By SHERRI SMITH BROWN

Numerous exhibits and dioramas depicting the timeline of Southeastern Indians can be viewed at the Funk Heritage Center.

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, the Funk Heritage Center at Reinhardt College in Waleska is Georgia’s “Official Frontier and Southeastern Indian Interpretive Center,” and it lives up to its designation.

The Center consists of the Bennett History Museum – a 7,000-square-foot exhibit space with a theater and museum store – and an Appalachian Settlement with relocated authentic log cabins and other 19th century farm buildings. All total, the Center houses more than 6,000 artifacts donated by area collectors, most of them illustrative of the area’s many Indian cultures.

In the area of the museum known as the Long House, there are artifacts and text panels telling the story of the earliest encounters between Europeans and the people of the Southeast. You can also view a 15-minute film on the Southeastern Indians. In the Hall of Ancients exhibit area, you will see dioramas depicting the Paleo, Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian and Historic periods as well as a timeline, maps and information about the Cherokee Indian removal from Georgia during the 1830s known as the Trail of Tears. The centerpiece of this area is a granite petroglyph that is 11 feet long, 5 feel wide and 1.5 feet thick. This ancient and mysterious carved rock was found years ago on a farm in the Hickory Log area of Cherokee County near the Etowah River about four miles north of Canton. (more…)

By SHERRI SMITH BROWN

Visit Tanglewood Farms in May for some woolly sheep shearing or any other time to see and pet 100 miniature animals in a Wild West Town atmosphere.

If you are looking for a place to spend a day with your kids in the North Georgia Mountains, try Tanglewood Farms. This 10-acre Wild West Town in Cherokee County has more than 100 miniature farm animal residents. You can walk through the town’s bank, saloon, jail and trading post and meet a slew of miniature animals—cows, sheep, horses, donkeys, and goats to name a few.

The farm, which has been in business in Georgia for 10 years and involved with raising farm animals for more than 40 years, offers a whole range of experiences, from riding lessons for children ages two and up through adult to cowpoke classes where kids can learn basic horse grooming and handling. (more…)