Green Eyes Festival

Meet lil’ Green Eyes!🟢🟢

Every year for the festival we have created a new version of the Green Eyes costume and this year we decided to do something different… a puppet!

For Lil’ Green Eyes we decided to make a puppet so that he would be easier for Green Eyes team members to store without damaging and wear out at events, even during our super hot summers. We leaned a bit more into the ‘shapeshifter’ lore of Green Eyes for his design, making him a bit more animalistic, with sharp teeth, dog ears, and whiskers. You can expect to see Lil’ Green Eyes popping up at events soon!

Have you ever been to the ‘Land of the Noon Day Sun’?🌤

The Nantahala, or ‘Land of the Noon Day Sun’ in Cherokee, is a region and a recognized national protected forest in North Carolina, very close to the Tennessee/Georgia border and just about an hour-and-a-half drive from Chickamauga.

The area is gorgeous and full of rushing waterfalls, high mountains, and deep valleys. These valleys are what gave the area its name, as some are said to be so deep that you can’t see the sun until noon, when it is at its highest point.

Today it is a great spot to visit to enjoy a day in the clouds as you hike up the mountains, or for fun shopping at the many local towns, like Franklin and Sylva.

Look at that dam!🦫

There are thousands of dams across Appalachia, with 9 major ones in our backyard on the Tennessee River, and countless more in our area on rivers like the Hiwassee and Ocoee. Many of these dams are the result of programs like the famous Great Depression-era TVA to bring jobs and power to the region.

Despite how relatively recent in history they are, local dams have been quick to become focal points of folklore, with stories including tales of ghosts of dam workers, supposed flooded towns at the bottom of lakes formed by dams, and even monsters that lurk near dams like the legendary Catzilla!