I grew up in Northwestern Washington State, and worked for several years in Darrington, which has traditionally been a logging town filled with residents who moved there as loggers from around Bryson City, North Carolina, as NC logging operations closed down sometime after the turn of the last century. Second and third generation folks grow up in Darrington with southern accents, and there is a regular path worn across the country as folsk go back to see relatives. Most of their neighboring towns had more in the nature of Norwegian and German accents.

The "Tarheel" story in Darrington has to do with logging, and how pine tar was something that loggers had on their boots back in North Carolina. This may well be a local adaptation of the story from NC, because we don't have nearly the amount of pine in the Northwest, they're dealing with Douglas fir, western red cedar, and fir trees. Doug fir and true firs have a lot of pitch, but not like pine.

Leastways, that's how I heard the story. . .