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The graveyards are oh-so important. More than 1,000 people are buried in them, and their descendants are among the strongest advocates for building the road. Hogue, Monteith and their compatriots organize regular visits to the cemeteries, pilgrimages whose unstated mission is to assert a spiritual claim to the land.
"We have baptisms, too," Monteith declared, pointing at Hazel Creek. "Right down there is a baptizing hole."
About three hours south of North Shore, in the South Carolina village of Walhalla, lives Monteith's and Hogue's nemesis, Ted Snyder. A former national president of the Sierra Club, the lawyer has passion to match that of the pro-road folks.
"It irritates me so much to hear those people say they've been wronged," Snyder said. "That's just all made up. They haven't been wronged. Not one person was party to that agreement. The promise was made to Swain County."
And promises can be broken. Or, at least, altered. The agreement to build a road is contingent on Congress approving the funds. If no money is allotted, the agreement is just so much paper whose only value is that of a historical footnote.
Descendants of the former residents filed a federal lawsuit to force construction of the road, and lost all the way up to the US Supreme Court, which stated in 1946 that when "serious problems" are created by public projects, "the government is not barred from making a common-sense adjustment in the interest of all the public."
The road became another of Dixie's lost causes — until 2000, when then-U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms and the congressman from the Bryson City area, Republican Charles Taylor, slipped $16 million into an appropriations bill for preliminary work on the North Shore road. Taylor and North Carolina's current U.S. senators, Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr, support the road — but the backing of, at least, Burr is seen as lukewarm.
Where Monteith and Hogue rely on righteous arguments about justice and fairness, Snyder pulls out reams of research from his home's stacked-with-literary-classics bookshelves.
"This is a 60 million-year-old forest," he said. "When the Park Service nominated the park for the World Heritage List, it stressed that this was an example of evolution in progress. If you put a road through the North Shore, you'll create an orphan strip, the biological process will be interrupted."
A road would do much more, according to Snyder. It would expose porous rock containing iron pyrite. When water hits that rock, a chemical reaction occurs and sulfuric acid leaches out. "It will sterilize every stream and pond it reaches," Snyder said, waving his hands in a don't-do-that gesture.
North Shore's topography is row upon row of finger ridges, and a road would require massive cuts and giant retaining walls. Snyder: "You'd see the scar from miles away."
So, is there common ground between the "roaders" and the environmentalists? Ummm, no. But there may be a final chapter in the dispute. The Interior Department is currently conducting an environmental review of the likely impact of a road. Monteith called the study "any ploy to stop the road." Based on the findings, one of three likely alternatives will be pursued:
¨ Extending the existing road from Bryson City another four to eight miles and building a destination, perhaps a local history center, at the end.
¨ Completing the full road. One possible route, across Fontana Dam, is already nixed. Monteith noted, "They don't want terrorists rolling bombs down the dam." Whatever the route, in addition to the cuts across ridge lines, it also would require as many as three bridges, each on a scale with the Brooklyn Bridge.
¨ Paying a cash settlement, estimated at $52 million, to Swain County. This is the option supported by the environmentalists, North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, four of the five Swain County commissioners (Monteith being the fifth), and many citizens. The annual interest alone on the settlement would equal about $2.6 million — just shy of what Swain Countians ante each year in property taxes.
The final arbiter is likely to be the cost of a road. Although road supporters claim an "industrial" surfaced thoroughfare could be built for less than $100 million, that's more wishful thinking than reality. One official estimate is $374 million.
A similar highway, 20 miles of U.S. 64 near the Ocoee River gorge, had a bill of $2 billion for four lanes — thus, a two-lane North Shore road could have a tab of about a billion dollars.
