A Conversation with the Captain of Wilderness Wildlife Week

Jon Elder is a fifth-generation native of Sevier County, Tennessee, and a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. As special events manager for the City of Pigeon Forge, he’s also at the helm of Wilderness Wildlife Week, a multi-day event that draws people from across the country to celebrate the flora and fauna that make the Great Smoky Mountains so unique. A tradition for more than three decades now, Wilderness Wildlife Week will take over Pigeon Forge once more Jan. 22-25, 2024.

How did you find yourself heading up Wilderness Wildlife Week?

I'm just getting into my second year of this position. I had a part before in Wilderness Wildlife week. I was actually doing presentations about Cherokee history in the area. I’m half Cherokee—my mother's from the Qualla Boundary, and my father was from Sevier County. So I've kind of grown up on both sides of the mountain.

How did the event get its start?

This event has been around for over 30 years now. There was a local photographer, his name’s Ken Jenkins, and Ken had brought this idea to the city of Pigeon Forge to have an event that would be free and that would also include area experts on different aspects of the mountains, the flora, the fauna, photography—anything that would add to people's experience here in the Great Smoky Mountains, and knowledge of the Great Smoky Mountains. Pigeon Forge decided to partner with him on it, and Wilderness Wildlife Week was born. Really it started off as just a luncheon, and it grew into this multi-day event that is now.

What’s going on this year?

We’ve got nearly 80 classes that are being offered this year. We have 12 hikes, we have four bus tours, we have 16 Jeep tours, and also three days of classes that have a kids track to it this year. Children who come here and visit every day, there's something new that they do in order to go on the kids track. They’ll win prizes and that kind of thing. So it involves the entire family. Since we have so many people moving to our area, this is the perfect event to come and really learn a lot about the culture, a lot about the national park, about the area, and it's all completely free to attend.

What’s your favorite part?

Oh, gosh. That's a tough question, because this is the event where you have several favorite parts to it. We have a great photography part to this where we actually have a full day of photography concentrations that teach people how to do things like how to use your cell phone to take a good picture in the mountains so it looks like a professional picture, how to photograph an eclipse, how to photograph landscapes, how to photograph wildlife. We have great storytellers that come and tell different stories. Those classes are some of my favorite to listen to. And also just other really neat classes on the animals, the plants, edible plants that grow here in the national park. To ask me for one, it’s kind of like saying, ‘Who's your favorite child?’”

Why is it important to offer an event like this, giving people a window into what makes the park and its creatures so special?

This event gives our local people who live here, people who've newly moved here and our visitors the chance to get a sampling of everything that the area offers, everything that the area is about, historically and geographically. And it's an event that within this week you'll come away knowing so much more than you did before. This event gives people kind of a crash course on the area so they can go out and enjoy it even more, and on a different level.