river rising in the Blue Ridge (Pisgah National Forest) west of Brevard, in Jackson county, North Carolina, U.S. The Tuckasegee flows some 50 miles (80 km) northwest past Cullowhee, Whittier, and Bryson City, near which it empties into Fontana Lake in the Little Tennessee River. Thorpe Dam (1941), on a fork of the Tuckasegee 22 miles (35 km) southeast of Bryson City, impounds Lake Thorpe. The river's name probably comes from that of a Cherokee village, Tsiksitsi (meaning “Crawling Terrapin,” for the sluggish movement of the waters), that once stood on its banks.