Appalachia & Cherokee: Mountain History from Three Angles

Three days that place Appalachian mountain culture in its full historical context — the English and Scots-Irish settler culture at the Museum of Appalachia, the Cherokee Nation's ancient homeland and living culture at the Qualla Boundary in Cherokee, NC, and the return through the Blue Ridge Parkway and downtown Knoxville's Victorian commercial core. The Museum of Appalachia in Norris represents the settler perspective on the mountains with extraordinary depth. The Museum of the Cherokee Indian in Cherokee gives the other perspective — a 12,000-year continuous presence in the southern Appalachians predating European contact, with exhibits covering the Trail of Tears deportation of 1838 and the community of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians who remained. The Oconaluftee Indian Village adjacent is a living recreation of an 18th-century Cherokee town with costumed interpreters. Downtown Knoxville closes the loop with the Market Square, Tennessee Theatre, and Old City arts district on the return day.