Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The scenic subtext of the Blue Ridge

A great piece on CNN's Travel page (written by the Associated Press) details writer Anne Mitchell Whisnant's work on the "scenic subtext" of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the frontier-like atmosphere of its inhabitants.

"On a postcard-perfect Saturday at the Heffner Gap Overlook, Anne Mitchell Whisnant reads from one of the scores of informational signs -- known as 'gun boards' for their frontier rifle logos -- posted along the 470 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway," says the article.

" 'There were few homegrown products more useful to the mountain farmer than apples,' she reads. 'Cuttings from favorite trees were often taken from place to place when the family moved or children left home. Today, old apple trees often indicate the location of a beloved but abandoned mountain homestead.'

"The gun board's evocation of a simple, pre-industrial mountain lifestyle is part of the grand, immensely popular illusion created by the National Park Service, Whisnant writes in her new book 'Super-Scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History.' The book strips away decades of such myth-making fostered by tourism officials and the park service, and details the social, economic and political battles that shaped a two-lane road that's the most visited place managed by the park service. ...

" 'The park service loves to talk about the landscape architects and their vision and the design,' Whisnant said during a recent drive along a 40-mile stretch of the road, from Julian Price Park south of Blowing Rock to Little Switzerland. 'What there hasn't been attention to are these other forces -- historical, cultural, social ... political -- that also shaped the way the thing looks.' ..."

Click here for the rest of the intriguing story.

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