At one time no sharp edge separated two aspects of nature in the Great Smokies: man and the wilderness. Cherokee Indians lived here in ways ironically similar to those of the whites who would soon displace them. They cultivated crops, hunted, believed in one god, practiced a democratic form of government, and lived not in teepees but in mud-and-log structures. “The place of blue smoke,” _Shaconage_, they called this mountain hunting ground. And here amidst the haze lived also the spirit of their people; it, too, could not be divorced from the land itself. Treaty after treaty saw the Cherokees lose more and more homeland, up to and finally including the Smokies. In one of the great human tragedies that blots American history they were forcibly removed westward, “relocated” to Oklahoma via the “Trail of Tears.” One fourth of the people died along the way. A few Cherokees had resisted removal, staying behind in small groups and hiding out in the mountains. Troops could not relocate them because they couldn’t _locate_ them. Later the Cherokees were allowed to return and reclaim the borders of their old homeland. They live there today on the Cherokee Reservation. [Illustration: _A contented cow lends realism to the reconstructed Pioneer Farmstead, next to Oconaluftee Visitor Center._] [Illustration: _Mt. LeConte is the park’s third highest peak, following Mt. Guyot and Clingmans Dome, the highest. Smokies rocks are among the continent’s oldest sediments. The ranges have survived 200 million years of erosion. By contrast, the Sierra Nevada is thought to be only 1 million years old._] [Illustration: _First things first! A rain-geared backpacker makes sure her feet are protected against blisters. The park offers more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) of trails, including 110 kilometers (70 miles) of the Appalachian Trail that stretches from Maine to Georgia._] It is difficult now to appreciate the pressure once exerted on the Appalachian highlands by human settlement. Back when land meant livelihood to a nation of agrarian people, the gradual pressure from the eastern coast, across the Piedmont, reached the Appalachian chain. The shortage of arable lands forced people into and finally onto the mountains in search of a plot of ground that would produce a livelihood. And so settlement came to the Great Smokies, gradually working its way up the mountainsides to the limits of cultivation. Grazing was eventually pushed beyond those limits all the way up the mountain to the balds. Combined overgrazing, overfishing, destructive logging practices, and overhunting would soon turn dense wilderness into a ravaged landscape. The National Park was authorized in 1926, established for protection in 1930, and established for development in 1934. And now, about 50 years later, wilderness is again in ascendancy, as field naturalist Napier Shelton amply testifies as he takes you exploring in Part Two of this handbook.