Oconaluftee Islands Park

When is the last time your kids went wading in a real river? The water in our Oconaluftee River originates from springs bubbling up and filtering through the ferns and moss in the neighboring Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

As the Oconaluftee passes through Cherokee, it is split by an amazing, grassy island – the ­Oconaluftee Islands Park – sheltered by canopies of oak and sycamore. The water ranges from ankle deep for toddlers to chest deep on Mom and Dad, and flows over soft sand and flat, time-smoothed river rocks shed from the world's oldest mountains. These rocks are the perfect size and weight for kids to build dams, or encircle Dad as he chills out in the shallows. This island is both physical and metaphorical. On this cozy island, the world at large just ... disappears. Wading. Splashing. Tubing. Salamander-hunting. Cloud-watching.

And this is a place where a kid can be a kid ... wading through clear, fresh water with nothing more than their imaginations, or perhaps with their parents, hand in hand. It's just what kids need today: unstructured, mind-freeing outdoor time to balance all the time they spend in class, in structured activities, or sitting in front of TVs, computers and video games.

Here, the frustrations and anxieties that feed sibling rivalry wash down the stream and are replaced with self-confidence and big smiles. To be complete, we Cherokee believe, one must allow time for the mind to get lost in the stream and then return. Especially children, who need such opportunities to learn who they are and who they can be. This is "duyuktv" or ­ “the right way," the Cherokee Way.

Come to Oconaluftee Islands Park and enjoy a very happy irony. Here, the very moments too precious to measure in dollars, are free.