For bear-driving in the Black mountains, the best place for a stranger who really wishes to kill a bear, and who feels himself equal to so arduous a tramp, is “Big Tom” Wilson’s, on Cane river. To reach it, you take the stage from Asheville to Burnsville, and then ride or walk from the village 15 miles to the home of the old hunter. He is familiar with every part of the mountains. He it was that discovered the body of Professor Mitchell. Another good starting point would be from some cabin on the Toe river side, reaching it by leaving the main traveled road at a point, shown you by the native, between Burnsville and Bakersville. A start might be made on the Swannanoa side; but the guides close at the base of the mountains have become perverted by too much travel from abroad, and will show more anxiety about securing pay for their accommodations and services than interest in driving up a bear. Judging, however, from the number of traps set in the latter locality, one would form the idea that bears pay frequent visits to the cornfields.
For a drive in the Smoky mountains, read the sketch on deer hunting. The region of the Cataluche, 22 miles north of Waynesville, is an excellent place to visit. The log-cabin of Tyre McCall on the head-waters of the French Broad, and near Brevard, would afford fair headquarters for him who wished to rough it. Deer and bear roam on the Tennessee Bald within five miles of the cabin. Tyre is a horny-handed but hospitable host, and would hunt with you in earnest.
In the Nantihalas, Alexander Mundy’s is the point from which to start on a bear hunt. Further into the wilderness, on the far boundary of Graham county, rise the Santeelah and Tellico mountains. At Robbinsville information can be obtained regarding the best hunter with whom to remain for a week’s sport.
With this slight introduction, the writer proposes to convey to the reader some idea of what bear hunting in the heart of the Alleghanies is like; what one must expect to encounter, and what sort of friends he is likely to make on such expeditions. Besides the usual equipments carried by every hunter, it would be well to take a rubber blanket and have the guide carry an ax.
It was one night about the 1st of December that we were in camp; eight of us, huddled together under a low bark roof, and within three frail sides of like material. Around the camp lay seventeen dogs. The ground beneath us was cold and bare, except for a thin layer of ferns lately bundled in by some of the party. Before the front of the shelter, lay a great fire of heavy logs, heaped close enough for a long-legged sleeper to stick his feet in, while his head rested on the bolster log. The hot flames, fanned by a strong wind, leaped high and struggled up into the darkness. On long sticks, several of the group were toasting chunks of fat pork; others were attending to black tin pails of water boiling for coffee, while the remaining few were eating lunches already prepared. The wood crackled, and occasionally the unseasoned chestnut timber snapped, sending out showers of sparks. Around and within the circle of fire-light, stood the trees with stripped, gaunt limbs swaying in the wind. Above, clouds rolled darkly, concealing the face of the sky.
The temporary camp of a party of mountaineers on the hunt for Bruin, as viewed by night, presents a scene of unique interest. It is a shelter only for the time being; no one expects to return to it, for by the following night the hounds may be 20 miles away, and the drivers and standers toasting bear steaks in their cabins, or encamping on some distant height preparatory to resuming on the morrow the chase of a bruin who had through one day eluded their pursuit. The mountain straggler often sees by the trail which he follows, the ashes and scattered black brands of an extinguished fire, and the poles and birch bark of an abandoned camp. At this view he imagines he has some idea of a hunter’s camp; but it is like the conception of the taste of an oyster from a sight of the empty shell.
Situated as above described, we were improving an opportunity afforded for devouring the whole oyster. Our encampment was on Old Bald; not the famous shaking mountain, but of the Balsams, eight miles south of Waynesville. A few days previous, a denizen of Caney Fork, while crossing the mountain by the new dug road, came face to face with a black bear, gray about the nose and ears, and of enormous size, as he said. Did you ever hear a tale where the bear was not of size too large to swallow? The denizen of the valley had no fire-arms with him, so both, equally frightened, stood staring at each other, until the denizen of the mountain shuffled into the beech woods. This report considerably interested the Richland settlers. They laid their plans for an early hunt, and had them prematurely hatched by information brought in by the highest log-chopper on the creek, that his yard had been entered the last past night by some “varmint,” and a fine hundred-pound hog (otherwise known as a mountain shad) killed and eaten within the pig-pen. The log-chopper had followed the trail for some distance, but without avail.
That same afternoon our party climbed the mountain by an old bridle-path, arriving just before sunset at a place admirably suited for a camp. Two steep ridges, descending from the main mountain top, hold between them the channel of a sparkling brook. Its water is crystal in clearness and icy cold. The wood, principally beech, is green with casings of moss, and the cold rocks in the brook’s bed and on the slopes above it are covered with a like growth. Where the trail enters the water the ground is level on one bank, and here we decided to kindle our fire, and, as the air was quite chilly, bearing indications of a storm, to erect a light shelter.
Dry leaves and twigs make excellent tinder for a flint’s spark to settle and blaze in, and enough seasoned logs, bark, and limbs always lie scattered through this forest to afford campfires. Our’s was soon flaming. The loosened bark of a fallen beech furnished us the material for the roof and sides of a shelter, which we built up on four forked limbs driven into the ground and covered with long poles. It was secured against wind assaults by braces.
Near where we encamped, and below on the Beech Flats, stand trees as stately and magnificent as any ever touched by woodman’s ax. We noticed several cherries measuring four and a half feet through, and towering, straight as masts, 70 feet before shooting out a limb; poplars as erect and tall to their lower branches and of still greater diameter; chestnuts from 15 to 33 feet in circumference, and thousands of sound, lofty linns, ashes, buckeyes, oaks, and sugar maples. A few hemlocks considerably exceed 100 feet in height. A tree called the wahoo, grows here as well as on many of the ranges. It bears a white lily-shaped flower in the summer. Numerous cucumber trees are scattered on the slopes. These with the beech, water birch, black birch or mountain mahogany, black gum, red maple, and hickory, form the forests from the mountain bases to the line of the balsams. On the Beech Flats there is no underbrush, except where the rhododendron hedges the purling streams. In places the plain path, the stately trees, and the level or sloping ground, covered only with the mouldering leaves of autumn, form parks more magnificent than those kept in trim by other hands than nature’s.