Working in the National Park Service has taken Tracy Swartout all around the country. But in many ways, her new role as superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway, based at the service’s office in Asheville, is a homecoming. Swartout grew up in Columbia, S.C., and has many fond memories traveling along the park’s 469-mile route […]
Standing at the pull-off on a gravel road near an unmarked trail in the Bent Creek Experimental Forest, geologist Rick Wooten tightens his black webbed utility belt — which holds a camera, a hammer and a Brunton compass. In the shade of his car’s open hatchback, he leans over a Panasonic Toughbook that’s displaying an […]
A PBS miniseries highlighting the people and the environmental history of Appalachia will have its North Carolina premiere in Asheville on Friday, Jan. 16.
Several years ago, poet/farmer Wendell Berry penned a controversial essay titled “Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” in which he presented a clearheaded rationale for not buying into this form of technological slavery. His critics countered that computers enable them to follow and respond to the numerous environmental issues we face. Berry […]
