When picking a family vacation this summer, 14-year-old Cody Saults of Tallahasee, a young aficionado of all things Native American, lobbied hard for a trip to Cherokee and won. But it wasn’t exactly what he had imagined when he got here, he said.

“You wouldn’t really know this is Cherokee, just a bunch of little tourist places,” Saults said, loitering outside a row of shops last weekend while his mom and sister combed the commercial district. “I think some of the corny stuff could go. Keep it authenitc, real stuff they would have made.”

Not plastic arrows with foam tips, he said. He also didn’t like the men who dressed up in feathered headdresses and stood on the sidewalk charging tourists to pose in front of a tee-pee.

“I read in one of my books they didn’t even have tee-pees and headdresses,” Saults said.

Saults had plenty to good to say about his visit. He liked the Cherokee language on the street signs. He liked the Cherokee musuem and Oconaluftee living history village, but wanted more, scattered all around town, he said.

“I think they should have demonstrations like blowguns and archery and show how hard that was,” Saults said. “I think they should teach people how to do this stuff, like pottery or bow making, and that would help people get in touch with the older ways.”

Saults was certainly the exception among the tourists shopping in Cherokee last Friday afternoon, however.

When Pam Furr was asked what she thought Cherokee could do to improve the tourism experience, she looked up and down the main drag lined with a hodge-podge of gift shops selling mocasons, pottery, fudge, icecream, t-shirts and the occasional stick of rock candy. She shrugged and looked puzzled.

“I like it the way it is,” she concluded.

When Joan Jester of High Point hear that Cherokee is proposing a downtown renovation that could include sidewalks and new building facades, she got upset.

“Oh no. They shouldn’t do that. This, this looks Cherokee to me,” Jester said. “I think they should leave it like it is.”

Her husband, Gerald, comes to Cherokee every two weeks to go to Harrah’s Cherokee Casino. Now, with his wife along, it was the first time he had ever visited the commercial shopping district. They parked at one end and planned to walk down one side and back up the other. Gerald, who stood outside the shops and smoked cigarettes while his wife prowled, said he would like to see more benches.

Gayle Deas of Florida said Cherokee could improve her visitor experience by throwing more motorcycle events. But today, she was here with her two young grandkids. They were finishing kids’ meals at Burger King and would soon go across the street to get their picture taken with the man dressed up in Indian regalia. She would then buy them a toy at one of the shops before going back to Bryson City where they were visiting family.

Across the street, Eddie Lebreton and his son were coming out of a building plastered with gigantic bright orange signs with bold black lettering that varied from “going out of busines” to “as seen on t.v.”

“We are here mountain biking and whitewater rafting,” said Lebreton, who is from Louisiana. They ventured over from the Nantahala Gorge for the day.

Lebreton also said he would like to see better food, not just in Cherokee, but everywhere.

“Being from the New Orleans area, the restaurants are horrible here. They could really beef up the restaurants, pardon the expression,” he said.

Fishing for an answer on what he would like to see in Cherokee, Lebreton’s teenage son first threw out a movie theater, then go-carts.

“Go carts? Are you serious? Come on,” Lebreton said to his son. Lebreton looked down the crowded street and thought for a minute.

“They could have a nice little walking path through here that is more easily identifiable. I’m surprised they don’t have that,” Lebreton said. The row of parked cars in some places abutt the shops so tightly tourists have to weave around, squeezing between bumpers or going around the back end of the vehicle, which requires stepping out into the lane of on-coming traffic.

The casino is a common answer when asking tourists what drew them to Cherokee. W. R. Poston, who ventured over from Gatlinburg for the day, said if it weren’t for the casino “chances are I would not.” Poston said there should be more performances in the spirit of Unto These Hills.

“I think of all the things that would attract more people is a couple of dinner theaters. If you chose not to gamble so much, you need something to do,” Poston said.

Like Poston, many tourists stay elsewhere in the region and take a sidetrip to Cherokee. This was the case with Lee Coggins, who was staying in Maggie Valley and came across the mountain for the afternoon. He said there should be a parking deck with either horses and buggies or trollies to bring people to the shops.

“I just don’t like to walk,” Coggins said. Coggins added that he could just stay on the trolley and circle around town while his wife shopped.

It had been years, maybe 20, since Virgil and Cora Hilliard visited Cherokee from their home in Bristol, Tenn. They wanted to see the casino and just “see the place,” the reitred couple said.

What did Cherokee need? “Hell, I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Maybe something for small kids, the grandkids. Grown-ups come here to gamble, but there’s nothing to do with the kids.”

For other tourists, a trip to Cherokee is neither a side trip nor casino driven, like Jessica Dennis, who was visiting with a church group from Delaware. They were staying in Cherokee at the Happy Holiday Campground.

“We decided to see Indians and explore their culture,” she said, feeding coins into a mechanical pony ride outside one of the shops to the delight of the toddler perched on top.

The church group had stayed busy. They saw Unto These Hills, went to the Oconoluftee living history village, took pictures at overlooks along the Blue Ridge Parkway, hiked trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and even saw a bear. It was Dennis’ first time to the mountains, which she described as “cool.”

The thing that made one of the biggest impressions on her though was seeing a Cherokee man perform what she called the Friendship Dance on the sidewalk in front of one of the stores. She said she hadn’t seen many Cherokee, mostly other tourists, and seeing that dance up close had been neat for her.

“I would like to hear them play more music, like the drums and the little thing,” she said, twiddling her fingers like she was playing a flute.