With her latest work, Saving the Wild South, veteran writer and storyteller Georgann Eubanks takes a leap into the world of botany to bring readers a deeper understanding of both the threats and most promising developments in the protection and restoration of our region's extraordinary biodiversity.

Please join Grandfather Mountain’s ambassador opossum to learn, discover, and be awed by North America’s only marsupial mammal.

Come and visit with Legendary Potter, N.C. Living Treasure, and unofficial Mayor of Penland, Cynthia Bringle. She will take us through her storied career and artistic process. Stay a while and listen, you won't be disappointed.

Join us on January 27th when we learn history and facts about black bears with the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation. We will also learn about the life of Mildred the Bear, Grandfather Mountain's charismatic resident mascot from who lived at the mountain from 1973-1993.

Join us for an online viewing party where Kelly McCoy, owner and operator of RiverGirl Fishing Company, will teach us how to learn the art of fly fishing without breaking the bank!

We’ll learn how Kelly teaches people to fly fish and all about her business that’s based out of a historic train depot in Todd, NC.

Learn from luthier, Chris Capozzoli, as he describes his guitar making process.

This talk will explore Hugh Morton, the man behind the mountain, his life and the legacy he left behind. Jesse Pope, president of the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation will also guide us through the past, present, and future of Morton's largest legacy, Grandfather Mountain State Park.

In this talk, we will explore Doc’s life, influences, style and look at his legacy. This lecture will be a mix of music, film, family stories, and ethnomusicology.

Have you ever tasted something so good that year’s later it was still present in your memory? In 1951, the artist Henri Matisse was asked about the Cone family and he recalled a special kind of apple from Moses’s orchard in Blowing Rock, that Matisse had tasted in Baltimore over 30 years earlier. Matisse did not have a culinary memory to rival an elephant, no, the apples of the Cone estate were exceptional and famous in their own regard. They were blue ribbon apples, appearing in and winning many international expositions and competitions.

From 1906 to 1907, Claribel and Etta Cone traveled with their brother Moses and his wife Bertha on a grand journey around the world, including visits in India, China, and Japan. Join curators Dianna Cameron and Carrie Streeter to learn more about the Cone’s adventures and their influence on each individuals’ view of the modern world and modern art.

The Watauga Riverkeeper is the key protector and watchdog of the Watauga River Basin in Western North Carolina. MountainTrue’s Watauga Riverkeeper endeavors to monitor and protect the quality of our region’s waterways through dedicated volunteers and engagement with Watauga and Avery county communities and local and state government. The Riverkeeper wants all High Country residents and visitors to enjoy clean waterways free of sediment pollution and supporting a thriving mountain ecosystem.

The Blue Ridge Conservancy and our local, state and federal partners worked to permanently protect the habitat of the endangered Virginia Big-Eared Bat in the Grandfather Mountain corridor. To celebrate this amazing conservation success, Appalachian State University’s Documentary Film Services produced a short film to tell the story.

These seven hundred pound herbivores were once native to the High Country. Join the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation to learn more about them.

When Doc Watson was "discovered" by Folk Revivalist Ralph Rinzler in September 1960, he was already 37 years old and had been playing guitar and singing in public for at least 20 years. Much has been written about Doc after 1960, but comparatively little is known about his earlier years. Using recently discovered newspaper articles and ads, as well as photographs and oral history, we can trace an active semi-professional career at fiddlers' conventions, talent shows, dances, land sales--even busking on the street--in Watauga, Caldwell and surrounding counties. Doc performed in Blowing Rock at the school auditorium and the American Legion long before his appearances at local nightspots in the 1970s and afterward. Considered as a whole, he was well-prepared to begin a professional career when the opportunity arose .

You may have visited Boone, Blowing Rock, Todd or Valle Crucis when visiting Western North Carolina without knowing about a hidden paradise, Beaver Dams. It is a pastoral land of cattle, horses, goats, and families with antebellum histories. Have you had a chance to see their wagon trains traveling on weekends through the area? This is the book to tell you about them and more.

Dr. Patricia Beaver, founder of the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University and Sandy Ballard, editor of the Appalachian Journal will present an overview of historic events, scholarly milestones, and personalities that contributed to the flourishing of the field of Appalachian Studies over the past 45 years.

For generations Appalachian people found their livelihoods in the forest. My family, the Watsons of Deep Gap, North Carolina, are no exception. In this talk, I will investigate the toy making style of my great-grandfather Willard Cline Watson, and show how he used creativity in a traditional art form to validate his youth.

In this talk entitled Finding Folk Art in North Carolina, collector Barry Huffman will discuss selected artists in the exhibit including Raymond Coins, Minnie Reinhardt and her daughter Arie Taylor, Burlon Craig, Hubert Walters and James Harold Jennings. Barry will briefly review the history of interest in contemporary folk art in the state over the last 30 years.