NHVSP 2010 Update 11

Dear Friends and Family,

I write to you briefly today, the 23rd of April, to tell you that tomorrow will be the day of our departure from Northwoods Stewardship Center. We will meet Kevin Slater, Maine Guide and co-owner of Mahoosuc Guide Service, down by the Clyde River, where we will get into our canoes for the first time on our expedition. Bill Manning, the founder of Northwoods, has watched every semester so far enter the river from his property and we expect him to do the same tomorrow. Camp is almost completely dismantled in preparation for the river. But I am getting ahead of myself - this past week has been full.

On April 17th Lisl came back to us. We had not seen her since our stay at Heartbeet on the winter trail, and it was wonderful that she was able to visit. She had recently come back from Austria after being there for a few weeks while her father passed away. There were hugs all around and mail for us from home. We had a great dinner with Lisl and Jayson Benoit, the director of Northwoods, who later showed us around the nearby area and told us about the foundations of several old round barns and showed us where to pick wild leeks. The next day we rested and took a second nutrition class from Eva Cahill. We spent the morning in the kitchen learning about fermentation. We made mozzarella and ricotta cheese, fermented apples and other things in a salt mixture, and made a gingerbug (a fermented ginger/water/sugar mixture which if put in tea or water creates a sweet gingery drink). We all got to taste some fermented food - sausage, bean sprouts, miso soup, blue cheese, sauerkraut and sourdough bread. We learned about Weston Price’s research as well as the history of fermentation in different parts of the world. Anne remarked that it was one of the best classes she had ever taken, and it really was. The milk samples we had put away twenty days ago were, by the way, fairly universally unappetizing. Especially colorful was the organic soymilk, and the raw goats’ and cows’ milk had turned into cheese. They were all quite pungent. I know when I get home I plan on trying to ferment some of my own food - it’s fascinating.

Well, we liked the gingerbug brew so much, we decided to name our canoe after it! The Gingerbug is going to carry us down the river as one of our fleet. To complete the gear we will need on the river, we began to make paddles on the 19th. For this project we had a very special teacher, Ray Rietze. Ray has lived most of his life very close to the land and was taught by a Native American man he calls Grandfather. He talked to us in the evenings about what he learned from his teacher, his lifetime of experience in the bush, and about his outlook on life. Ray took us all out on a walk during which he taught us basic medicinal uses of some of the plants around our campsite. He talked about cayenne pepper and powdered dandelion root, gave us the recipe for a healing pine pitch solution, and showed us yarrow and Balm of Gilead (he calls it “sticky willow”), among other things. For the two days he was with us we worked on paddles in shifts, and right now they are sitting in the workshop, their last coats of shellac and varnish drying.




We began taking down camp a few days ago. First a few tents came down and then a few more, and finally the big cook tent and stove disappeared. Some of us cleaned up the woods and the field, some gathered green wood for next year’s students, and some have been scraping, soaking, and wringing out the deer hides that will be material for moccasins, which we will sew on the river once we have finished tanning the hides. These last days have been magnificent; when the sun comes out it is warm, the paddles are turning out well, and we have been eating some of the best meals we have had yet on this semester—good food goes a long way towards a good group attitude. A somewhat unexpected visitor, a friend of Anne’s named Mike DeLoose, came to visit and brought with him a large amount of mushrooms he had gathered and dried. He cooked us a delicious meal with them and stayed a few days with us, working on paddles. Ever since then, it seems there has been a feast for every meal, and at the rate this is going we will all be waddling down to the canoes tomorrow morning.


In the tradition of past semesters, part of our group climbed Bald Mountain this morning to see the sun rise. We did not see it rise because the sky was not clear, but we did get a beautiful view from the top before the mist obscured our vision. This last day has been a long one, and tomorrow is the highly anticipated river…. Goodbye for now.






Anna Soltys Morse

NHVSP 2010 Update 10

V

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;

And mid-May’s eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunts of flies on summer eves.

-Ode to a Nightingale, by John Keats

Greetings,

            It has been quite a week since I wrote you last.  We have been working on the canoe every day, clinching the 2,800 nails that hold it together, and oiling and varnishing it.  The nails glint, looking like little stars in the hull of our boat, as Melody remarked.  The workshop door is kept open now to let the air in and the smell of varnish out.  The canoe is coming along well, all in all.  To prepare for the journey ahead we have also been making sauerkraut, butchering several quarters of venison, and scraping hides for our moccasins.

            Snow fell one morning and melted away during the day—we were mistaken if we thought we were finished completely with the winter weather.  On Friday, April 9th Miron Golfman and Lily Fry came with a truckload of supplies and gear for us.  Both of them are semester alumni and we passed an enjoyable evening sharing stories about our winter route to the North and about our solo adventures in getting to Northwoods   Lily is staying with us until we depart.  She is a fermenting foods specialist, having grown up on a vineyard, and a wonderful mandolin player.  We had another visitor:  Ray Rietze, who was teaching a paddle-making workshop at Northwoods and came to our tent for dinner.  He talked a little about how he grew up and the philosophy behind how he lives.  We are all very much looking forward to spending more time with him when we make our own paddles in a few days.

            As we continued canoe building the fair weather persisted, with only a smattering of rain and some wind.  We varnished it and let it dry for a day and then finally put the canvas on; Rollin showed us how to stretch the canvas over the frame with an instrument called a bear claw and then tack it to the planking under the outside gunwale.  The next step was to treat the canvas with filler to make it waterproof.  While the canoe was taking shape we took turns practicing canoeing.  Lily has given us a basic understanding of the strokes, how to portage (carry) a canoe, and how to take care of the boats.  For some people this has been a review and they have been able to help those who are not as experienced learn about canoeing.  Martin, who is a prolific white water canoeist, has shared his knowledge and entertained us with stories about paddling.  In our spare time (which is not available in great quantities) everyone worked on tasks for their Big Jobs.  Ari has been reading dense articles about hydrology and consulting Melissa Dyer, an expert who works here at Northwoods about the watershed around where we will be in the next few weeks.  He is hoping to do a reach assessment either on the Nulheegan or the on the Connecticut.  Oliver has been steadily sewing the liners for our pack baskets.  Paul has been preparing the tools we will need for our remaining projects.  And of course the navigators, Yarrow and Mistral, have been working non-stop on an expedition plan.

            April 13th came, the last day Rollin was with us for canoe making.  Wishing he could stay a little longer, we said goodbye.  That day we bolted the thwarts, handles, and seats to the inside of the boat and varnished everything.  It is wonderful to look at the boat we built so close to completion.  That same day our group took turns helping out in the kitchen with a food processing event which Kendra orchestrated.  Lily, Anne, and Eliot all really pitched in and by the end we had made a substantial amount of granola bars, fresh cheese, sauerkraut, sourdough crackers, ten gallons of granola, and a couple of baked goods.  It was satisfying to be so involved in the food we will be taking on the rivers, and fun to cook together.  Just as Iyla will continue to keep track of the coats of varnish and paint the canoe needs, Kendra will be planning more food to take with us in the next week.

            In the midst of our work we have had opportunities to visit other people and do a service project here and there.  We visited Butterworks Farm on the 14th, a nearby farm that sells various dairy products as well as some corn and beans and grain.  Jack Lazor talked to us and gave us a tour.  They built their house and original barn in the 1970’s and kept adding on land and buildings as they grew from a small homestead to what is now a one hundred-fifty acre farm with many cows and a good business with the local co-ops and stores.  We were shown the grain silo, the bean sorting room, the windmill that helps power the farm, the yogurt making rooms, and a number of fascinating old-fashioned machines Jack hopes to fix up and use (like a 1950’s oat roller).  The group helped pick rocks out of one of the fields and was rewarded with several containers of maple yogurt—it was delicious.  We spent another day at Northwoods doing a service project.  We hauled brush so that it could be put through a wood chipper, pruned trees that years later will be used for lumber (to keep them from having so many knots), and removed rocks from a driveway.  We were glad to be able to do something for the people who have hosted us so graciously for a month.  The next trip we took was to Sterling College on the 16th.  We sat in on a Fiber Arts class and a Nature Writing class and toured the campus.  They have quite a few resources for their students.  We also ate two very good (and local) meals in the cafeteria and gave a presentation, complete with a lovely slideshow Erica made.

            Despite our busy schedule, and the unseasonable weather, which caused some damage to our camp set up, people seem to be in a good mood.  I appreciate Nate spending five months with us and teaching us what he knows, which is a good deal.  We witnessed him quickly skin and gut a woodchuck he found and learned from him about the cedar tree and goldthread, a medicinal plant.  Lily has taught us to put dandelions in our salads as they have many nutrients, and we have found them to be very tasty.  Eva Cahill, Scott and Erica’s mom, came back for a second time to teach us more about nutrition. We made wonderful fresh cheese with her and sampled all sorts of yummy local foods she brought along. Thank you Eva!!! Scott gave us a lesson in first aid, continuing on with our education where we left off:  the three major systems--respiratory, circulatory, and nervous.  Now we look forward to the river.  Our canoe is named “The Gingerbug”, for reasons that will become clear the next time I write to you….

            All the best,

                        Anna Soltys Morse

NHVSP 2010 Update 9

    Our new canoe

Homes

A little Swallow

has a home:

small holes in steep river banks.

The ant has a home:

little hills deep in the earth.

An owl flew by,

taking himself home to the woods.

A seal is in water for

it’s his home.

My home, earth, sky, water,

a humble home.

Like the ant, owl,

the swallow, and the seal.

(1996)

--Margaret Sam-Cromarty

Hello Everyone,

            I (Anna) have taken on the position of Scribe for the spring portion of our trip.  Some days ago I had the privilege of meeting many of the families of the people in our group, and, as I assume those families are readers of these updates, I ask you to forgive me if I backtrack over events you may have already heard about or been a part of.  I hope to be writing to you once every week until we leave Northwoods – our own little home in the Northeast Kingdom - for our river expedition on the 24^th of April.

            March 27^th was an important day, as it marked the end of our winter Big Jobs.  We all hurried to finish our to-do lists before Big Job presentations began.  Some of us drew pictures, others of us performed skits or songs, and a few of us gave lists of all the things we had used on the trail, like the amount of butter (80 lbs.) and tape (31 rolls).  We also had an unexpected visit by two VT-NH Semester students from last year, Nelly and Daniella, who came and stayed with us for a few days.

            The next day we spent in a communications workshop with Nathan Lyczak, Kroka’s Managing Director, which was a welcome chance for us to sit down with everyone in the group and voice appreciations and concerns.  It was a valuable opportunity to gain insights into our relationships and how to improve and deepen them.  Misha also left us at this time - we will see him next when we paddle Sumner Falls, the white-water section of the Connecticut River.  For the next few days we worked on the remaining camp set-up jobs—there is now a cleverly constructed outdoor kitchen in our camp, courtesy of Scott and Erica—and on our new Big Jobs. Mistral and Yarrow are our new Navigators, as well as our new Fire and Camp Managers, respectively.  Melody has passed off her old job as Medic to Scott and is now Kitchen and Logistics Manager and Wanigan master.  Eliot is the Base Camp Food Manager and will coordinate with Kendra, the new Trail Food Manager, to organize a few stops to farms along the river.  Iyla is the Canoe Manager and Paul is the Tools Manager.  Ari will be teaching us about hydrology, hydration, and tea as the Water Manager (or as he calls himself, “Aquaman,” or “Tea Master”).  Erica is our Photographer.  The noble position of Hygiene and Bathroom Manager has been given to Martin, and the newly created job of Cultural Navigator (someone to tell us about the history of the places we paddle through and to dispense general knowledge about our surroundings), together with that of Sewing Manager, has been entrusted to Oliver. Lastly, I am the Scribe.

            Chris and Ashira Knapp with their son Owen and their daughter Bonnie Bee arrived late in the evening on the 30^th.  The next day we all began pounding brown ash logs, the first step in pack basket making.  When you pound a log with a hand sledgehammer (or a wooden mallet, the traditional method), the layers between growth rings separate, and each year’s growth loosens and peels off the log in long, strong, flexible strips – a slow, miraculous process.  Pack baskets were a highly anticipated craft on the semester, and since we were all very glad to see Chris and his family again, this was a time of rejoicing.  There was also time dedicated to group meetings about working through interpersonal conflicts.  Having lived together for several months now, there are certain inevitable differences of opinion that arise, and so we are working through them with the help of our lesson in communication.  This delicate process is an essential part of living with and caring for each other, and therefore an important and positive experience, strengthening our group and our relationships.  In the meantime, we threw ourselves into pounding and stripping ash into material for our baskets.  Owen frolicked around us, taking a special liking to Iyla, who seemed entranced by him as well. 

            

Around this time we had an unconventional nutrition class by Eva Cahill, Scott and Erica’s mother.  We listened to her talk about Paracelsus, Plato, the different ways we take in nutrients, and the digestive system, and then we started an ongoing experiment with over ten different kinds of milk.  There are now jars of pasteurized, ultra-pasteurized, homogenized, biodynamic, raw, soy, goat, and cow (and varying combinations of the above) milk sitting here on a shelf, just waiting.  I will be sure to let you know which ones rot and which ones sour after they have been sitting for 20 days….  The rest of the parents arrived on April 2^nd for parent weekend.  We had fun before they arrived, decorating camp with a balsam fir bough table, an archway, and humorous signs lining the pathways, made by Yarrow.  Up until that day we had been having gray, rainy weather, but it cleared up and we had a beautiful, sunny couple of days.  Parent weekend was a whirlwind of activity.  Students and their families and friends were treated to a slideshow and presentation by Alexandra Conover, a Maine Guide who has been taking trips and guiding in these areas for many years, and who is a paddle maker as well as a great canoeist.  We were busy with ash pounding, potlucks and a contra dance with a French-Canadian twist.  We would like to again thank the parents for bringing up so much good food for everyone’s enjoyment.

            The parents left and so did the fair weather, making way for the first thunder and lightening storm of the year.  Big job work continued; Eliot has made use of an old root cellar that was found for his fresh order of vegetables (200 lbs of mixed roots, 70 lbs of cabbage, and more), Oliver has been seen watching the stars at night, preparing to tell us what he has observed, and Paul has taken on the job of sharpening and organizing the many tools we have for all our projects.  We kept working on our pack baskets, nailing the uprights and the bottoms to the skids, and weaving the sides in an upwards spiral.  Ashira was a wonderful teacher, telling us to send good thoughts into the baskets as we shaped them, and sharing with us her experiences making baskets in the past.  As she said, it was like we were each making a friend.  The baskets took shape slowly, some people finishing before Chris and Ashira departed and some still weaving and lashing their rims on when we bid them a sad farewell.  On the afternoon of April 6^th the Knapp family left and Rollin Thurlow, a master canoe builder from Maine and owner of Northwoods Canoe, joined us to start canoe building.

            We are finally making our canoe!  It is to be a 15 foot white cedar and canvas tandem canoe.  Rollin has been patiently helping us along as we bend the cedar ribs over the canoe form, wetting and steaming them in a box Noah built back at base camp to make them flexible, and then nailing them into place.  Rollin has built around 850 canoes in his lifetime, plus about a hundred more for various classes and groups, and is the co-author of the book “The Wood Canvas Canoe” – not your ordinary teacher.  He has been on numerous expeditions in the North and listening to his stories has been lovely at mealtimes. After the ribs we shaped the decks, thwarts, and other detailed pieces, and nailed down the planks that go on top of the ribs to give the canoe a solid shell.  The whole group went down this morning to lift it off of the form, as it can now miraculously keep its own shape—we were amazed that it already looked like a boat.  In the next few days we will be smoothing out the nails on the inside and outside of the planking, using a hammer and clinch iron, putting the thwarts inside, and stretching the canvas over the boat. 

            It feels like a storm is coming, so we have been trying to keep things tied down and in tents while it rains outside.  People walk the paths with their pack baskets, proud of their creations, making excuses to carry things around camp so that they can use them.  We go in small groups down to the workshop during the day to work on the canoe, and people are always stopping by to see what progress has been made, curious about how it will end up looking.  We are settling into a rhythm at Northwoods, getting up at the same time and running and stretching in the mornings.  It is wonderful to be able to bathe and wash our clothes in the streams and the pond.  The trout lilies we use to spice our salads are sprouting through the blanket of dead leaves on the ground.  In the evenings we gather as a group and talk and play music, with the occasional oddball song thrown in by Ari.  Melody and Erica showed us their slideshow from last fall’s Ecuador Semester, and Martin, who we are all very glad to see re-enter our group, delighted us with his reflections on his old job as Photographer, which were in the form of limericks.  Meanwhile, Yarrow and Mistral have been steadily working on navigation and Kendra has been planning lots of delicious meals for us for the springtime--parts of which we will gather as we paddle down the rivers.  Every day brings us closer to our second expedition.

                        Well wishes,

                                    Anna Soltys Morse

Skiing along through icy snow,

High above the wind does blow,

Sudden elation

But documentation--

I’ve got to take pictures, oh no!

            - by Martin Summer, reflecting on his job as Photographer

Chai Tea (for sixteen people), as made by Mistral Louw:

1gallon milk

4 cinnamon sticks

½ cup cardamom pods

1 medium ginger root—finely sliced

1cup loose leaf Assam tea

3 tbsp. peppercorns

2 tbsp. ground cinnamon

1-2 cups sugar (measured by taste)

Boil it all until it becomes strong, dark and spicy; it should simmer for around 30 minutes.

Contradance at NorthWoods