The headwaters of the Pigeon River are just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. The river flows northwest across North Carolina’s Haywood County, crossing into Tennessee before joining the French Broad River. The town of Canton, North Carolina straddles the river and is home to a paper mill that was the historical source of water quality problems that eliminated much of the life in the river for miles downstream - one of the most egregious examples of water pollution in the Southern Appalachians.