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CURRENT Features

Jeremy Arch Displays Cherokee Ways

The North Carolina native offers tours at the Oconaluftee Indian Village.

Bird Man

Chris Kappler turns flying obsession into soaring sideline business. A chance encounter with a discerning pilot changed a 15-year-old’s life forever.

Mountain Traditions: Back to Business, Decades Later

A happy accident led Nancy Bruns to revitalize her family’s 200-year-old West Virginia salt-making business.

A Town Comes to Peace: The Elephant in the Train Yard

In September 1916, the eastern Tennessee town of Erwin earned a notoriety that would shadow it for a century, when a five-ton elephant was lynched in the railyard, suspended from a railroad derrick before a crowd hungry for her blood.

Ezra Staengl Has His Eye on Nature

The young Virginia naturalist is on a quest to protect nature and inspire others to do the same.

Current Issue

Jeremy Arch talks about the Oconaluftee Indian Village. The village stands adjacent to a playhouse hosting summer productions of the outdoor drama “Unto These Hills."

Jeremy Arch Displays Cherokee Ways

The North Carolina native offers tours at the Oconaluftee Indian Village.
Chris Kappler (inset) does a loop-de-loop over West Virginia’s New River Gorge for a Wild Blue Adventure customer in his restored 1943 Boeing Stearman. With each aerial tour, pilot Chris Kappler is transformed into a World War II flying ace.

Bird Man

Chris Kappler turns flying obsession into soaring sideline business. A chance encounter with a discerning pilot changed a 15-year-old’s life forever.
Nancy Bruns and her brother, Lewis Payne, have been harvesting salt since 2014.

Mountain Traditions: Back to Business, Decades Later

A happy accident led Nancy Bruns to revitalize her family’s 200-year-old West Virginia salt-making business.
Main Street Erwin comes alive for the Great Outdoors Festival, even in the rain.

A Town Comes to Peace: The Elephant in the Train Yard

In September 1916, the eastern Tennessee town of Erwin earned a notoriety that would shadow it for a century, when a five-ton elephant was lynched in the railyard, suspended from a railroad derrick before a crowd hungry for her blood.
Left and inset: Ezra Staengl Bronze Award at the 2018 American Birding Association Young Birder of the Year Competition included an honorable mention for his photography. Right: Ezra got photographically up close and personal with these chestnut-sided warblers.

Ezra Staengl Has His Eye on Nature

The young Virginia naturalist is on a quest to protect nature and inspire others to do the same.
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Departments

At Coopers Rock State Forest, new Stargazer cabins invite guests to look up through skylights and telescopes.
Country Roads

Even Closer to Almost Heaven

New Stargazer cabins at Coopers Rock State Forest offer a skyward escape in the mountains of West Virginia.

June 29, 2026
©Duncan Seaman
Country Roads

A Mountain Tradition Turns 90 

Visitors flock to Galax, Virginia, each summer for the Old Fiddlers’ Convention, a days-long celebration of Appalachian music.

June 29, 2026
Synchronous Fireflies
Creature Feature

The Light Fantastic

Fireflies are struggling with the effects of artificial light.

June 29, 2026

CALENDAR OF EVENTS