Fall Harvest Festival This Weekend At Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The annual Mountain Life Festival will be held at the Mountain Farm Museum in Great Smoky Mountains National Park this Saturday. NPS photo.

If you've ever wondered how they make sorghum syrup, head to Great Smoky Mountains National Park this Saturday to find out the process. That and other mountain arts will be on display during the park's annual Mountain Life Festival at the park's Mountain Farm Museum.

The centerpiece of the event is the sorghum syrup demonstration, which the national park has provided each fall for almost 40 years. Park officials say the syrup is made much the same way it was produced 100 or more years ago, using a horse-powered cane mill and wood-fired cooker. The syrup-making demonstration is provided by students, staff, and volunteers from Swain County High School through a cooperative agreement with Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains Association. The association is the national park’s non-profit partner that operates the bookstores in the park’s visitor centers.

Other activities during the day will include hearth cooking, apple butter and apple cider making, blacksmithing, lye soap making, food preservation, broom making, quilting, and chair bottoming. Artifacts and historic photographs from the national park's collection will also be on display. Music will be provided by Marshall Crowe and the Bluegrass Singers. Featured participants at this year’s event include Ron and Suzanne Joyner from Big Horse Creek Farm in Ashe County, North Carolina, whose small, family-owned orchard and nursery maintains more than 300 varieties of custom-grafted heirloom apple trees; Annie Lee Bryson from Sylva, North Carolina, making cornshuck dolls; the Woodard family from Bryson City, North Carolina, making hominy; and Roy Henson from Tennessee will provide a display of traditional toys.

"During the event, visitors can explore the preserved collection of Southern Appalachian farm buildings assembled here from their original locations throughout the Park," said Park Ranger Lynda Doucette. "Most of the structures, including a chestnut log farmhouse, date from about 1900, giving a glimpse into the past, and with the demonstrations that are planned, visitors can gain a better understanding of the rural heritage of this country."

The Mountain Farm Museum is located adjacent to the park’s Oconaluftee Visitor Center on Newfound Gap Road (US 441), two miles north of Cherokee, N.C.

All activities are free and open to the public.