NHVSP Update 3

Expedition food pack-out

 

Max overseeing pack-out

 Telemarking at Granite Gorge

Brita pulling logs past the girls lodge

This week our semester group began learning a new fun skill: how to manage our skis going downhill! It took a bit of practice to begin mastering this challenge, but by the end of the week we were enjoying it greatly, and now we’re eagerly awaiting our next opportunity to practice our new skill. We kept working on lots of other projects as well, trying to get fully prepared to leave on the expedition.

Lotte has been sewing herself a raccoon-skin cap for the trip, and we have all sewn protective mitten shells and stuff sacks (small tan drawstring bags) for the trail.

The men moved into a better-insulated shelter, during our recent cold snap, and so they are a lot warmer now.

We saunaed yesterday and all got clean and shiny for the new week, and we ate sixteen delicious pizzas (and learned how to make them!) in exchange for community service at the Orchard Hill community and school. We made the pizzas in Orchard Hill Breadworks’ Spanish Llopis oven, which replaced the previous cobb and brick ovens they used. Using those ovens, the baker, Noah, would get about two hundred loaves with about fourteen hours of work in each baking cycle. Using the Llopis, he can produce about seven to nine hundred loaves with about six to eight hours of work per cycle, representing a vast increase in productive capacity. Inspired by this, we have been exploring human energy efficiency within our own community.

We continued studying tracking and naturalist skills in the Naturalist Blocks. We have eaten a lot of kasha, which for us is boiled Russian buckwheat — very delicious!

We have seen maps of the route we will take, and are creating lists of all the items we need to take on the trip — so many, and yet so few! Preparations are going smoothly, and we’re all continuing to bond as a team.

Journals from the week

Monday

“Woodchopper’s Euphoria”

The whistling axe,

The snapping crack,

My arms revived,

Blood pumps

Through my veins,

Even expended,

My energy is vast

And glowing

Like the rising sun

Life pours through

My body,

And I welcome the morning

With a heart

Full of joy.

Tuesday

Moving to the new lodge has been really nice. It’s been warm and it’s much cozier than the old one. Waking up and not seeing my breath is an incredible moment.

Wednesday

Today has not been as magical as some days. Some days sparkle, like drops of water on a spider’s web in the sun. Today only had a few fragmented moments like that. This morning, going up the boardwalk to farm chores, the sun shone on the frost on the boards, and those gleaming jewels were the morning’s first sparkle. While I greeted the day, I noticed the elegance and grace of the twigs of the bush growing around and encircling the rock upon which I sat, and knowing and becoming part of the bush was another sparkling moment. But most of the day for me was in shadows. Now as I write these words I am holding the knife I made and I know that she will be with me and care for me, and that knowledge gives me strength. I will be alive, and I too will become strong, and kind, and graceful, and supporting. The ripples on her handle speak in echoes to me through the years to come.

Thursday

“coon skin cap”

raccoon hide

once a living animal

possibly even happy

I now have your skin

I am eternally grateful

and will love you forever

I will not pretend you are alive

or play with your skin

as a grim puppet

but wear you as a fashionable hat

so much better.

Friday

 My boots crunch through the snow’s crust to the white powder underneath. I lift my hand to shield my eyes from a pine bow released from its tree by our teacher Hans. He abruptly stops and bends down on one knee. When I look to see what has caught his attention, I notice cat-like tracks in the snow. This animal must have weighed considerably less than I, for he did not break through the thin crust over the snow, but only left light, shallow impressions. The first things I look for are how long the animal could have been and whether there are any claw marks in the tracks. The tracks are directly registered, meaning the creature stepped in each track twice. My first thought goes to a fox, but there are no claw marks, and the tracks are not in a line, as is typical for a fox. The body length seems a bit short for a fox, as well. As we followed the track, I continue to imagine a cat-like creature. Now, further along, I see these bounding tracks, hinting at something in the weasel family…

Headlamp haircuts with Emily

Thanks to Angus, Max, Rosa, Noah, and Lotte to their lovely submissions to this week’s update!

 NHVSP Update 2

This second week of our semester, we continued preparing for the expedition. We skied several times, and sewed mitten shells and stuff sacks. We studied tracking, and practiced improving our senses in the outdoors. We named our knives, and had a ceremony for them. We sang songs. We ate, and laughed, and worked. It has been a good week.

Max and Kenya drying jerky for the trail

Journals from the week…

Monday
I am worn out and tired. Ahead of me lies a steep uphill climb. My heels are burning and I am sweating. I slowly begin to make my way up. Slow and then a little bit faster. I pick up speed and try to forget the blisters. The hills no longer seem so bad, and I push myself more than ever — I conquer the mountain.

Tuesday
Getting snow after losing all of it was a very joyous thing to wake up to. We may actually get to ski from the farm if it stays cold!

Angus sewing shells for his mittens 

Wednesday
To the stars:

Something is illuminated
within me when you sing,
dark and bright,
clear,
in the shining night.

Thursday

I have been quickly gaining strength from my daily exercise regimen, and have been feeling much healthier.

Friday

I’m missing home — soft sheets in a warm bed, spiced milk, dried cranberries, being cold and then getting warm, my family — but that’s okay. There’s so much that is wonderful right here that I am still at peace.

Saturday
Im happy and healthy and feel like I'm part of something wholesome and different. The sunrise is fiery and the food is hearty. What more could I ask for?

Kerensa at Orchard Hill

Rosa pulling firewood

Drawing tracks during a Naturalist Block

Community service at Orchard Hill

Nap time...

Thank you to the contributors to this update! Sam and Kerensa contributed passages, as well as some lovely anonymous submissions.  Thank you also to Kreston (the apprentice who will accompany us on the expedition) and Emily (our wonderful instructor) for their invaluable help and support in compiling these updates, and to my kind editor, Jenny.

Noah keeping warm

NHVSP Update 1

Left to right: Kreston, Elliot, Wayland, Lotte, Rosa, Kerensa, Max, Sam, Kenya, Angus, and Noah.

We are the 2013 Kroka Vermont Semester. We are a group of ten participants in a five month-long experience during which we will traverse the length of Vermont without mechanical assistance. We will first ski about three hundred miles north, leaving from New Hampshire. Then we will cross briefly into Canada by canoe, row the length of Lake Champlain, and return to New Hampshire on bicycles, caving and mountain climbing along the way. We will spend the month of January preparing our minds and bodies for this substantial undertaking. Without further ado, we present the participants in this endeavor:

Kroka Campus and Farm

Angus

I came to Kroka for, and desire to bring away from it, change. I’m from Shelburne, Vermont.

Learning to turn

Mounting bindings

Elliot

I will be compiling these updates for the winter half of the semester. I’m from Hull’s Cove, Maine.

Kenya

I’m from Belgrade, Maine. I had friends who did the Kroka semester and recommended it to me. I came here because I cross-country ski and wanted to learn to live in the wilderness.

Kerensa

I’m just learning to ski. It’s fun. I’m enjoying all the delicious food here, and love sledding. I miss my little bro. I came to Kroka to become a better person and to learn how to ski. The skiing has been my favorite part of the first week here. I’m from Keene, New Hampshire.

Lotte

Making our knife handles

I’m from Brooklyn, New York. I was attracted to Kroka by the opportunity to learn wilderness survival skills, and learn how to live outdoors in the woods. I went to the Farm and Wilderness Camp, which sparked my interest in survival skills.

Max

I’m from Los Angeles, California. I came to Kroka to learn sustainability. I hope to gain skills in alternative living.

Noah

I’m from Damariscotta, Maine. I was brought to Kroka by the opportunity to have an adventure in the second half of my senior year of high school. I want to learn to live healthily, sustainably, and minimally.

Rosa

I’m Rosa from Ferrisburg, Vermont. I go to the Lake Champlain Waldorf School. I love to sing and write poetry. I love being in the outdoors. I love Kroka too.

Sewing

Sam I’m from Hallowell, Maine. I was attracted to Kroka by its sustainability, adventure, and tightly knit community. I hope to gain strong leadership skills, and a better understanding of and connection to the world around me.

Wayland

I’m Wayland from Nelson, in tenth grade. I love skiing, wrestling, the outdoors, nature, and being barbarous.

A moment from the week…                                   

The sky today is very dark. The deep grey clouds, furrowed into long lines, steam their way across the vast sky, making our skis seem small and slow against the amazing power of the elements. It is an awe-inspiring sensation, climbing up the enormous hill and looking up the expanse of white, seeing the trees on the horizon, and now gazing further upwards, to the stormy, ominous sky. Time is frozen at the top of the snowy hill, stretching into eternity in the moment before the descent. The powerful wind presses us into the trees as we try not to fall.

Skiing is floating in the water, without the fear of drowning. It is flying across the snow — or is it air? — and hoping I will never land. It is being a wolf looking for Paradise at the end of the world. It is the hope that I can hear the world around me, and speak to it in my turn. It is falling, and wondering how to get up. It is writing a poem with the edges of my skis. It is waiting quietly, patiently, for a fish that never bites the hook, and it is enjoying sitting by the water anyway. It is clearing my vision in the mirror that is the world around me. It is the clear song of the hermit thrush in the forest.

Is skiing all these things, or is it only traveling across the snow on two pieces of wood?

Or maybe, just maybe, it is both?