Another Country: Journeying Toward the Cherokee Mountains [Hardcover]

Christopher Camuto (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1997

The author of A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge journeys through the forests and rivers of the southern Appalachian summit region, the historical home of the Cherokee, and depicts a haunting American landscape. 10,000 first printing."

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Camuto (Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge, LJ 11/1/90) once again reveals his love for the wilderness of the southern Appalachians, known to many as the Cherokee Mountains. He relates his journeys on foot and by canoe into this biologically diverse country, centered along the summit-line border of North Carolina and Tennessee, in the tradition of such natural history writers as Thoreau and Luna B. Leopold. Inspired by ethnologist James Mooney's 19th-century classic studies of the Cherokees and encouraged by the 1992 restoration of the red wolf (a central figure in Cherokee mythology) to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Camuto writes richly about the relationship of pre-European Cherokee culture to the physical and spiritual beauty of the land and its flora and fauna; seldom are natural and cultural history so beautifully interwoven. His work will be a significant addition to any Native American, regional studies, or natural history collection.?Pamela W. Bellows, Northwestern Connecticut Community Technical Coll. Lib., Winstead
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Hiker, canoer, watcher, listener, and meditator, Camuto observes history and nature in the southern Appalachian Mountains, the former homeland of the expelled Cherokee Indians. Favoring a multilevel, nonchronological format, Camuto extols the magnificence of the land before European contact and laments its appearance today and records in detail the reintroduction to the region of the red wolf. With wildness hemmed into the upper reaches of the Great Smokies, Camuto heads for the heights, where he camps in winter, reducing encounters with humans, and engages in a sensitive reflection on the land and the Cherokees' relationship with it. His inspiration is James Mooney, a government ethnologist from the 1880s who wrote about Cherokee culture, including place-names Camuto sought. As he arrives at these locales, Camuto recalls events, forestry, and wildlife that have retreated to refuges of place or memory. Earnest, wistful, and imbued with the poeticalness of nature, Camuto's work conveys the exhilaration of mountaintops, streams, and predators--and the naturalist's dismay at roads, dams, and tourist traps. Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 351 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; 1st edition (July 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805026940
• ISBN-13: 978-0805026948
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,948,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forgotten history, October 1, 2000

By 

R. S. Corbett (Athens, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Another Country: Journeying toward the Cherokee Mountains (Paperback)

I've hiked and fished the Southern Highlands for years, especially the area in and around the Smoky Mt. National Park. Reading Another Country has shown me this place in a completely new light. He compares these mountains at one point to a palimpsest--a scraped-over parchment on which old texts leave faint traces. This book records Camuto's efforts to track these traces, which of course are quickly vanishing if not already gone. By giving these mountains back their ancient names, by telling stories the Cherokee told their children about their homeland, by delving into the natural and human history of the places he walks, by honoring the memories of the ones who are gone, and by contextualizing the beleaguered efforts to bring the red wolf back to its former ground, Camuto opens up layer upon layer of meaning for us who seek out the last wild places without always knowing why. An unforgettable book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Country: Journeying Toward the Cherokee Mountains, June 26, 2001

By 

Andy Hall (Atlanta) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Another Country: Journeying toward the Cherokee Mountains (Paperback)

I've searched for years for just the right book that sums up my feelings for lost wilderness and finally found it with this book. I find Mr. Camuto's contrast with William Bartram's descriptions of the mountains both startling and sad. I've walked these mountains for over 30 years and in just the last 10 have I begun to realize the tragic consequences of overdevelopment and urban sprawl. Mountains and streams once largely clean and pristine now are considered off limits for fishing and drinking and I wonder why we have no love for the complexity of our natural environment. Like a Sand County Almanac, Chris Camuto has begun a modern discussion of the land ethic. An ethic our country, I fear, has so far refused to acknowledge or accept.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Country: Journeying Toward the Cherokee Mountains, June 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Another Country: Journeying Toward the Cherokee Mountains (Hardcover)

A wonderfully written book about the red wolf reintroduction into the blue ridge mountains and the land of the Cherokee indians. Tells the history of the European exploration of the mountains with DeSoto woven into how red wolves were put back into their original habitat.

Its a very hard book to put down.