All overnight camping in the backcountry requires a backcountry permit. Otherwise, camp and build fires only in designated campground sites.
We suggest that you do not bring pets. They are permitted in the park but only if on a leash or under other physical control. They may not be taken on trails or cross-country hikes. Veterinary services are found nearby. If you want to board your pet during your stay here, check with the nearby chambers of commerce.
Oconaluftee
At the Pioneer Farmstead in Oconaluftee you can get a glimpse of what daily farm life was like in the Smokies. Besides the ongoing kitchen tasks, chores included tending cows and chickens, cutting and stacking hay, building and repairing barns and wagons, and a thousand other things.
Self-sufficiency and individuality were strong traits in the Smokies. Each person had to do a variety of tasks, and each family member had to help or complement the others. Just as Milas Messer (see pages [90-91]) exemplified these traits personally, the Pioneer Farmstead at Oconaluftee on the North Carolina side of the park represents them structurally. Various buildings have been brought here to create a typical Smokies farmstead on the banks of the Oconaluftee River.
In the summer and fall farm animals roam about the farmstead and a man and a woman carry out daily chores to give you an idea of what the pioneers had to do just to exist. At first these Jacks- and Jills-of-all-trades had no stores to go to. They made their own tools, built their own houses and barns and outbuildings, raised their own food, made their own clothes, and doctored themselves, for the most part.
The log house here is a particularly nice one, for John Davis built it with matched walls. He split the logs in half and used the halves on opposite walls. The two stone chimneys are typical of the earliest houses. Davis’ sons, then 8 and 4, collected rocks for the chimneys with oxen and a sled.
Behind the house is an essential building, the meathouse. Here meat, mostly pork, was layered on the shelf at the far end and covered with a thick coating of salt. After the meat had cured, it was hung from poles, which go from end to end, to protect it from rodents. In the early years especially, bear meat and venison hung alongside the pork.
Apples were a big part of the settlers’ diet in a variety of forms: cider, vinegar, brandy, sauces, and pies. And of course they ate them, too, right off the tree. The thick rock walls on the lower floor of the apple house protect the fruit from freezing in winter. The summer apples were kept on the log-wall second floor.