Pigeon
Forge, TN – May 2018 / Newsmaker Alert / Featuring more than
250 free sessions and activities spanning five days, Pigeon Forge’s award-winning
Wilderness
Wildlife Week™ is set for May 8-12. The event is headquartered at the
LeConte Center at Pigeon Forge.
In its 28th year, Wilderness
Wildlife Week offers a variety of workshops, lectures, seminars, concerts,
hikes and other activities designed to introduce or reacquaint participants
of all ages with the great outdoors.
“Wilderness Wildlife Week
showcases a diverse range of speakers and experts who share their vast
knowledge of life in the Great Smoky Mountains,” said Pigeon Forge Executive
Director of Tourism Leon Downey. “From a fishing tournament for kids to
an 11-mile hike to Mt. Cammerer, Wilderness Wildlife Week offers something
for everyone.”
Click
here for the 2018 Wilderness Wildlife Program Guide! (PDF file)
The Southeast Tourism Society
named Wilderness Wildlife Week one of its Top 20 Events in the Southeast
for May 2018. Wilderness Wildlife Week also claimed a Gold Kaleidoscope
Award—top honors—in the 2018 Southeast Festival and Events Association’s
Best Event Program category.
The event’s headline session
includes Ken Jenkins, Judy Felts and Friends in a program entitled Heaven
and Nature Sing (May 8 at 7 p.m.). Forensics experts Dr. Bill Bass
and Art Bohanan (May 9 at 8:30 p.m.) return to discuss forensic cases throughout
the Smoky Mountains region, while several historic Sevier County houses
of worship are the focus of two outings led by Kathy Gwinn.
Outdoors enthusiasts, nature
lovers or those who simply want to learn more about Great Smoky Mountains
National Park can choose from lectures about topics ranging from the area’s
rich heritage to conservation. Outdoor demonstrations include back country
and Dutch oven cooking while workshops focus on basket weaving, photography,
fishing, wildflowers and more.
Among the new sessions this
year are My Wild Life: From Bears, Panthers and Pandas to People
with Ken Johnson, Frontier Life: Women’s Role in Western Frontier Living
in North Carolina with the Overmountain Victory Trail Association,
The Ragmen of Appalachia featuring Joseph Williams, Ranger Recollections
of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1960s with Joe Kelley,
The White Caps: The Great Unmasking presented by Don Williams, and
a Great Smoky Mountains Association film series.
Hikers of all experience
levels can choose from several excursions each day. Highlights include
an 11-plus-mile hike to the Mt. Cammerer Fire Tower located less than a
mile off the Appalachian Trail (May 11 from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.), a
six-hour hike highlighting the People and Places of Cades Cove (May 11
from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.), a nearly five-mile Hen Wallow Falls trek that takes
hikers through a hemlock and rhododendron forest (May 11 from 7:30 a.m.
to 12:30 p.m.), and, for the second year in a row, the 2.5-mile Cades Cove
Loop Road Night Hike (May 10 from 8-10:30 p.m.).
A special kids’ track is
offered for younger outdoors enthusiasts where participants can learn more
about topics ranging from composting, snakes, and photography. Jenkins,
an acclaimed photographer, leads a first-time session entitled Connecting
to Nature in which he examines how to engage wildlife and experience
first-hand some of the ways to connect to nature and capture its beauty.
A children’s Old-Time Scavenger Hunt (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Kids’ Trout
Tournament (8 a.m. to 1 p.m. for children ages seven to 12) both take place
on Saturday, May 12.
More than 50 exhibits and
vendors, including the not-for-profit Cades Cove Preservation Association
and Onsite Heritage Museum, East Tennessee Historical Society, Keep Sevier
Beautiful, and Tennessee Trail of Tears, are open daily during the conference
beginning at 10 a.m. in LeConte Hall.
This spring celebration of
the great outdoors is free and open to the public. For more information,
a complete schedule and registration details, visit MyPigeonForge.com.
Media Contact:
Trish
McGee
for Pigeon Forge Department
of Tourism
615-327-1189 ext. 327
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