I grew up in a home tucked into the hills of western North Carolina,
born into a family of outdoorsmen who lived and chased the white tales in the autumn,
turkeys in the spring and trout in the summer.
On the wall of our family home was a photo taken in the 1920s.
It was a photo of the last living elk in North Carolina.
When I was a boy, I took a trip with my father.
We drove deep into the mountains for my first visit to Cataloochee, an isolated valley that was once the home to generations of pioneering mountain families.
But those weren't
this land's only residents.
200 years ago, this valley was home to the North American Elk.
Elk heards had once flourished in these hills.
But by the early 1800s, their population had deserted Appalachia, their lands culled, and their herds hunted by white settlers.
As a boy,
I would imagine those hills thick with elk,
pursuing those mighty creatures through the dark, virgin timber.
My father and I shared a passion for those woods. The woods and the animals.
We were members of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, a national conservation group dedicated to preserving and restoring elk and elk habitat in North America.
And on that cold and frosty morning, driving through those mountains, we were embarking on the first steps towards returning the kings of the forest to their ancestral lands.
Arriving at Cataloochee, we were greeted by a motley crew of volunteers all gathered to help bring the elk back home.
A wildlife study conducted by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and cleared North Carolina to play host once again to a herd of elk.
But reintroducing the animals wasn't as simple as releasing them back into the mountains.
Our first step was to build temporary holding pens that could help the animals acclimate to their new environment.
It was cold and backbreaking work, but we pulled together to carry lumber and pound nails, to swap stories and share meals.
At the end of that long, cold day.
We had accomplished the incredible.
We had constructed a massive wooden holding pen, ready to rehome and react to meet their intended four legged occupants.
Just a few short months later, my father and I returned to Cataloochee Valley.
Flanked by hundreds of spectators, waiting eagerly for 25 young elk from Kentucky to be reintroduced to the mountains.
I remember the thunderous cries of the crowd of the pounding hooves when, after nearly 200 years of absence, the elk of western North Carolina.
Were finally welcomed home.
Now that small group of 25 nervous and shy ilk have grown into a proud and mighty herd.
They roam wild and free throughout the Great Smoky Mountains.
Just like their ancestors did over two centuries ago.
Today,
I'm an older man
with a family of my own,
and like the elk, I return each spring and fall to the valley to view these magnificent animals.
As for the photo,
it no longer hangs solitary in my parent's home.
It too has been relocated, handed down to me and my family. Now,
That photo hangs surrounded by other photographs of a thriving elk heard that once again calls the mountains of North Carolina,
home.