Each year the Watershed Association of the Tuckasegee River brings Cherokee and other youth out to re-enact a traditional Cherokee fish harvest on Western North Carolina’s Tuckasegee River, an event long supported by the Service’s Asheville Field Office.

This section of the river still has a historical fish weir – a pair of linear rock piles, reaching out at an angle from each bank and converging in the center of the river, forming a giant letter “V” which points downstream. Historically, a fish trap would’ve been placed in an open notch at the point of the “V”, and people would line up across the river upstream of the weir and drive the fish into the trap.

On this June day, kids rotated through several themed stations, including macroinvertebrates, water quality, and a look at a historical Cherokee village. The morning culminated with the kids lining up across the river and marching downstream, slapping the water with tree branches to drive fish toward the weir, where tribal biologists had set up a replica fish trap. No fish were captured – perhaps there were too few fish drivers, perhaps the old weir has too many holes where fish can escape. Yet no one was complaining about an opportunity to get out on the river on a June afternoon.