Dec. i, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Hunting in the Unaka Range. 
Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 8. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: As Mr. Kephart stated recently, the 
pages of your paper may be utilized in describ¬ 
ing the beauties of the Great Smoky section; 
both from a scenic standpoint and from the fact 
that it is by far the wildest and roughest section 
east of the Rocky mountains. 
I have traveled for days through the country 
which he speaks of, where it was necessary to 
pack everything, as it was too rough to take any 
kind of animal, and where not the slightest in¬ 
dication of any kind could be seen that man had 
ever visited that section of the country ahead of 
me. It is like God made it and the Indians left 
it. 
I happen to know Mr. Granville Calhoun, and 
it gives me great pleasure to endorse everything 
Mr. Kephart says about him. I am satisfied that 
if the proposed club is carried to a successful 
issue, and I see no reason why it should not be, 
that it will be second to none in this country, 
and the sportsman who is fortunate enough to 
spare the time in which to visit this country and 
become a member of the club should consider 
himself indeed fortunate. 
For a number of years I have been spending 
my vacations in that wild country—principally 
southwest of the Little Tennessee river. I have 
found turkey, bear, squirrel, pheasant, cat and 
speckled trout in good quantities, and am told 
by the old hunters that there are still a number 
of wolves and panthers left in the wilder part 
of the Great Smokies. 
Speckled trout exist in nearly all of the 
streams, and while I have never tried to make a 
record, as our party was small and we only 
caught a sufficient number for our actual table 
needs, I recall one instance when in thirty 
minutes one afternoon (having to procure my 
bait) I landed twenty-eight, all good size. 
As to game. We killed on one trip in Novem¬ 
ber, 1905, five bears, the largest one measuring 
7 feet 6 inches from nose to tail, and weighed, 
we estimated, somewhere in the neighborhood of 
600 pounds. We killed as many as four turkeys 
one morning, and quit because we had enough 
meat to last us a couple of weeks. Pheasants, 
which are quite plentiful, and squirrels consti¬ 
tute the principal dependence for existence. 
I enclose a newspaper article, part of which 
you may care to use. Tom Lewis. 
“This place is not in the heart of the Great 
Smoky mountains, as stated, but is the roughest 
section of what is known on the maps as the 
Unaka Range. The maps do not have the name 
correctly, as I am told it was named by the In¬ 
dians, and is known to them as the Unakoi 
Range. It is separated from the Great Smoky 
Range proper by the Little Tennessee river and 
extends from the Little Tennessee river in a 
southwesterly direction practically to Ducktown, 
Tenn., and from the Little Tennessee river to 
the Tellico, some twelve or fifteen miles south¬ 
west of Jeffrey’s Hell is the State line between 
North Carolina and Tennessee. 
“Jeffrey’s Hell is embraced in a very large sec¬ 
tion of country eight or nine miles long and ap¬ 
proximately four miles wide, at the headwaters 
of Citico creek. It is surrounded on every side 
except the west with the highest peaks in that 
part of the country, among which are Hayo, 
Stratton, Bald, Big Fodder-stack, and Little Fod¬ 
der-stack, John Knob and Hangover. 
“These peaks all range from 5,000 to 5,500 feet 
above the level of the sea; and the elevation of 
Citico creek, where it forks into east and west 
arms, is about 2,000 feet. From almost any point 
north, east or south of Jeffrey’s Hell there is a 
drop of from 2,000 to 3,500 feet within less than 
a mile. 
“ ‘Uncle Dave’ Orr, who is the nearest settler 
about twelve miles from Jeffrey’s Hell, and who 
has been living there for nearly all his life of 
over eighty years, tells me that a long time be¬ 
fore the war a man named Jeffrey did not return 
from a hunt in this section at a stated time, and 
his family becoming alarmed, aroused all of the 
settlers within reach. They obtained the help 
of every able-bodied man and boy in all that 
section and went into the mountains to look for 
him. After three or four days Jeffrey was found 
just coming out of the edge of this wild section 
exhausted from exposure, lack of food, and over- 
exertion, and, when asked by the men who first 
found him, where he had been for the last week, 
replied that he had been in hell. From this 
circumstance Uncle Dave and the other moun¬ 
taineers called the place ‘Jeffrey’s Hell.’ 
“While this very rough section of country, 
consisting of thirty or thirty-five square miles, is 
the roughest part of these mountains it would 
not be so extremely difficult to penetrate but for 
the exceptionally thick growth of mountain laurel 
or rhododendron. These thickets are practically 
impenetrable unless one follows the numerous 
bear trails through them. 
“It is the natural home of the bear, and the 
best stands when bear hunting in this section 
are always in the low gaps on the edge of 
Jeffrey’s Hell, as the bears when once jumped 
by the dogs almost invariably make for this sec¬ 
tion, where they can easily whip the dogs, and 
have found that they cannot be followed by men. 
“While Jeffrey’s Hell is substantially every¬ 
thing that you have pictured it, there are sections 
cow MOOSE. 
Photographed in the Maine Woods by W. E. Pinkham. 
in the Great Smoky range from forty to one 
hundred and twenty-five miles to the northeast, 
that are incomparably rougher and wilder than 
this particular section. In fact, after having ex¬ 
plored a large portion of the Great Smokies and 
substantially all of the Unaka Range, I would 
undertake to cross Jeffrey’s Hell at any point 
a dozen times rather than attempt even to pene¬ 
trate half the distance in some of the wildest 
sections of the Great Smokies. The last bear 
I killed in these mountains was one on the top of 
the State ridge immediately on the edge of Jef¬ 
frey’s Hell, and he was followed for some dis¬ 
tance into Jeffrey’s Hell before he was finally 
finished with a second shot.” 
An Ideal Game Preserve. 
From the Muskegon, Mich., Chronicle. 
Excepting only Yellowstone Park, Grand 
Island, in Lake Superior, is the largest and most 
complete game preserve in the United States. 
Nestling in the water of the great inland sea, 
this picturesque native woodland, with its rock- 
bound shores is a veritable gem of nature. 
Grand Island resembles in shape a transposed 
outline of the State of Louisiana, but here the 
similarity ends. The island contains but 13,000 
acres, or about twenty square miles. It is ten 
miles long and four miles wide. 
It is this natural garden woodland dotted with 
the log cabins of trading days that nestles in its 
lap an inland lake stocked with the gamiest bass 
of the northwest. 
Five years ago Grand Island passed into pos¬ 
859 
sesion of the Cleveland Cliffs Mining Company. 
Its unbroken forests of pine and hardwood have 
been converted into a game preserve in which 
nearly every species of game animal and bird 
native to this latitude can now be found in its 
native state. The physical nature of the island 
is especially favorable for the project. 
Over half the coast line is bounded by per¬ 
pendicular cliffs rising to an elevation of from 
40 tO' 350 feet, above the level of Lake Superior, 
forming a perpetual barrier against escape. In 
some places along the coast line these miniature 
mountain ranges are broken by deep ravines and 
gulches, which, in most cases, are sequestered 
valleys of singular loveliness. 
Where these valleys open an exit to the lake, 
game fences have been built to prevent the ani¬ 
mals from gaining access to the mainland by 
swimming the channel in summer or crossing 
the ice in the winter season. At a point two and 
a half miles north of the southern extremity of 
the island, a game fence twelve feet in height and 
extending east and west to the shore line, has 
been built, inclosing an area of about 8,000 acres 
over which the animals roam at will. 
Between two lofty ridges that traverse the 
island from the north to the south is a dense 
cedar swamp, three miles long and one mile wide 
at its broadest point. This is the natural home 
of the caribou, which feed upon the dry, gluti¬ 
nous mixture commonly called reindeer moss and 
found in great quantities in this region. 
The original herd of caribou was brought to 
the island three years ago> from Deer Lake, New¬ 
foundland. There were five animals in the herd. 
Like their near relatives, the moose, they are 
slow breeders, but grow to enormous size. There 
are probably a score of specimens of the moose 
family on Grand Island, one of which has at¬ 
tained its full growth, now being about fifteen 
years old, and weighing 1,000 pounds. The moose 
were imported from Canada and northern Min¬ 
nesota. 
Other big game in the Grand Island preserve 
is a herd of elk. Originally it numbered eleven, 
but since brought to the island three years ago 
it has largely increased, the elk being a prolific 
breeder. 
During certain seasons of the year men are 
employed by the company to carry on a war of 
extermination against the fox, mink and other 
small animals which prey upon the game birds. 
The beaver, however, is allowed to propagate, 
and many specimens have been brought to the 
island and given the freedom of its several 
streams. The native, or ruffed grouse, are plenti¬ 
ful in all parts of the preserve, and the spruce 
hen, a bird now almost extinct, is present in 
great numbers. 
From Scandinavia two years ago, the company 
imported 150 game birds, also members of the 
grouse family, and from Manitoba it secured a 
number of sharp-tailed grouse. The birds se¬ 
cured from the Scandinavian peninsula are known 
as the capercailzie and orrie. The former is pos¬ 
sessed of habits much like those of the partridge 
native to the Lake Superior region. There are 
many other specimens of game birds on the 
island, among them the English ring-neck pheas¬ 
ant, a bird of highly colored plumage, and the 
wild turkey. The latter were obtained in the 
Indian Territory and are the most difficult of 
all game birds to propagate. 
The capercailzie, or “black game bird of Nor¬ 
way.” is one of the largest species of game birds 
in the world, being very hardy and frequently 
attaining a weight exceeding fifteen pounds, but 
when the birds are young they are easy prey of 
hawks. The birds are what are known as “rang¬ 
ers” for the reason that while in quest of food 
they cover a wide expanse of territory. _ During 
periods of heavy snowfall they burrow into the 
snow and remain until the storm subsides, be¬ 
fore venturing out again. Their food in winter 
consists chiefly of birch buds and in summer they 
catch mice and other small animals. They are 
rated as members of the grouse family, and in 
habits are much like the partridge. 
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