Over a long career as a wildlife biologist for state, federal and private interests I have had the wonderful opportunity to work in some starkly different habitat types. From our beautiful Appalachians to the low-country coastal swamps, it has been an education every day. But it was not until I…
“A sea of forest to the horizon.” This is how the Appalachian Mountains were described by various explorers starting in the early 1600s, and it was exactly that: millions of acres of beautiful trees. Let’s take a look at the Appalachian forest, now and before the time of European settlement.…
As the years pass and we grow older, we gain an appreciation for those that came before us. I know that is true for me; how I view the world today is the result of a comparison of what I know of my own history with that of my parents.…
*First published in Sporting Classics magazine, this is a true glimpse of the Four Winds Farm mentioned in the “Aunt Mae” column. The Waterhole 1-1-11 Walt Hampton The Pearman farm in Wythe County, Virginia, near Porter’s Crossroads, was 798 acres of pasture, small grain and sinkhole hardwoods under the watchful…
First things first: It is pronounced “Ain’t” Mae. Writing about family is hard for me. Things seen through the eyes of a small boy are clouded by the years and the experiences that come later in life; when we were little we all looked for the best in people, the…
It has been said of me that I am a hard man. I never gave this type of thing much thought, to be truthful; but I now realize that this description has been based on the observers’ perspective, not necessarily on the facts at hand. In my world there are…
If you can get your hands on a good relief map of the central Appalachian region, and in our particular case the Winston-Salem quadrangle at the 1:250,000 scale, you can get a sense of the magnitude of the awesome array of mountains and valleys we call home. This is a…
The Appalachian region of our country has a unique and storied past. This is an area of exploration, settlement, abandonment and re-settlement that today is becoming popular with the folks wanting to ‘get back to the land’, either by retiring here or visiting in a semi-permanent fashion, with summer homes…
I had an editor tell me “Times have changed”. Maybe so. With what we each perceive as different from what came before, and with the benefit of 61 years on the planet, I believe there are two things that have not changed: Guns are still guns and dogs are still…
After a treaty meeting with the Cherokee at Ft. Chiswell in 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker, with three Cherokee guides, made his way across southwest Virginia into eastern Kentucky. His diaries of that trip, now in the Library of Virginia in Richmond, give great detail of that journey through the wilderness.…
