More Bear Stories: Facts and Tall Tales

Continuing with the theme of North Carolina’s Black Bear Population, it’s time for some tales tall and small about bears. Because these magnificent creatures are a considerable presence in much of North Carolina, there’s quite a few such tales. Seems like everyone you meet here has at least one tale to tell, whether in the rugged mountains or on the fertile piedmont, in the countryside, towns, cities and suburbs.

People who choose to live in the countryside are bound to encounter bears, and most are no worse for the experience. Yet as the countryside becomes ever more populated, the number of bear encounters in more urban settings rises as well. The last installment provided some good links to information about the habits and habitats of NC’s considerable bear population, good to keep in mind whether you’re living in North Carolina or just visiting.

Bears are smart critters. They can become expert at cracking “bearproof” latches on coolers, cars and trucks door handles, garbage bins and dumpster lids to avail themselves of food. They readily learn to beg, pretty much like dogs do. They can put up some impressively aggressive bluffing in order to gain access to golf carts, campsites and your dog’s food. They’ve been known to walk right into cabins, garages, pubs, restaurants and even resort hotels, making themselves right at home.

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North Carolina’s Traditional Music Trail

In the mountain hollows and valleys, along piedmont country roads the traditional music lover can find a variety of music styles performed just about any weekend by old-timers and new-timers along the Music Trail. From ever-popular bluegrass banjo-pickin’ and grinnin’ to fierce fiddling the devil himself can’t catch, from gospel singing to the good ol’ belly-up blues, traditional music in North Carolina still being traditional just about everywhere you look.

There are many outdoor festivals all summer and through the fall, but the music doesn’t stop when the weather gets cold. The Blue Ridge Music Trails website offers a searchable database of events from the southern mountain counties of North Carolina all the way up the blue ridge through Virginia identified by folklife fieldworkers in the region.

The styles of music and dance came to the region along with the settlers moving west to the mountains and beyond via the great Valley Road. It began with the Germans, followed by English, Scotch-Irish, French, Irish, and Welsh settlers and African American slaves. The fiddles came from Europe in the late 18th century, the banjos came from west Africa. The eclectic mix of people spawned a multicultural breed of musicians not shy of borrowing tunes and styles, and by the Civil War the musicians were learning from the rest of the south and sometimes from northern musicians too.

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Seeing More Light

NC’s Lighthouses:

Cape Lookout and Bald Head Island

In the first installment in a series about North Carolina’s storied lighthouses, the Cape Hatteras and Currituck Island lighthouses were featured. This time, the Cape Lookout and Bald Head Island lighthouses are worth a tour through history.

The dangerous, shifting shoals of the North Carolina coastline were a constant danger to mariners and shipwrecks happened frequently. The U.S. Congress authorized a lighthouse at Cape Lookout in 1804, but the first tower was not completed until 1812. But like the original Cape Hatteras light, the Cape Lookout light was too dim to be easily seen off the coast, and ships were in more danger of running aground while looking for the light than if they just kept going until they could see one.

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Hauntings: The Brown Mountain Lights

In the late autumn of the year the forest’s umbrella of summer green turns ten shades of red and as many hues of yellow – with some impossible combinations in between. As they fall to blanket the ground and reveal bare, spiny branches, the view opens up to reconnect the mountain earth with the sky. Right around Halloween and into November a mysterious phenomenon draws hundreds of watchers hoping to see some ghosts.

Mentioned in Cherokee legends originating as long as 800 years ago, the mysterious Brown Mountain Lights have dazzled watchers by zipping and dancing through Linville Gorge and along the Brown Mountain ridge near Morganton in Burke County, North Carolina.

They’ve been described as glowing balls of fire, bursting skyrockets, or pale, white ‘bubbles’. They”ve been seen to drift, fade and brighten, whirl like pinwheels, then dart away playfully. A short hike from a parking area along a gravel Forest Service is Wisemans View in the Pisgah National Forest.

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Seeing The Light

NC’s Lighthouses:

Cape Hatteras and Currituck Island

North Carolina’s coastline juts well out into the Atlantic Ocean with serious attitude. It claims the distinction of owning the easternmost point in all of the United States, and catches more than its share of hurricanes and nor’easter storms.

The beautiful Cape Hatteras lighthouse is the most famous lighthouse in America, and originally sat right on that eastern most point of sand. Back in 1793 when the nation was still in its infancy, funds were released by the U.S. Congress to build a mighty lighthouse to mark the notorious Diamond Shoals sandbar, graveyard to more ships than anyone cared to count.

Diamond Shoals marks the meeting place of the two great Atlantic currents, the cold water Labrador current and the warm north-bound Gulf Stream. Their meeting creates shifting sandbars just beneath the surface, making for some very dangerous waters. Illness in the building crews delayed the completion of the lighthouse until 1803, when it was lit for the very first time. The original light consisted of 18 oil lamps with 14″ reflectors, providing a beam that could be seen from 12 miles offshore.

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