Why Are The Blue Ridge Mountains Blue? — First Things Foundation

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0 Why Are the Blue Ridge Mountains Blue? Blog Oct 22 Written By Isabella Copeland

I grew up in California. My first encounters with the “Blue Ridge Mountains” were in songs. Of course there’s John Denver’s classic, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” There’s also the Grateful Dead’s “Been All Around This World,” Dolly Parton’s “My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy,” and the little-known banger “Blue Ridge Mountain” by a band called Hurray for the Riff Raff. On the west coast, these supposed Blue Ridge Mountains seem more like folklore, like legend. Are they actually blue?

I am happy to report that they are blue. This was one of the first things that I noticed when I moved up to our Appalachian site. Obviously the individual trees themselves are not blue; their leaves are green. When you step back and look at a mountain range from afar, however, the mountains are undeniably blue. Of course, there’s a scientific explanation for how this phenomenon takes place, and we’ll get into that later. But the more interesting inquiry is why the mountains are called blue. Such a question is a potential rabbit hole, as it involves the nature of naming, and language and epistemology. But for me, as a new Field Worker whose job is to immerse into the culture here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, it seems to be an important question. Only a person has the ability to give a place, a thing, or any phenomenon a name. And if my task is to understand the people here, perhaps the words they use and the names they give things is a good starting place.

Let’s take a step back and talk about how these mountains are blue. A quick google search can explain that the mountains appear blue because specific oak and poplar trees here emit a chemical called isoprene to protect them from the weather. Isoprene reacts with the atmosphere in such a way that the light that filters down to our eyes appears blue. So, there’s the scientific explanation. Helpful? Well, to a point, but the science can’t answer why people decided to name this specific wavelength of light that we perceive “blue.”

We human beings have always carried the burden of naming things; call it an Adamic pursuit. And how we see color described in language and literature has changed throughout the years. It hasn’t always been as simple as proclaiming, “That’s blue.” For example, the dialects of ancient Greek found in Homer’s epics didn’t really have words for colors. Homer’s Odyssey is completely void of the concept of blue, despite the large amount of time that Odysseus spends sailing over water. Homer iconically calls the ocean the “wine-dark sea.” This is translated from the Greek phrase oînops póntos. Oînops is the word for wine. Homer also uses oînops to describe the color of oxen. This strange way of describing color is all over his epics. This is just one example.

No one doubts that the ancients could see all the same colors as us today. So we can conclude that their use of language is actually more reflective of the way they thought than anything else. There’s a profound link between language and thought. Scholars speculate that the Greeks were more interested in distinguishing texture, opacity, and light from dark than the specific hue. What would Homer have called the Blue Ridge Mountains? The Misty Mountains? No, Tolkein already took that one.

So what are we doing when we call the Blue Ridge Mountains blue? Would I still experience them as blue if I didn’t have a modern language literally coloring my perception? In other words, how do the names we give things impact our experience of them? When Juliet was trying to convince herself that it didn’t matter what Romeo’s last name was, what family he was from, she famously said, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But the ending of Romeo and Juliet actually proves the opposite to us. What family names Romeo and Juliet have do matter. And it can be argued that they matter so much that they die over their names, because naming is so tied up with identity. Naming forms identity and therefore the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us.

In Appalachia, I found my initial experience to be colored by how I named the things I encountered — southern accent, confederate flag, etc. My preconceived notions of the area crept into my experience. As an American who grew up in California and is now living in The South, I have to be careful to not import To Kill a Mockingbird into my daily experience. Even more so, I have to constantly remind myself that Appalachia is its own specific region of The South. And my general assumptions about the American South can’t just be applied to this particular place. Furthermore, it’s become apparent to me that names hold a lot of meaning to the locals as well. Your family name, where you live, your political stance, the specific Baptist or Evangelical church you attend — it all matters very much here.

Names matter. Language matters. Names have the power to give and change identity. The language we use is a reflection of how we think and express thought. John Denver, Hurray for the Riff Raff, and the people I grew up around in California painted a picture in my imagination of the Blue Ridge Mountains using particular words and language. Now that I’m here and I’m getting to know people born and raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains, whose parents and grandparents, etc. lived in the same area, my perception of Appalachia is shifting. It’s being in contact with local people — the namers — that really allows you to understand that which they’ve named. So, want to know why the Blue Ridge Mountains are blue? Simple answer: ask a local.

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