NHVSP 2010 Update 13

            Dear Readers,

            Since I wrote you last our group has been hard at work building a lodge.  A lodge is a traditional Cree building made of many small poles in a basic cone shape with sod on top.  We began on May 19th.  Ken Gagnon has come to help us with the construction and Hugh Landis is here as well to aid in the making of the door, window and skylight frames.  Ken sat down with us and looked at the lodge that had already been built—he believes that if someone has found a good way to do something, you should consider following in their footsteps.  We all gathered in the little building and looked around.  There was a short talk about why we were building the lodge and what it meant to us as a group.  Ken made it clear that this was entirely our project, a test of sorts, to see how well we could work together, and that he was there to answer questions mainly.  Slowly we gathered our thoughts and figured out from what we could see of the old lodge what we would need to get and do first in order to start work on the new one.  We will attempt to finish as much as possible in ten days.

            Several people measured the old lodge and designed a basic plan for ours that kept the original shape of the lodge.  We planned to make it more spacious by changing the doorway and to provide more light by having a larger skylight and by facing the window toward the northeast.  We needed to dig a foundation, as the lodge might otherwise sink and rot as time wore on, so we dug a trench and built it up with rocks and gravel, propping the poles up on rocks to keep them steady.  

The lodge coming to life

We needed to peel all of the poles we had collected at the beginning (about 240; we might have to cut more).  We needed also to collect and peel about 400 feet of young sapling trees, which later were lashed to some of the poles in a ring to keep the structure from twisting and warping.  The first to go up were the six support poles: long, thick poles with strong branches to cradle the short ridgepole.  We lashed them into place and kept adding on to this skeleton as we went.  The foundation had to be fixed several times and added to so that the poles would be on rocks and above ground level.  A couple of us worked with Hugh on the door and window frames and the rest peeled poles and saplings and lashed them in to the frame.  

          Lashing turned out to be a job requiring many people, specially for the sapling rings--we had to feed them in one at a time to create an even circle.  In the meantime we turned towards digging sod, so that when the time comes we can layer it on top of the poles. 

              While this was all going on, Misha came to tell us that he had a few suggestions as to how to make the lodge better suited to Kroka’s needs.  We discussed all of the things he said and decided what to change; the frames for the door and window have been altered and the foundation worked on.  We put in the chimney flange yesterday, along with many more poles.  Sod digging progresses, although we are not sure how much of it we will need despite the math-lovers in our group discussing at length the formula best used to figure out the surface area of our not quite cone shaped building.  All in all, the lodge is coming together nicely though there is still a fair amount of work to do.  

It has occupied most of our time but we have also been wrapping up academic work that will go into the Semester Book for each of us to take home.  The weather has been absolutely glorious.  Save for one day at the beginning, we have had nothing but sun and warm wind, which means that we have been making regular trips to Gustin Pond and spending as little time indoors as possible. 

            Until the next time,    Anna Soltys Morse

 Frame, window and door are all in place; all we need is more poles!