The Road to Nowhere

When moving day came in the spring of 1944, Vance's brothers had already shipped off to war. So it fell to Vance and her sisters to help their father salvage lumber from the house, packing board after board onto a truck. They left Proctor for a new home about 50 miles away. Their hearts were heavy with loss, Vance says, but also filled with the pride of national purpose. "The TVA told us that we needed the power from the dam to win the war."

The story echoes across Southern Appalachia. By 1942, TVA had 12 hydroelectric projects under construction. For many families, the dams meant having electric lights and modern appliances for the first time. But for some, modernity came at a hefty price.

Soon the flood waters behind Fontana Dam destroyed North Carolina Highway 288, the only road leading to Proctor and the other mountain towns north of the new lake. More than 44,000 acres were effectively cut off, sandwiched between the national park and Fontana Lake. So even those with homes above the shoreline were forced to move. Before those residents left, however, the federal government agreed to build a new road north of the lake. "My dad pushed very hard for that road," says Vance. "He . . . didn't want to leave unless [we] could come back to the cemeteries."

But for years the promise of a new road went unfulfilled. The North Shore became part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the National Park Service officially opposed plowing a swath of pavement through what had become some of its most prized eastern back country. The former residents were outraged. Vance and her former neighbors tried suing, lobbying, demonstrating, all to little avail.

By 1972--nearly 30 years after the federal government had promised the road--only seven of roughly 40 miles had been built. Then the National Park Service canceled the construction, citing fiscal and environmental concerns. Locals now call this dead-end spur the Road to Nowhere. For a long time, the road project received little attention, although the Park Service recognized an obligation to the former residents and began hiring ferry boats to transport them across the lake. Then in 2000, Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Charles Taylor, both North Carolina Republicans, helped squeak $16 million into a multibillion-dollar appropriations bill "for construction of, and improvements to, North Shore Road."

Actual construction could not begin, however, until the completion of an environmental impact study, the results of which are due later this year. For now, Vance and her former neighbors get to their remote family cemeteries the hard way.

WE'RE GLIDING ACROSS FONTANA LAKE in a ferryboat. The water is like black glass, as it often is in the morning. As the day unfolds, westerly winds will barrel through the valley, whipping the lake's surface into a thick chop. The pilot promises that our return journey will not be so smooth. Above us a succession of ridges rise, eventually reaching more than 5,000 feet. From here, however, there's no telling the great dimensions of these mountains, and not just because the hills are shrouded in mist. The Smoky Mountains reveal themselves reluctantly, unlike their Western counterparts, which awe you in an instant. A good day in the Smokies--by my account--is ambling slowly through the forest, ever upward, until you reach one of the celebrated balds, which are the high treeless patches that define some of the highest peaks. There you can look out and, perhaps for the first time during your hike, fully realize the magnitude of your labor.

The ferryboat floats into a slender gully. Here, Hazel Creek used to empty into the Little Tennessee River. On the bank, a gnarled poplar hangs over the water, and Vance says that she can make out the contour of old Highway 288. She says that is where the bus used to pick her up for school.

"Most people come here and just see the mountains," Vance says. "But I see where all the people used to live."

Soon we land at the mouth of Hazel Creek and step onto the North Shore. It was only about 15 minutes across the narrow lake, and the ease of our arrival is, at for least me, a little dispiriting. This place is supposed to be an outpost of remoteness, yet here we are unloading coolers of Coke, potato chips and meatballs.

Vance and her sister join a small ring of people who arrived on one of the earlier ferries. Their other sister, Mildred Johnson, is here waiting, when up ahead a rickety beige short-bus chokes, coughs and sputters to a halt. That, Vance says, is our ride up the mountain.

Our destination is Bone Valley, some seven miles away, the bus driver says. He wears the dull green uniform of the National Park Service. Vance doesn't seem too impressed with the Park Service's willingness to supply the transportation.