The other day my wife, Elizabeth, and I were riding around when we got into a highly philosophical discussion about how to define a branch, a creek, and river. My answer was that if it’s something you can step or jump over it’s a branch. If you can’t jump over it but can easily toss a rock across it, it’s a creek. If you can’t easily throw a rock across it, it has become a river.

Elizabeth wasn’t particularly overwhelmed by the brilliance of these definitions. But we had a good time playing around with it, so she suggested that I write a Back Then column about waterways. Since I know from conducting natural history workshops that many folks are interested in this sort of thing, I said that I would. And here it is.

When talking about the waterways of the Smokies region, I like to start with the big picture. By this I mean the Eastern Continental Divide. Most folks reading this column live west of the Eastern Continental Divide. Anyone reading living west of Asheville and west of Cashiers and Highlands falls into this range. In other words, the water in our main rivers like the Hiwassee, Little Tennessee, Tuckaseigee, and Pigeon, are ultimately flowing into Gulf of Mexico via the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi river systems.

Those of you living in Jackson and Macon counties east of Cashiers and Highlands probably reside east of the Eastern Continental Divide. This means that your creeks are part of the headwaters of the Chattooga River system, which ultimately flows into the Atlantic Ocean via the Savannah River system.

There are places along the crest of the Eastern Continental Divide where springs not more than 50 feet apart disperse their waters separately into the Gulf and the Atlantic. A person living in the Cashiers-Highlands area could easily cross the Eastern Continental Divide 10 times during a work day and not be aware of it.

All permanent waterways begin as subterranean entities known as water tables. These form the top of the zone of underground saturation. Water tables are generally in motion, emerging at the places we know as seepage areas (seeps) or spring heads. (Seepage areas can sometimes be comprised of an entire cliff side, as is the case along the Blue Ridge Parkway across from the Wolf Mountain overlook.) The ultimate head of mighty river can sometimes be a mere damp spot in the ground.

To my way of thinking, the water flowing from a spring head or seepage area is a rivulet. It then becomes a brook or branch. As several branches come together at a fork, the waterway becomes a creek. Finally it becomes a river.

Much of our economy is based on turbulent areas in our rivers, especially the Nantahala. We call it the whitewater industry.

Think of the varied habitats we have along our branches, creeks, and rivers: waterfalls, marshes, swamps, bogs, ponds, lakes, sloughs, and so on.

Because this region was never scoured by glacial ice, we have very few natural impoundments of waters in ponds and lakes; indeed, most were established as recently as the 20th century.

Waterfalls are one of the region’s grand attractions. Each waterfall has its own plunge pool and spray zone. With their perpetual motion and constant sounds, waterfalls sometimes seem to be living entities.

Defining wetland areas can get complicated. Here’s a simple way to think about them. If it’s a wetland comprised primarily of grasses and sedges (and very little if any sphagnum moss), it’s a marsh. If it’s a wetland periodically flooded and comprised primarily of shrubs and trees (and very little if any sphagnum moss), it’s a swamp. If it’s a wetland dominated by sphagnum moss, it’s a bog. In reality, many wetlands are combinations of these types.

The topography of our mountain region is, of course, defined primarily by waterways. For instance, the Great Smoky Mountains are considered to be a single, integral mountain range because — even though there are numerous creeks on both the Tennessee and North Carolina sides — no waterway crosses it. The Smokies are defined as a range by the Pigeon River on its northeastern end and the Little Tennessee River (now mostly TVA impoundments) on its southwestern end.

Springs, branches, creeks, and rivers provide the very life-blood of our region. The Cherokees personalized each waterway by calling it The Long Man. These streaming entities had their heads in the mountains and their feet in the ocean. During their ceremonial going to water rituals, the Cherokees often visited waterfalls because there they could hear the Long Man speaking to them.

George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C. 28713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com