Dark Side of Smokey Mountains 

And now for something completely different… The words of Monty Python are normally thought to be a bit ridiculous, but they are apt in many ways today. First off, a travel guide isn’t what TheRatHole.ca usually reviews. That said, most travel guides don’t usually feature ghosts, cryptids, and the everything eerie. Now that being said, Eerie Travels doesn’t do “usual” and if there’s one thing I’m usually drawn to, it’s the unusual. I don’t think I can shoehorn any more usuals into this paragraph, so let’s move on…

And now for something completely different… The Dark Side of the Smoky Mountains by Mark Muncy and Erika Lance of Eerie Travels.

For our readers who may not be familiar with the Smokies, they are a subrange of the Appellation Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina. The Great Smoky Mountain National Park is the most visited National Park in the United States and part of the largest primary forest east of the Mississippi River. Sufficed to say, there is a ton to see and do in the area. This is where our hosts and storytellers – both terms that feel more fitting than simply “authors” – come into the picture. With combined decades of experience in the weird and wonderful, they drive, walk, and Wayback Machine their way on a road trip From Chattanooga, TN to Robins, NC. 

Yes, I said Wayback Machine. Since we are almost a decade out of its last regular appearances in the popular culture, and over 60 years since its debut on The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, I should take a moment to explain the Wayback Machine. It is a time machine, invented Mr. Hector Peabody, which he uses to travel through time and space with his young friend Sherman. As entertaining as they are educational, I can give no higher praise that to say that Mark and Ericka give major Mr. Peabody & Sherman throughout the entire book. It’s not just that they use the term Wayback machine, it’s the conversational tone of the book. Mark tells a tale, Erica chimes in with an aside, Mark may respond before going back into the tale. 

There are dozens of graveyards and at least as many haunted hotels, not to mention the site of haunted prisons and hospitals. (Many of which Erica would prefer to nope out of.) While interesting, I’m not a big ghosty person. The stories are all fascinating, and if that’s your jam you’ll LOVE every one of them. Maybe I’m just a wuss, but I have just never liked that. What I DO love is folklore and cryptids. While the book weighs a bit lighter on the folklore than I would personally have wanted, there is still a ton in there. Old Green Eye, wandering the Chickamauga Battlefield since the civil war. The Jarrett House Vampires in Dillsboro, NC. The White Thangs, light-furred Smoky Mountain Sasquatch, and more. That’s not even getting into the legends of the Cherokee Nation like several liver-eaters, The Boojum (including a theory that the White Thangs descended from him), Tsul`kälû´, and Little People. One fascinating, and reoccurring, mention is of The Moon-Eyed People who have occasionally been speculated to be Grey Aliens. What, you thought the sci-fi crowd would be left out of this hootenanny? Nope, and they gave me the chance to use the word hootenanny, and point out that it’s derived from Hootin’ Annie, a figure from a settler-era Boojum tale. Hashtag learning.

From a gaming standpoint, there are a ton of opportunities in here. Whenever I’m reviewing a game with known monsters in it, I always try to find extra information to compare against. Sometimes that’s from a diffent ruleset, but I love when I can go back to the original myths and legends. If I were writing an adventure, the ghost stories and the cryptid legends would both serve as GREAT foundations to build a new story around. “Weird West” is a genre that lends itself well to a lot of the stories in this book, despite the fact that it technically takes place in the South East. It is, of course important to recognize the uniqueness of different the Native American and First Nations people and lore. But that doesn’t mean that Spearfinger couldn’t find herself migrating West as it became harder to hunt in the Smokies. There is a difference between educating and cross pollinating versus appropriating and misrepresenting history. 

Perhaps you are creating an adventure. Perhaps you want spooky bedtime stories. Perhaps you even want to take an eerie road trip, as the book assumes readers are planning to do. The Dark Side of the Smokie Mountains is a great resource for you,  no matter what. It’s a fun read and deeply informative, worthy of a place on any bookshelf or in any glove box.

You can find Eerie Travels online at https://eerietravels.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/eerietravels