ALARKA EXPEDITIONS

Alarka Expeditions is a Franklin, North Carolina based guide service owned by Brent and Angela Faye Martin.  Brent and Angela have led courses and outings for over twenty years in the southern Appalachian mountains, with expertise in birds, plants, trees, as well as cultural and natural history.  

We provide a range of outdoor experiences, and can work with you to fit your interests and skill levels. Custom designed hikes, along with basic birding, botany, forests, and Little Tennessee river trips are a few areas of our expertise, and we also offer group courses on winter tree identification, nature journaling, phenology, and cultural/natural history.  We are based next to the Nantahala National Forest and we live in the Cowee National Historic District, the largest National Historic District in western North Carolina. The area’s natural beauty led the 18th century botanist and artist William Bartram to describe it as “one of the most charming mountain landscapes perhaps anywhere to be seen.”  

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Brent Martin is a lifelong conservationist and educator, having worked over a decade as Southern Appalachian Regional Director for The Wilderness Society, and prior to that serving as Executive Director for Georgia Forestwatch and Associate Director for the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee. He is currently the Executive Director of the Blueridge Bartram Trail Conservancy. He has led outings for over twenty years for the above organizations, as well as Carolina Mountain Club, NC Bartram Trail Society, the Cullowhee Native Plant Conference, Highland Biological Station, and many, many more.  He is also a writer of non-fiction and poetry, and his poems and essays have been published in the North Carolina Literary Review, Earthlines, Wildbranch, Eno, New Southerner, and elsewhere.  He has an upcoming book release in June 2019 and he has published three chapbook collections of poems and one non-fiction collection, Hunting for Camellias at Horseshoe Bend.  His recent full length collection of essays, The Changing Blue Ridge Mountains:  Essays on Journeys Past and Present, was published by Arcadia Publishing in June, 2019. His latest book is George Masa's Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina released June 21, 2022 with Hub City Publishing. 

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Angela Faye Martin is a singer-songwriter, artist, and naturalist living in western North Carolina's Cowee range. She has worked for The Wilderness Society, Georgia Forestwatch, Armuchee Alliance, and the Pacific Rivers Council. She has written and produced an EP - One Dark Vine and 2 albums, Anniversary, and Pictures from Home,  which was produced by Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse fame. She recently wrote and narrated the documentary, The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse, which has screened internationally at various film festivals and in the US. The film has been edited to include interviews with film maker David Lynch and others and was released in October 2022 under the new title, This is Sparklehorse. Angela has written for Smoky Mountain News and published a piece with PRI's Living on Earth. Her mission with with Alarka Expeditions is to invite humans to fall in love with and protect the flora and fauna of her homeland.

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