senior naturalist at Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville and the author of Ephemeral by Nature: Exploring the Exceptional with a Tennessee Naturalist, Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Valley, and Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Quest for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, each published by UT Press. A native of Gatlinburg, he is the great-grandson of Jim Bales whose home site is preserved on Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. 

Bales has written for Smokies Life magazine, including a story on the winter wren, which appeared in one of our missing issues, Volume 9, #1. These missing issues are no longer in print but are available to view online at SmokiesInformation.org/MissingIssues. Stephen Lyn Bales also writes an online blog titled Nature Calling. We spoke with him on an online video chat while he was sitting outside in his Knoxville neighborhood, appropriately surrounded by the sounds of birds.

What goes on in the uppermost layers of a Smoky Mountain forest? Does anything live up there? And who's going to climb up there to find out? “From charismatic microfauna to megafauna—from water bears to black bears—the forest canopy harbors so much,” says author Rose Houk.
Join us as we delve into one of the ‘missing issues’ of our biannual publication, Smokies Life, to rediscover Houk's article “Life in the Canopy.” Learn about the diverse wildlife that resides in the forest canopy and the risky, physical work required to identify these creatures. This article appeared in Smokies Life, Volume 9, Issue #2, an older issue now out of print. In addition to this special reading, we are resurrecting some of our ‘missing issues’ and providing them free, digitally, through our virtual magazine, Smokies LIVE.