The annual Mountain Life Festival at the Mountain Farm Museum in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is scheduled Saturday, September 19, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. During this 75th anniversary year of the park, the event will showcase Appalachian folkways and pay tribute to the many families who lived on lands that would later become the national park.
The centerpiece of the event is the sorghum syrup demonstration, which the national park has provided each fall for almost 40 years. The syrup is made much the same way it was produced a hundred or more years ago, using a horse-powered cane mill and wood-fired cooker. The syrup making demonstration is provided by students, staff, and volunteers from Swain County High School through a cooperative agreement with Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains Association. The association is the national park’s non-profit partner that operates the bookstores in the park’s visitor centers.
Other activities during the day will include hearth cooking, apple butter and apple cider making, blacksmithing, lye soap making, food preservation, broom making, quilting, and chair bottoming. Artifacts and historic photographs from the national park’s collection will also be on display. Music will be provided by Marshall Crowe and the Bluegrass Singers. Featured participants at this year’s event include Ron and Suzanne Joyner from Big Horse Creek Farm in Ashe County, N.C. whose small, family-owned orchard and nursery maintains more than 300 varieties of custom-grafted heirloom apple trees; Annie Lee Bryson from Sylva, N.C., making cornshuck dolls; the Woodard family from Bryson City, N.C., making hominy; and Roy Henson from Tennessee will provide a display of traditional toys.
“During the event, visitors can explore the preserved collection of Southern Appalachian farm buildings assembled here from their original locations throughout the Park,” said Park Ranger Lynda Doucette. “Most of the structures, including a chestnut log farmhouse, date from about 1900, giving a glimpse into the past, and with the demonstrations that are planned, visitors can gain a better understanding of the rural heritage of this country,” she added.
The Mountain Farm Museum is located adjacent to the park’s Oconaluftee Visitor Center on Newfound Gap Road (US 441), two miles north of Cherokee, N.C.
All activities are free and open to the public. For more information call the visitor center at (828) 497-1904.
