Western North Carolina naturalist, conservationist and author George Ellison died Sunday. In 2019, Ellison co-authored an award-winning biography of fellow naturalist and author Horace Kephart, one of the leading forces behind the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Shortly after the book “Back of Beyond” was published, Ellison and co-author Janet McCue talked with BPR’s Lilly Knoeppin 2019. They hoped their writing captured Kephart’s sense of adventure and the struggle that brought him to Western North Carolina, Ellison said. Kephart’s fantasy to move to the mountains to escape his troubles isn’t unique, he said.
“In some way or another they all are looking for a place of refuge - and idealize it like Kephart. They want that cabin to be on the ridgeline with a view or by a babbling brook,” he said.
Ellison also wrote the introduction to Kephart’s “Our Southern Highlanders” when it was republished in 1976.
Ellison lived in Bryson City with his wife, artist Elizabeth Ellison. The couple conserved their property, the last private land Lands Creek crosses before the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Tuckasegee River, last year.
His daughter, Quintin Ellison, said he had Parkinson’s disease and died after a bout with pneumonia. He was 81.
