To the Cherokee, these mountains were sacred. They called the area Shaconage (pronounced “sha-kon-oh-hey”), meaning “land of the blue smoke.” Modern scientists learned that this sacred and mysterious blue smoke is actually fog created by the local plant life. The same biological processes and products that create that freshly mowed–lawn smell after you cut the grass are at work behind the smoke of the Smokies. Only multiplied about a billion times. It’s almost like the earth itself is exhaling.
