National Geographic Traveller (UK)
DRIVING THROUGH PIGEON FORGE IS NOTHING SHORT OF EUPHORIC
The small mountain city, deep in the beating heart of East Tennessee, boasts a main drag like no other, all twinkling lights, curious characters, gaudy billboards and eye-popping attractions. The kerbside carousel makes it hard to keep my eyes on the road.
I pass a gaggle of sightseers, among them Amish holidaymakers in bonnets and boaters, craning their heads back to admire a giant King Kong clinging to the outside of a tall building, his jaws frozen in an endless roar, his clenched fist grasping a retro aeroplane. This is perhaps the kitschiest monument in the city — which has marketed itself as a ‘family vacation hub’ since the 1980s — but it’s certainly not alone in vying for that title. There’s a replica of the doomed Titanic; a souvenir shop claiming to sell live alligators; and a waffle house boasting no fewer than 100 singing animatronic chickens.
Up ahead, a Bavarian-style mansion appears like a mirage. An actor dressed as Father Christmas stands out front, sweating in the blazing midsummer sunshine next to a colossal, bauble-decked fir tree. This hotel, I gather from a painted sign, celebrates Christmas every single day of the year. It’s a lot to take in.
Yet, beyond this razzle-dazzle main drag of artifice and entertainment, waterfalls cascade in hushed 300-million-year-old woodland and hawks patrol the heavens. A road trip through the Great Smoky Mountains offers up almost impossible contradictions.
I tackle backcountry roads, driving through deep forest towards the neighbouring town, Gatlinburg, until I spot Ogle’s Broom Shop, a higgledy-piggledy wooden dwelling that’s tumbled straight from the pages of a Hans Christian Andersen tale. Inside, David Ogle, a third-generation broom maker, sweeps a pile of corn from a chair and offers me a seat. He tells me how the relationship between tourism and the local mountain communities of Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville has long been a symbiotic one, existing even prior to the grand opening of the popular Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934.
Behind him, curling sepia photos show David’s grandfather when he was starting the family business from a roadside cabin in the 1920s. “Back then, travellers would drive these backroads on the lookout for handcrafted goods,” says David. “If a couple of visitors stopped by when lunch was ready, my grandaddy would invite them into his home.” He adds that curious visitors often bit off more than they could chew — sometimes literally.
“Grandaddy was heavy into bear hunting, so that was the meat that often ended up on the table!” The plaid-shirted artisan chuckles fondly, surrounded by his creations. Around the shop are brooms with knotted handles carved into the faces of wizardly old men representing his forebears — plus the odd Father Christmas thrown in for good measure.
Like a magician performing a well-practised trick, David takes meticulous care as he binds