What makes the Great Smoky Mountains smoky?

The US is home to 63 stunning national parks. But  the most visited one, the Great Smoky Mountains.  

The Smokies are amazing, particularly because of  their beautiful landscapes and biodiversity.  

I particularly love "Smoky streams,"  which are these cascading, tumbling,  

beautiful bits of water. We get a lot of  folks who come here for the leaf season,  

but the colors are vibrant all year round, and  we're so fortunate to be in this beautiful  

place. These mountains are widely called  shaconage, which is a Cherokee word meaning  

blue. People often embellish the translation to  say the land of blue smoke or the place of blue  

smoke. There's a Dolly Parton song that's  famous that uses that word. But what gives  

these mountains their iconic blue hazy effect? And  what is their significance to the Cherokee people?

The Smoky Mountains are located on the borders  of Tennessee and North Carolina. In 1926,  

President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill authorizing  the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National  

Park. It's over 500,000 acres and home to over  20,000 documented species. The Smokies' location  

and landscape contribute to its temperate climate.  My name is Stephanie Kyriazis and I'm the chief of  

resource education here at Great Smoky Mountains  National Park. I think the landscape is much  

more dramatic in person. You get on some of the  ridges or some of the overlooks and there's just  

layer after layer of mountains that  you can see. This helps to create the weather  

pattern called orographic precipitation or relief  rainfall. It's a temperate rainforest. We do get  

a significant amount of precipitation the  difference from the rainforest you may think  

about. It's not as warm and humid, but we do  get a significant amount of rain in the Smokies.  

Warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico is forced  up by the mountains. As the air rises, it cools,  

causing the water vapor to condense into water  droplets and forming clouds. And when the clouds  

grow larger and can no longer hold the condensed  water, rainfall occurs. This rainfall is part of  

the reason why the Smokies appear smoky. But the  direct cause of this blue smoke is something a  

little more green. Smokies are also smoky because  all of that vegetation does sort of release a kind  

of a gas that that leads to a little bit of haze  under some conditions. This gas is known as  

VOC's, volatile organic compounds. The trees and  vegetation expelling water vapor are part of what  

creates this haze. You can think of it as the  forest breathing. The molecules from this haze  

scatter light from the sky, making a blueish  hue. The Great Smoky Mountains, lush forest,  

and natural resources made it the perfect place  for new settlers to begin their lives in the  

Americas. But as you can imagine, they were not  the first people to be enchanted by the Smokies.  

So, I don't know if you can tell by the video yet,  but the Great Smoky Mountains are more than just a  

place you read about. It's something you have to  experience for yourself. From the acres of misty  

forest to the tiniest of critters, the Smokies  are truly alive. And that sense of wonder and  

adventure doesn't have to stop there. Beyond  the Blue Ridge Mountains where the Smokies are  

in North Carolina, you'll find quiet towns,  museums like the Museum of Cherokee people,  

beautiful hiking trails, and restaurants that  feel distinctly North Carolina. There's really  

a little bit of something for everyone there.  So, for real, visit North Carolina. And now,  

let's get back to the video because  there is so much more I want you to see.

My name is Shana Bushyhead Condill. I'm a citizen  of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and I'm  

honored to serve as the executive director of the  Museum of the Cherokee People. As Cherokee people,  

we know that we are of this place. And when  we say that, what we're saying is that since  

time immemorial, we know that we have been  here. The Smoky Mountains are in the heart  

of historic Cherokee homeland, and their presence  in this region dates back thousands of years. The  

Cherokees' territory covered much of what we know  today as West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, North  

Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, and  Alabama, which means that by the time Europeans  

reached the Smokies in the 1500s, Cherokee  settlements were already established throughout  

the region. There were townships that span that  whole ancestral territory. And there would have  

been areas and land that would have been more  contested or even shared with other tribes for  

like hunting and that kind of a thing. But with  the arrival of European settlers came smallpox,  

raids, and destruction of Cherokee villages, and  forced displacement of native people from their  

homes. The US government passed the Indian Removal  Act of 1830, which in time led to ethnic cleansing  

and displacement of nearly 100,000 native people.  This decade of massacre and capture is known as  

the Trail of Tears. Several hundred Cherokee  people hid in the Smoky Mountains to evade  

their captors. Some were able to use the law  to reacquire their lands, and others managed to  

return after the forced removal. Today, their  descendants are known as the Eastern Band of  

Cherokee Indians. The story of how we came to be  the Eastern Band and how we came to be in this  

place is a story that started immediately after  removal in 1838 and continues today. We are still  

working to acquire land back. We all hold  ties to this place. So, we have generation upon  

generation of folks who also call these mountains  home. Today, the Cherokee people are continuing  

to advocate for the restoration of their history  in the Smokies and other parts of the US. One of  

the big wins in recent memory about a year ago  now is that the highest peak in the Great Smoky  

Mountains was named after a Confederate  general. And we had two Cherokee women who  

worked tirelessly to get the name restored back to  Kuwohi, which is our name for that sacred space.  

The Great Smoky Mountains are not just one of the  most magical national parks you can visit in the  

US, they're also a testament to the enduring  link between land and identity. It's home to  

an abundance of biodiversity and remains a place  where terrain served as protection for indigenous  

people. But preservation of this land is an  active endeavor. So when a lot of people come  

to the Smokies, they see this beautiful forested  landscape and imagine that it's been that way  

forever. However, in the late 19th and early  20th century, the park was almost completely  

clear-cut by logging companies that were working  in the mountains. It really took the last hundred  

years for that forest to recover. And so today,  you know, most people think of the the Smokies as  

a very forested landscape, but there are really  only a handful of patches where we have true old  

growth trees that still remain. For a forest  biologist, our landscape will still look  

like it's in its adolescence, maybe. Most people  when they come to the Smokies can't tell that it  

ever was a practically barren landscape. Coupled  with pollution and the effects of climate change,  

there's still plenty to be done to look after  this treasure in southern Appalachia. To come  

and actually experience these mountains  and these views and the expanses, I mean,  

I will always believe that it is the most  beautiful place I've ever seen in the world.