Wednesday, January 16, 2013

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?

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