Two miles off the interstate in the outskirts of Chillicothe, Ohio, Mound City Group is a must-see for American Indian mound aficionados.  Mound City is one section of the five part Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, run by the National Park Service and open to the public without an admission fee.  The mounds here are small to medium, but what they lack in size, they make up for in number and interpretation.

We started our visit by poring over the beautifully illustrated displays (with real artifacts from the site!) within the museum.  As the interpreter behind the desk explained to me when I came back inside at the end of my visit with a list of questions, Mound City may have been the epicenter of Hopewell Culture for 700 years, between 200 BC and 500 AD.  During this time period, Native Americans in the region were hunter-gatherers who also raised foods in the eastern agricultural complex.  They lived in small settlements across a multi-state region, but came together regularly to bury their most important dead (and perhaps to hold festivals and other events) at Mound City.  Nobody lived at this site, and no one is quite sure how often they gathered and how people knew when to show up.

Archaeologists hypothesize that Hopewell Indians built special structures in which they cremated their dead (see above), then buried the ashes under small mounds of earth (see below.)  After several burials had been made, the structure was burnt or torn down and a mound was built on top.  Clay and sand were carted from pits beyond the perimeter of the mound grouping using simple hand tools and baskets, then packed into place to build mounds.  Over the course of 700 years, 100 cremated burials were made at Mound City, and archaeologists suspect that some mounds may have taken generations to construct.

Special artifacts were often ceremonially broken and buried with the dead.  Since this part of Ohio only has certain raw materials handy, we can tell that Native Americans of the time had extensive trade routes, bringing grizzly bear teeth from the Rocky Mountains, shells from the Gulf of Mexico, and other materials from far afield.  They also worked the exotic substrates into beautiful pipes and ornaments, many of which represented local wildlife.  The museum is chock full of these stunning artifacts, but I was disappointed to read that others were taken home by early archaeologists and can only be seen in England.

When European settlers showed up in the region, the mounds probably looked a lot like the one in this photo, covered with trees and brush, but archaeologists think that when the site was active, the mounds were kept cleared, probably with controlled burns.  Did Native Americans come back to visit ancestors' burial spots like we visit our own cemeteries?  What made someone special enough to deserve burial in Mound City?  We just don't know.

To put Mound City in perspective, the Indians who build these earth mounds lived about a thousand years before those who built Sunwatch, Moundville, and Serpent Mound.  All three of these later sites are remnants of cultures fed by corn --- the easy-to-stockpile grain gave them time to build massive monuments.  But Mound City was put together by people living a hunter-gatherer-gardener lifestyle, with no supreme leader cracking the whip.  I suspect I would have enjoyed living in the small family groupings of the Hopewell Indians much more than in the larger cities of their descendents.

Mound City is worth a second visit, and the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park also has two other open-to-the-public sites within about fifteen miles.  Hopewell Mound Group covers over 120 acres and has two miles of earthen walls, a short section of which is still in its native state.  (Most of the mounds and walls have been damaged and rebuilt.)  A three mile walking trail encircles the site.



A little further south, the Seip Earthworks contains the second largest known Hopewell burial mound.  Two other sites (Hopeton Earthworks and High Bank Works) are closed to the public.  Visit the park's website for information on hours and directions to each site.

In its hey day, 900 to 1400 years ago, Coba was a massive Mayan city of 55,000 people.  Raised white roads (sacbeob) linked parts of the city together and also extended as far as 60 miles to other population centers.  The city of Coba was located on the shore of a lake, which is quite unusual in the Yucatan, and is along the dividing line between drier thorn forest to the north and wetter rainforest to the south --- an ecological paradise.

Today, you can explore the ruins at your leisure by walking down the newly cleared sacbeob (or by renting a bicycle or taking a ride in a bicycle taxi.)  Although the site is full of tourists, they feel like a different ilk than those you'd find elsewhere in the Yucatan.  Most are European, and they kept their voices low and reverent (and I couldn't understand a world they were saying, so I just assumed they were talking about history and culture instead of whether to stop at Wal-Mart on their way back to Cancun.)

Best yet, except for clearing broad avenues between ruins, the management left most of the native tree cover in place.  If you take one of the many uncharted side paths for a short distance, you can leave all of the tourists behind and imagine you're walking through the jungle during Mayan times.  Granted, the trees are nearly all young secondary growth, but here and there an ancient behemoth dominates the landscape, and in between there are all kinds of smaller plants and animals to keep you occupied.  In later posts, I'll showcase the amazing fauna that seemed quite happy to have their pictures taken, so here I'll just mention the dozens of epiphytes that kept me snapping photos for the first half hour before we were able to tear ourselves away from the entrance.  (The epiphytes are pictured a little further down on the page.)

The modern day site of Coba is set up in a Y, with the entrance (and medium-sized ruin complex) at the west end, a junction (and small ruin complex) after about a half mile walk, and then another half mile walk in each direction to reach the other two main sites.  On the south end of the Y (taking a right at the junction), the Macanxoc group consists of 8 stelae --- huge stone tablets upon which historical events were inscribed.  I highly recommend starting in this direction since it is much less travelled and allows you to get a real feel for the natural history of the area without hordes of tourists boxing you in.  Then backtrack to the junction and take the other avenue, heading northeast, and you'll end up at the Nohoch Mul group, the tourist mecca --- a huge pyramid you can climb to look out over the forest.  During our visit, we felt like the strolls between ruins were walking meditation, and by the time we ascended the pyramid, we were nearing enlightenment (marred only by the crowds at the end.)

Although you could walk the entire site in an hour or two, we spent more like four hours there, which allowed us to gently stroll and really experience everything.  You can hire a tour guide at the entrance, but we preferred to just bring a book (Mexico: A Hiker's Guide to Mexico's Natural History has a short chapter on Coba) and immerse ourselves in the site.

Although cruise ships try to scare you away from booking outside tours, we're coming to believe that you get twice the experience for the same money by going on your own.  For $59 apiece, we could have spent two hours each way packed into a tour bus with fifty other people and then spent a scant two hours at the site in a press of humanity that would have shielded us from the real world.  Instead, we spent $140 to hire a private driver (Anthony, who is an employee of Vicente Rodriguez, who you can contact by email at ridetravelcancun@hotmail.com) who picked us up at Calica and got us to the site in a mere hour and fifteen minutes, leaving us double the time to explore the ruins.  Granted, we did have to pay around $20 for parking and admission, but contrary to what various internet sources report, we had no trouble using American money for this.  Anthony let me practice my Spanish on him, telling me about his garden (banana and orange trees, chile peppers and tomatoes), his three kids, and his home in the outskirts of Cancun.  And at the end he led us to a buffet restaurant overlooking the lake, where we tasted authentic Mayan food for $12 apiece.

Our experience at Coba, although compeletely different, matches and perhaps exceeds our glorious day at Serpent Mound a year and a half ago.  The combination of nature, walking, and glorious ruins make this my top recommended side trip in the Yucatan.  Plan an entire day, or two if possible, and go --- you won't regret it.

The discharge below the dam of Hidden Valley Lake is Brumley Creek. In the early 1900s a small gauge railroad used for logging operations followed the creek for several miles, crossing it several times on trestles. Remnants from this railroad can be seen amidst dense Rhododendron and Mountain Laurel thickets if you hike downstream from the dam. About two miles or so downstream from the dam in a rugged steep gorge is the container AEP brought in to house water monitoring equipment in 1978. Roughly three miles downstream is the confluence with Little Brumley Creek and a fifteen foot waterfall. Three or so miles further the creek flows through Brumley Creek Baptist Camp. Brumley Creek still has native trout and in spring Pink Ladies’ Slippers and other wildflowers adorn its banks.

From a geologic perspective, Brumley and Clinch Mountains that surround Hidden Valley, were formed during the Appalachian Orogeny, which occurred during the mid to late Paleozoic Era over 300 million years ago. This was a time when surface layers of the Earth’s crust, called plates, collided with tremendous force, overriding one another, folding, and faulting to create mountains. Rock from this period includes limestone, dolomite, sandstone, and shale. Thus, the Clinch Mountain chain, a natural geographic barrier that runs northeasterly from Tennessee into West Virginia, was formed. Fossilized flora and fauna, such as these Brachiopods that lay on the seabed about 350 million years ago, are found in rocks high on the mountains. Little Moccasin Gap, located immediately below Hidden Valley, is one of only two true gaps through Clinch Mountain.

After the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, the area surrounding Hidden Valley was lushly vegetated. Forests of centuries old trees, hundreds of feet tall, with trunks so large it would take several men to stretch their arms around, dominated the landscape. A high elevation cranberry bog flourished where Hidden Valley Lake now glimmers. Bison, Elk, White-tailed Deer, Bear, Bobcat, Cougar, and many species of birds were on the mountain; Brumley Creek was full of native trout and the North Fork of the Holston River contained a large variety of fish as well as freshwater mussels.

The first people to arrive in the area surrounding Hidden Valley probably came down the Holston River or followed trails made by animal herds. The earliest known evidence of humans in far southwest Virginia are projectile points, such as these found in Hansonville at the base of Clinch Mountain, dating from the early archaic period between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago. It is not known who these people were, but Native Americans from time immemorial have considered this region as sacred hunting grounds and permanent settlement was forbidden. However, there is plenty of evidence of temporary hunting stations. One such station, dating at least as far back as the woodland period about 700 years ago, was in Hansonville. It was also a strategic location that controlled access and trade through Little Moccasin Gap.

Europeans began exploring and surveying far southwest Virginia in the late 1600s. Indian tribes encountered in those days included the Cherokee and Shawnee. Immigrants began settling the area surrounding Hansonville, Clinch and Brumley Mountains, during the 1740s. Troubles pioneers had with the Indians resulted from building permanent settlements in sacred hunting areas where it was forbidden and along trails used for centuries for trading and warfare. Daniel Boone and his family traveled through Little Moccasin Gap and resided at Moore’s Fort in nearby Castlewood from 1773 through 1775. By the summer of 1774 Indian hostilities increased. CPT William Russell, who settled in Castlewood in 1770, was placed in command of both Moore’s Fort and Fort Blackmoore, and ordered to “collect all the settlers in the Clinch Valley into the forts”. In early July 1776, John Douglas, who served as a Sgt in the militia under CPT William Cocke in August 1774, was shot and killed by Indians in Little Moccasin Gap, just south of where Hidden Valley Road turns off from US 19 North, while returning to Clinch after visiting friends and relatives in Holston. The DAR erected a plaque at the site and a rest stop was established known as John Douglas Wayside. By the late 1800s many immigrants were traveling through Little Moccasin Gap and settling in the surrounding area. During this time John Hanson built and successfully operated a store at the northern mouth of Little Moccasin Gap, close to where the Indian’s had established a temporary hunting station centuries before.

At the turn of the 20th century the forests on Clinch and Brumley Mountains surrounding Hidden Valley were still virgin. The timber industry was booming by then and a small gauge railroad along Brumley Creek was built to haul out the logs. Oral histories claim a tree had to be at least four feet in diameter when chest high on a man to be logged out. Few trees of that size remain today. Later that size requirement was forsaken and most all of the trees on the mountain were harvested. So, the forest surrounding Hidden Valley today is secondary growth. Remnants of the old railroad can still be found along Brumley Creek below the dam of Hidden Valley Lake, as can unmarked timber trails and roads zigzagging across the mountain.

By 1963 the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) acquired Hidden Valley, upgraded the small dam, and created Hidden Valley Lake. During the spring of 1978 Appalachian Electric Power Company (AEP) targeted Hidden Valley and the community of Brumley Gap for the creation of what was intended to be the world’s largest pumped storage facility. At an estimated cost of $2 billion, the project plan was to dam Brumley Creek at the gap, flood the valley, pump the water up to Hidden Valley Lake, then release it back into the valley during peak demand, thus generating as much as 3,000 megawatts of electricity. A large container to house water monitoring equipment that was helicoptered in and assembled in pieces in a gorge along Brumley Creek about two miles below the dam can still be seen. Approximately 300 families would have been displaced by this project. A David and Goliath struggle ensued as the citizens of Brumley Gap fought AEP. Ultimately a series of delays caused AEP to cancel the project. In November 1988 Hidden Valley Lake was drained to repair the spillway below the dam and was refilled in July 1989. Over the years DGIF has routinely stocked Hidden Valley Lake with a variety of fish with varying degrees of success.

Our guide at Uxmal threw so much information at us so quickly that I'm still digesting his words nearly a year later.  At one point, he stopped beside a hole in the ground and mentioned that the ancient Mayans got their drinking water from cenotes.  Then we barreled on to see the next ruined building, leaving me lagging to snap a quick photo.

The Yucatan is, in essence, one big slab of limestone underlain by an extensive cave system.  If you peer carefully at a map, you'll see that the peninsula seems to be devoid of creeks and rivers because all of the rainwater seeps quickly down into the caves beneath the surface.  Over time, cave roofs collapse and form sinkholes, just like in my familiar stomping grounds, but in the Yucatan there is so much groundwater that these holes are full of water --- cenotes.

The Yucatan is surrounded by ocean on three sides, and that saltwater seeps into the peninsula's cave system, saturating the lower levels of the groundwater.  Luckily for the ancient Mayans, though, rainwater is lighter than ocean water, so fresh water floats near the surface and provides a source of drinking water in an otherwise waterless area.  Cities --- notably Chitchen Itza --- were located near large cenotes, and "cenote" is merely a Spanish version of the Yucatec Mayan word for "well."

The Mayans considered cenotes sacred not only because they were sources of water, but also because each cenote was believed to be an entrance to the underworld.  Sacrificial pottery, animals, and even humans were tossed into the watery depths as offerings, and skeletons have been found at the bottom of many cenotes in the Yucatan.

As if the tantilizing geology and human history of cenotes weren't enough, a circle of these sinkholes on the northern coast of the Yucatan peninsula has an even more star-studded past.  The regularity of the circular shape tipped scientists to study the area in more depth, which led them to discover that the cenotes trace the outline of a meteor crater 110 miles in diameter.  The Chicxulub crater was dated to 65 million years ago --- the exact moment when dinosaurs became extinct.  Although scientists aren't sure whether a meteor was the sole cause of dinosaur extinction, they agree that the Chicxulub meteor is at least a partial cause.

April Cain, a St. Paul native now living in Richmond, emailed me some fascinating information to supplement my tale of Oxbow Lake's construction.  She wrote:

April pointed me to Do or Die or Get Along: A Tale of Two Appalachian Towns by Peter Crow.  The book devotes most of a chapter to the four years of meetings and deal-making required to reroute the river.  An unlikely trio of HUD, TVA, and the state highway department banded together to get the job done, united in the goals of moving the town out of the floodplain, providing a commercial district and space for a wastewater treatment plant, and opening up a path for a new highway through St. Paul.

The group needed to get a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers to reroute the river, and that in turn required a positive recommendation from the Fish and Wildlife Service and the EPA.  Unfortunately for the plan's proponents, the portion of the Clinch River that ran through St. Paul was chock full of endangered mussels, and neither Fish and Wildlife nor EPA were thrilled by the idea.  In the end, Senator John Warner had to pull some political strings to move the project along.

Whether or not the river rerouting was good for the Clinch River's aquatic life, residents of St. Paul were largely in favor.  Tom Fletcher, one of the players in the drama, described what now stands in the river's place:

While walking many of Sugar Hill's trails, I find myself transported back to the eighteenth century or even earlier.  I can almost imagine that I will see Baron Tubeuf striding around the bend of the trail, on his way to harry his snake-handling neighbors.  Maybe I have stepped even further back in time and will be treated to acres of canebrake and a glimpse of yellow and olive on the now-extinct Bachman's Warbler. 

Along the Cliff Trail, I can imagine a forest untouched by human hands, where trees are just reaching their prime at two centuries old, towering over the rotting carcasses of their parents.

But down on the Oxbow Lake Loop Trail, I am jolted back to the present.  Along the paved walkway, introduced plants like periwinkles and forsythia remind me that folks have cut, burned, grazed, and planted these hills into submission.  A coal train rattles by above tree trunks engraved with love notes from previous generations.  Under the roar of the train, the highway forms a humming backdrop, and I am reminded that my drive to Sugar Hill spewed carbon dioxide into the air and promoted global warming.

Our very existence changes the world around us, but we can choose what kind of signs we leave for future generations.  Rather than wounding a tree by carving our names into its bark, we can plant a riparian buffer, garden with native species, and maybe even drive a little less often.  Imagine hillsides coated with ginseng and turtles happily sunning themselves above water so clean that mussel populations have rebounded.  What a legacy to leave our grandchildren!

A river naturally winds through the landscape, changing its course over time to follow the path of least resistance.  In the mountains, river routes are usually tightly constrained by steep hillsides, but in flatter parts of the country a river turns into a sinuous snake.  These looping curves, known as meanders, are a natural result of erosion and deposition.

Erosion lengthens even the smallest curve as water rubs up against the outside bank.  If you imagine cars passing each other on a curving racetrack, you will realize that the car (or water) on the outside of the curve must travel much faster than the one on the inside of the curve to reach the straightaway at the same time.  Just as the faster race car would cause more damage if it ran into the wall of the track, quickly moving water has a greater ability to cause erosion.  The water on the outside of the curve carries away soil and gravel that was once part of the curve's outside bank.

Meanwhile, the water on the inside of the curve dawdles, taking its time to reach the straightaway.  As water slows down, it can no longer hold as much silt and gravel, so the slow-moving water drops dirt and debris out of its grip.  A sandbar forms on the inside of the curve, then trees colonize the area and new land is formed.  The combined actions of the eroding water on the outside of the curve and the depositing water on the inside of the curve results in a river bend that may be a mile or more long.  Over time, a river that was once nearly straight turns into a winding snake.

The next step in an oxbow lake's construction often comes during a flood.  Raging waters back up as they push their way around a curve, and suddenly the water is high enough to bypass the curve and make an overland shortcut to rejoin the river further downstream.  Once water has flowed across the shortcut, it becomes the path of least resistance --- why would any water take the long route through the sinuous curve when it could just barrel on through the shortcut and be downstream that much faster?

The old curve of the river is now a lake of still or slowly moving water.  The so-called oxbow lakes are named from their resemblance to the U-shaped yoke once put around an ox's neck to harness it to a plow or wagon.  Although oxen are seldom harnessed in today's society, oxbow lakes remain a common feature in our landscape.

Despite sharing its name with these natural oxbow lakes, St. Paul's lake is a special case.  Oxbow Lake wasn't created by flooding, though its creation was spurred by a massive flood in the early 1980s.  After receiving extensive flood damage, the town of St. Paul chose to re-route the Clinch River to bypass their buildings, giving the town a bit of protection from later floods and forming a man-made oxbow lake from the discarded portion of the river.

Although the floodplain is brimming with life, the Clinch River's true claim to fame lies beneath the surface.  I dig my hands into the sand along the river bottom, and before long my fingers touch something hard.  The flowing water washes away dirt and reveals an elongated seashell --- one of the Clinch's many freshwater mussels.

The Clinch is home to 45 species of these mollusks, with names ranging from the evocative Little-winged Pearlymussel to the less enticing Tennessee Heelsplitter.  Although they all look pretty much the same to the untrained eye, their astonishing diversity is one of the Clinch's main claims to fame.  For a bit of perspective, you'd have to explore every stream in Europe and temperate Asia to find as many species!

Adult mussels are sedentary, moving no more than a few inches along the bottoms of the rivers and spending their time flushing water through their bodies and extracting microscopic organisms to eat.  Their young, however, are more adventurous.  Mother mussels trick fish into coming close by showing off fleshy appendages that act as bait.  When a fish swoops close to eat the "bait", the mussel shoos her babies out into the water and they dash to latch onto the fish's gills where they'll spend the rest of their early childhood.

Like the picky caterpillars of the Pipevine Swallowtail, each species of mussel has a different species of host fish which it uses as its nursery.  Perhaps a decline in their host fish is partially responsible for the recent loss of mussels from the Clinch River --- whatever the reason, over the last few decades, species after species has dropped out of sight.  In the 1960s, 53 mussel species were found in the Clinch, but more recent surveys have only been able to turn up 37.

An even more likely reason for the plummeting diversity of the Clinch River is dirty water.  Both mussels and the fish they depend on require pristine water to survive, and the Clinch River can no longer be considered pristine.  The Carbo coal-fired power plant a few miles upstream from St. Paul has severely damaged the Clinch River through two toxic spills, one of alkaline fly ash slurry in 1967 and one of sulfuric acid in 1970.  The combination of these two spills affected the Clinch River for nearly 90 miles, all the way downstream  to Tennessee, and created a 12 mile dead zone in which nearly all mussel species were killed.

In 2009, Dominion Virgina Power began construction of a second coal-fired power plant on the banks of the Clinch, putting the future of the remaining mussels in jeopardy.  Although appeals to the Virginia State Corporation Commission, Department of Environmental Quality, and various legislators have been ignored, a groundswell of opposition has sprung up around the region.  Please take a few minutes to write to your congressmen and ask that the Clinch's unique beauty be protected for future generations to enjoy.

Down past the tangle of invasives at the east end of the Marlene Path, the careful observer will discover a rare but tasty herb spread across the forest floor.  Burdick’s Wild Leek is a relative of the well known Ramps --- very similar in taste and growth form, just a bit smaller. 

Like Ramps, the little white bulbs of Burdick’s Wild Leek have served Appalachian folk for centuries as the first fresh food to appear in the spring.  In our age of February tomatoes and year-round peaches, we quickly forget that early settlers in our region made do with cornmeal and salt pork for much of the winter.  By March, they were desperate for anything fresh and green to ward off scurvy and give their tastebuds a break.  Ramp festivals in places like Richwood, West Virginia, and Whitetop Mountain here in southwest Virginia are remnants of the ramp dinners Appalachian folks held to celebrate the return of fresh food into their diets.  Festival participants report that ramps taste like garlic but smell even stronger, so that the scent of ramps tends to linger for days after these festivals end.

Like Ginseng, Ramps are on their way toward being loved to death.  The small patches hidden on Sugar Hill are probably remnants of much bigger populations, and we request that visitors leave the Burdick’s Wild Leek patches alone to grow back into their former glory.

The small patch of Giant Cane found near the bottom of Marlene Path is typical of the current extent of America's native bamboo.  But before Europeans grazed the cane nearly to death, Giant Cane was an integral part of the floodplain ecosystem.  Imagine thickets of bamboo so dense you could barely walk, reaching thirty feet into the air, and covering entire river bottoms, and you'll get an idea of the plant's former scope.  Some scientists think that the brilliant green Carolina Parakeets --- now extinct --- flocked around canebrakes and depended on cane seeds to trigger nesting behavior.  We may never know which other plants and animals veered toward extinction as canebrakes dwindled into isolated clumps.

Like oak-hickory forests, canebrakes may have been artificially expanded by Native Americans' use of fire.  Giant Cane depends on disturbances like fire to keep the forest canopy from closing and blocking out the light cane needs to thrive.  The short canes you can see along Marlene Path are probably responding to the paucity of sunlight beneath the forest canopy.

In fact, encouraging cane may have been one of the primary purposes local Native Americans had in mind when they lit woodland fires.  The bamboo was a raw material for building houses and weaving mats, bowls, and baskets.  Without cane, the Native American way of life followed the same path as the Carolina Parakeet.

In recent decades, scientists have begun to realize that fire --- like masting --- is an essential part of the oak-hickory community.  The exact role of fire, though, has been roundly debated.  Scientists agree that before humans arrived in North America, many ecosystems naturally burned when lightning ignited dead plant matter like fallen logs or dried grasses.  Once Native Americans reached the continent, they accelerated the burning process in many areas, starting wildfires to open up forests for agricultural land, to promote the growth of edible plants like blueberries, and to provide browse for game animals like deer.  Then Europeans arrived, and for a while the fires were tremendous.  Some fires were set purposefully for many of the same reasons Native Americans had burned the land, while other fires were set accidentally.

As our settlements encroached further and further into the forest, we entered an era of fire suppression.  Smoky the Bear warned us that “Only you can prevent forest fires”, and we took the message to heart.  Not only were people more careful of their own fires, we began to put out naturally occurring fires.  Fire was --- and is --- dangerous when it laps up against barns and houses.  It seemed better, safer, to just to quench the flames whenever they occurred.

In some areas, fire suppression was not a big deal.  In moist coves here in the mountains, scientists suspect that non-human fires would naturally burn once or twice a century, or even less often.  Fallen branches and trees quickly rot in our moist, humid climate, turning into rich soil for salamanders and millipedes to wander through.  Out West, though, fire suppression is another matter entirely.

Many dry ecosystems, like pine forests, depend on fires to stay in business.  When left to their own devices, these woods might burn every couple of years, killing out encroaching hardwoods and opening up the canopy for sun-loving pine seeds to germinate.  Without fire, some pines cannot reproduce at all --- the Table Mountain Pine, which can be found around here on extremely dry ridges, keeps its cones closed tightly around the seeds until fires come through to melt the cones open, releasing the seeds to germinate in the rich ash left behind.  In the western United States, many more species depend on frequent fires to release their seeds and sprout.

Ecologists warned us that we were getting in deep water by suppressing the natural fires in these ecosystems, but most of us were not interested in a pine tree that was unable to reproduce.  We started perking up our ears, though, when the fire suppression tactics hit us in the wallets.  Western forests are far drier than our Appalachian mountain woods, and when western trees fall to the ground, they are extremely slow to decay.  Without frequent fires to break the debris down, the forests became choked with bone dry wood, just waiting to ignite.  When lightning finally struck, or a campfire swept out of control, the wildfires ravaged the countryside like never before.  Before fire suppression, frequent fires cleaned up the debris at regular intervals, so fires tended to run through western forests fast and cool, seldom licking up into the tops of trees or doing real damage to anything except seedlings.  Post-fire-suppression fires, though, raged as if the forests had been doused with lighter fluid.  The flames leaped up into the canopies of the trees, racing and ravaging through the forests and into the suburbs.  You have probably heard about the devastating California fires of the last few years --- these fires are largely due to decades of suppressing every natural fire that came along.

Which brings us back to the oak-hickory forest.  Oaks are not quite as dependent on fire as pine communities are, but scientists are beginning to realize that fire has boosted their abundance.  Most acorns will not germinate in the shade, so they depend on some kind of disturbance to open up the canopy and give them a little sunlight in which to grow.  Without frequent fires, most oak communities in the eastern United States are slowly turning into other types of forests.  Around here, cove hardwood forests are advancing up the hillsides, slipping between aging oaks as the moisture-loving trees grow toward the canopy.  Without fire, our oak forests may disappear from everywhere except the driest ridges within the next century or two.

Some land managers are fighting back using prescribed burns --- intentionally lit fires that can be controlled to run quickly across the forest floor, mimicking the natural process of lightning-ignited fires.  In western States and in the pine forests near the Gulf coast, these prescribed burns seem to be doing a good job of keeping the natural ecosystems in balance while preventing devastating wildfires.  In oak forests, though, prescribed burns lead to more questions than answers.

Remember how I said that Native Americans set fires intentionally for thousands of years before European settlers arrived in North America?  Palaeontological evidence suggests that our oak-hickory forests --- now so widespread --- followed in the footsteps of the fires lit by Native Americans, and later by European settlers.  The reason our oak forests are beginning to fade away is that, in most parts of our mountains, oak forests are essentially man-made.  Should we be maintaining an ecosystem that would not occur over much of its range without the help of people?  On the other hand, if we let the oak forests fade back to their natural obscurity, will we lose plants and animals that evolved to live in these man-made oak forests?

The relationship between humans, oaks, and fire is a tricky one that brings us to a difficult question --- what exactly is natural? Like most difficult questions, there is no single right answer.  Short of packing up every human being in North America and shipping us overseas, we have to learn to coexist with our ecosystem, to compromise between our needs and the needs of the natural world.

Four decades after Pierre-Francois Tubeuf’s demise near its peak, Sugar Hill received its modern name.  The property had passed on to Old Hattler Bickley whose dreams were less far-fetched than Tubeuf’s had been --- Bickley just wanted to make a living off the land on and around Sugar Hill.  Old Hattler Bickley ran cattle and grew grain, but he soon discovered that Sugar Hill was also full of Sugar Maple trees that could be tapped in early spring to make maple syrup and maple sugar.

Bickley’s maple sugar operation was relatively unique in the area, but cooking down maple sap into sugar had been part of the native culture for hundreds of years.  According to Native American legend, the sweetness of maple sap was discovered by accident when Chief Woksis came home and threw his tomahawk into the side of a Sugar Maple tree outside his home.  The next morning, he pulled the tool loose and went hunting, not realizing that sap was leaking out of the gash and into a bowl at the base of the tree.  Later that day, his daughter noticed the bowl of liquid while cooking supper and poured the maple sap into their meat stew rather than walking all the way to the creek for water.  As the stew cooked, the maple sap was rendered down into syrup, giving Woksis and his daughter a tasty treat.

However the first maple sugar was discovered, the sweetener quickly became a prominent part of the culture of many eastern Native American tribes.  The sap of Sugar Maples is rich in sugars in the early spring, and during this season many Native Americans would relocate to spend an entire month tapping maples and boiling down the sap into sugar.  The maple sugar was used for seasoning for the rest of the year and was also traded to other tribes who lived outside the small area in which maple sugar could be produced --- the climate required for maple syrup and sugar production is found only in part of New England and in certain pockets further south along the Appalachian Mountains. 

European settlers learned to tap maples from the Native Americans, though relatively few tried the endeavor this far south.  Old Hattler Bickley’s operation is considered to be the first maple sugaring operation in the area, taking advantage of the cold, north-facing slope that allows Sugar Maples to grow in our more southern climate.  Bickley tapped trees on the hillside below the Frenchman’s settlement, then boiled down the sap to be sold at the Bickley Mills trading center in Castlewood.  If you keep your eyes peeled, you may see patches of charcoal in the soil where fires were kept burning all day to reduce the sap by 4,000%, turning maple sap into syrup and then into sugar.

I have tried to tap the Sugar Maples on my own land about ten miles away with limited success, and have heard others in our area complain that southwest Virginia’s mountains no longer get cold enough to produce the sugar-filled sap that boils down into maple syrup.  As global warming makes maple syrup and sugar production in southwest Virginia a matter for the history books, it is worth remembering Sugar Hill’s history as a sign of a colder time.

Until railroads breached the mountains in the late nineteenth century, bartering and subsistence farming were a way of life in Appalachia.  Only small trade goods of high value were worth transporting into the outside world to sell for cash money --- items like moonshine and dried ginseng (aka “seng”) roots.

Gathering medicinal herbs has continued to be an Appalachian source of revenue through the present day with dried ginseng roots now selling for as much as $600 per pound.  Most ginseng roots are eventually exported to China where they are considered a panacea, serving as an aphrodisiac, cure for diabetes and sexual dysfunction, and generally ensuring a long life.  Although ginseng is now hard to find in these hills due to overcollecting, the Americorps Trail is a good spot to observe several other medicinal plant species including Black and Blue Cohosh, Goldenseal, and Twinleaf.

With the possible exception of Twinleaf, all of these species were much prized by the Native Americans, who used them to cure illnesses ranging from menstrual cramps to cancer.  The English name “cohosh”, in fact, is derived from an Algonquin Indian word referring to the gnarly roots, suggesting that both Black and Blue Cohosh roots were used medicinally long before European settlement of the Americas.

Once Europeans entered the Appalachian region, use of medicinal herbs kicked into high gear.  By the early nineteenth century, Goldenseal was prized as a healing herb in both Europe and America.  A century later, 100 to 200 tons of goldenseal were being dug every year, with about a tenth of that being exported to Europe.

Overharvesting combined with habitat loss have since depleted the populations of most of our medicinal plant species and many are now listed as rare or endangered.  Goldenseal and ginseng are currently cultivated to supplement the dwindling native plants found in our rich woodlands.  To preserve these unique plants for our children and grandchildren, please refrain from collecting plants within Sugar Hill.

Humans leave more behind us than chimneys and foundations.  When I walk these hills, I like to keep my eyes open for signs of old homesteads --- patches of daffodils or daylilies blooming in the woods, an old apple tree dropping its fruits in seemingly untouched forest, or wildflowers transplanted out of place.

The large patch of Virginia Bluebells near the Frenchman’s settlement is an example of the latter sign of human life.  Virginia Bluebells usually form dense stands along riverbanks --- and you can find a natural stand or two along the River Trail.  But the patch near the Frenchman’s settlement was clearly placed there by human hands.  I wonder if Tubeuf’s “niece” transplanted these spring flowers from the river as she tried to establish her new home in the Virginia countryside.

In May 1791, Pierre-Francois Tubeuf left France to settle in the mountains of southwest Virginia.  Although he represented himself as a baron fleeing from the French Revolution, Tubeuf was in fact a hard core capitalist who had already burned his bridges in his home country.  He had taken advantage of a developing wood shortage to turn a profit on coal mines just outside the capital, forcing the miners to work twelve to fourteen hour days without leaving their posts even to relieve themselves.  Tubeuf’s tyranny over his workers finally led to an uprising in which the coal baron was badly beaten, losing an eye and injuring an arm and leg.  The time had come to explore the New World.

Although Tubeuf could not have known that his French coal operation would turn so savage, he had still been planning ahead.  Covering his bases, he had bought the rights to 55,000 acres of land in what is now Wise County and the surrounding area from a London-based speculator.  The speculator assured Tubeuf that his new land was full of coal seams.

However, the speculator refrained from warning Tubeuf about the people who already laid claim to the land --- folks who probably descended from American Indians, Melungeons, and white settlers.  These people had small farms and settlements tucked into the mountains where they grazed cows through the woods and broke their cornfields up into patches that were less noticeable to the European settlers.  The native people may have also been snake handlers, rubbing their hands with crushed morning glories so that the hallucinogenic juices made them feel invincible and gave them the courage to grab onto live rattlesnakes.

Of all the dangers in his new home, Tubeuf knew only of the snakes, tales about which had spread quickly from North America.  Poisonous snakes terrified the coal baron, so he bought a special pair of boots reputed to be impenetrable to snake bites.  Then he gathered his older son, his “niece” (who was later discovered to be his mistress), and his household servants and set off to the New World.  His wife, Marie, was left in Paris, hostage to the creditors who had lent Tubeuf funds for his ill-fated French mining operation.

Two years later, Tubeuf finally reached Sugar Hill.  In the intervening period, he settled in Abingdon but was prevented from traveling to “his” property by fear of American Indians.  Once he felt safe enough to do so, Tubeuf built a cabin atop Sugar Hill and proceeded to survey the surrounding land.  In the process, he worked hard to eradicate other inhabitants, burning their corn fields and houses, killing a neighbor’s cow, and sending armed servants to chase men, women, and children through the woods.

The natives retaliated, killing Tubeuf’s dogs, horses, and cows.  Servants were scared away by men “bearing vicious snakes in sacks”, and dead rattlesnakes began to appear with regularity on the cabin’s doorstep.  But Tubeuf did not budge.

Finally, Tubeuf was killed under mysterious circumstances on Election Day, 1795.  Two to twelve men --- who may have been white, American Indian, or Melungeon --- clubbed Tubeuf to death, possibly injuring his family and stealing his livestock.  Half a dozen different accounts muddled the tale.  His son originally spoke of visiting horse-buyers killing Tubeuf, then changed his story to include American Indians.  Tubeuf’s “niece” disappeared the day of his death, only to show up forty years later with a grown son, who was reputed to be Tubeuf’s bastard, along with a story of American Indians murdering the child’s father.  A neighbor went so far as to suggest that Tubeuf was killed by “the long arm of his Jacobin enemies.” The mystery remains unsolved.

Whatever the manner of Tubeuf’s death, his work did not die with him.  The mixture of American Indians, Melungeons, and white settlers who once farmed the land Tubeuf laid claim to were slowly assimilated into the population and disappeared from public record --- folks were ashamed to admit to non-white ancestors.  The coal in Wise and surrounding counties was mined.  Only the Frenchman’s settlement fell into disrepair and eventually crumbled until only a foundation and chimney can be seen as you walk the trails of Sugar Hill.