2023 is the Year of the Trail in North Carolina! This statewide campaign encourages every North Carolinian to get outside onto the trails, greenways, and blueways that stretch across the state. On August 10th, 2021, the NC legislature passed HB 554, designating 2023 as the “North Carolina Year of the Trail.” This historic designation underscores […]
Year of the Trail Feature: Cabelands
![Woodland forms of buffalo and elk once ranged the mountains and the northwest piedmont in scattered herds. Yet even by the arrival of the early European explorers, their numbers were scarce. Both species were largely eliminated by hunting and indigenous tribes most likely traded these animals on the Great Indian Trading Path. While buffalo were occasionally seen between 1720 and 1750, they were gone by 1765. Elk may have died out even earlier, around 1700. Remnants of the buffalos statewide presence persists in many place names like Buffalo Creek in northern Orange County. Some say that even our earliest roads, deeply carved with curved banks, were buffalo trails.
📸: Betsy Russell
Text source: 1985 Calendar
[image description: river in winter sunlight with trees and banks dusted in snow]](https://www.enoriver.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)