"Me and the Soque" - A Story

Submitted by:  Brooks Garcia

My story began a long time ago when I was a young man and the Soquee did not have the notoriety it has today. I was a camp counselor at Camp Cherokee for boys on Lake Burton in the early 80s.  At the time, there was a camper whose grandmother own land at the end of Goshen Valley. Her name was Hellen Carmack. The ‘mighty’ Soquee was but a small stream that came off the mountain way back on her property. We would take the boys ‘over nighting’ there.  We swam in the icy cold stream and I taught the boys to fish with a crude line and pole using wood roaches as bait and a dog hobble twig as a bobber. We dined on fresh trout and marveled at the fox fire in the woods at night. That place touched my soul in a way I have never forgotten so much so I have returned 30 years later, bought land and plan to live out my days here in the mountains. It seems a bit of a surprise but not so much to me that my land has two small streams that feed into to Lake Habersham and into the Soquee. So, you see I have come home and me and the Soquee are inextricably tied together.