Mountain culture

“When that Chestnut died, a part of the mountain culture died with it. And the memories are still there. And so he [Rex’s father] felt very passionate about the woods and the wildlife, but especially the Chestnut tree”

Rex, Wednesday June 28, 2023

When reflecting upon the mountain culture and the Chestnut’s role in this culture, Rex vividly summed up the historical relationships that were changed when the Chestnuts died. However, he pointedly showed how the mountain culture did not disappear immediately, rather carried with the people of Appalachia. When looking at the ways of life surrounding mountain culture, Savannah believed:

“We could have like the wood and bring back that culture that went around the American Chestnut, if we brought the Chestnuts back. Because, I mean, Chestnut hunting, and then the Chestnut logging, like, it was all such a huge important part of the community and the culture of Appalachia…it would be good for the collective and like bringing everyone together and bringing back some of that tradition because I feel like Appalachia has a lost a lot of that.”

Savannah,
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The loss of the mountain culture is more than changes in how people carry on traditions and practices in Appalachia. Rather, these are downstream changes from the accidental introduction of a fungus species into a new region of the world due to international plant trade. We see local and tangible changes in the ways at which mountain culture becomes an emotional political ecology among Appalachian mountains through the culture drastically changing because of globalized economic trade (Mesquita, Frijda, and Scherer, 1997).