Saturday, March 23, 2013

NHVSP Update 7

Visiting the legendary Lepine sisters...
 

  During this penultimate leg of our winter journey, we studied the many facets of the concept of landscape: landscape as recreation, as profit, as habitat, as aesthetic, as history, as a watershed, and many others. We studied the relationships between landscapes, habitats, and the human and geologic history that defines those connections. We studied the history of the Vermont landscape, and how human forces have influenced it, and how that landscape has, in turn, influenced art and literature.
 
Out of a metamorphic fissure
I spring like a fluid bullet
Down the mountain I cascade
Freed by March’s flow
From my crystal Palace
Overlooking a bountiful kingdom
As I roll down
I feed this beautiful place

  
In about 8500 BC, Paleo-Indians roamed a glaciated Vermont, surviving by hunting caribou. As the glacial ice receded around 5000 BC, hunter-gatherer societies began to develop, hunting, fishing, and gathering plants. Several thousand years later, between 1300 and 1000 BC, agricultural management of crops, especially corn, became critical to native societies, who used fire to clear land to cultivate.
French settlers arrived in Champlain Valley in the late 1600s AD, followed in the 1760s by economically motivated settlers from Connecticut, who traveled into Vermont via eastern New York and the Connecticut River. The construction of military roads and canals in the 1820s led to the rapid development of agricultural communities, and to the sheep boom that occurred between 1820 and 1850. In this time, Vermont’s land was largely cleared: in 1620, ninety-five percent of the state was forested, compared to only twenty-five to thirty-five percent by 1850. (In the late 1990s, approximately seventy-five to eighty percent of Vermont was forested.)
Railroads were developed in the late 1800s, and the sheep industry failed. Dairy farming took over in the early 1900s, creating the rural landscape that is the popular image of Vermont today. The creation of the interstate system in the 1960s also helped contribute to the tourism industry.

The concept of landscape as artifact is strange but makes sense when one observes the stone walls, old trees, tree plantations, or young growth as objects to learn about the past. On the ninth of March, we saw this big gnarled sugar maple standing in a relatively young growth woods. We also skied through a Norway Spruce plantation that was part of Roosevelt’s New Deal to put people back to work after World War I.


Midway through the leg, while studying the cultural history of the landscape, we met with some old-time Vermont dairy farmers, Gert and Jeanette Lepine. In 1944, the Lepine family moved to a farm in a small community named Mud City. The three sisters — Gert, Jeanette, and Theresa — ran the farm with their parents. When their father died in his sixties, the women of the family took over the farm. With sixty milking Jerseys and sixty young stock, the herd was one of the top ten in the nation, by milk quality. The family became famous for their all-women farm, though Gert and Jeanette consider it a ridiculous reason to have such a fuss.
The sisters were inspiringly youthful and energetic when we met them, enthusiastically bustling about and presenting us with delicious milk, cookies, and maple syrup. Their unique radiance and the wonderful stories they told us gave us a wonderful level of insight into the world of Vermont’s past.
Wearing all Baby Blue
hunched over
quite the nose
slight
Sunglasses — with one lens bedazzled
energy radiance
happy to see us.
big hands — gnarled, working hands,
soft, warmed
jean cuff, rolled up, workboot house shoes
lots of smiles, teasing and pinching each other
siblings
jovial, youthful
genuine welcoming
content
Why did they never marry?
Spinster, rich and giving
Humor

  
Throughout the leg, we also studied literature and art, and the role played by the Northeastern landscape in forming them. Concepts of wilderness have also evolved, concurrently with the dominant movements in nature literature and art.
In the 1500s, native peoples of Vermont and the Northeast had an intuitive connection with nature, not making any conceptual separation between humans and the world around them. The first European settlers, in the 1600s and 1700s, saw wilderness as something to be feared and fought. They strongly associated wilderness with the concept of being lost, connecting it to moral fears, as well: fearing their “bewilderment,” or moral confusion and despair. Philosophers and artists of the Enlightenment and later the Romantics, ending in about 1850, including Immanuel Kant, Edmund Burke, and William Gilpin, still saw nature as something daunting, something to be conquered, while simultaneously lifting it up, and seeing God in it.
From the mid-1800s to about 1910, the Transcendentalists, such as Thoreau, Muir, and Emerson, reacting, in part, to the Industrial Revolution, were considered the first environmentalists, recognizing the threat to nature from industrial development, and viewing its continued preservation as a human right. Recreation in the wilderness expanded in the 1860s, with the construction of country houses for the wealthy, and the establishment of national parks. Increasing urbanization led to the view of wilderness as an escape from the cities.
In the 1950s and 1960s was another significant environmentalist movement, in the wake of World War II, with writers such as Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold expressing fears about the effect of rapid technological progress on nature and the environment. Widespread pollution and the development of new chemicals prompted some of these fears. Beginning in the 1980s, a return to post-Romantic and Transcendentalist mindsets has become dominant, with the growing environmentalist movement focusing on land preservation, creating islands of nature for the future.
We wrote poems, inspired by some poems by Muir, creating verbal pictures of how the concept of the ‘flowing’ of nature plays a role in many natural systems in which it may not be obvious at first glance, such as in the evolution of boreal forests and in the development of geologic formations.
Born from the earth, in the form of a spiderweb of cold rivulets, water seeps out of high granite and meets in low valleys. The first miles are youthful, dancing playfully amidst boulders and cobblestones, ripping around serpentine corners, and tumbling over waterfalls. Steep banks attempts to control spring torrents, but erode, exposed roots dangling, pleading for help amidst the roar. The temperamental creeks converge in wide glassy pools, the brook’s older brother. They gently flow, caressing islands and shaping sandbars. Soon, the more mature river ebbs and flows, influenced by the silver moon. The deep, dark curls and ribbons of green reflect the colors of the hardwood hillside on a fall day. Sailing smells soon meet the nose, and a white crust forms on the rice lining the shore. Bottlenecked into little rivers, grass waves from the dunes. Shelled creatures skirt underfoot, and waves begin to lap at the shore. A haze rises, and the raindrops return to the sky.

We also studied the landscape as place, looking at the place we’re in, and connecting it to other places we have been. Memories of place influence how we see places we are at any given moment, because when we look at the world around us, we relate it and contrast it to the world in our past.


To the rocks on Great Head…

O dear rock,
fine grained coarse grained meta
morphic
and sedimentary,
your intrusions and
extrusions
are a flow, a moment washed by
raindrops large & small
like the ocean
like a drop of dew
frozen in time
in this moment
you are one
with the tea house that once stood on you
now demolished, thanks to
vandals
who never mattered
to you
and who might never realize that they
are part
of you
and, dear moment O Rock,
maritime boreal forest a rock
moving fast upon you
flow in this moment
and though I have not set foot
upon you
in months
and I
miss you
and rock, my spirit stands
on you
and my heart, part of me, is
with you,
and I am
of you,
dear rock.

 

...And then there is my new home, here in the North-East Kingdom. Not just here though, everywhere here in the North-East. Seeing the landscape as contrast to my prior gives me clarity. I feel very at peace often in the tall stands of spruce, in the dense Boreal thickets, behind the curtain of green. I feel challenge at the cold, of the wind hitting at my face, nipping my nose. I enjoy it, the hardship and the simplicity of the land. Of rolling hills, often not changing enough for notice, yet being a subtle painted background, always there for reference.
So my home is neither here, nor there. I am always longing in the city to go to the wild, and after a fair stretch I long to go back to my city. My home is where I make it, where I lay my head most often. And my home of late is the small towns we pass, in the dairy pastures, the hardwoods, the wetlands, and the cotton wall tents. In my mind, on the trail I am at home, in the sleeping bag and on the sidewalk in downtown. Home isn’t a place, but it can be, and it is more often a time.

  
Later in the leg, we had a group solo — a time when we traveled for a few days with minimal supervision, and we had to be self-motivated and perform all of our work ourselves. It was a special time, because it represented a turning point for the group, an end of the phase of learning the rhythms of trail life, and a beginning to the process of learning independence and group unity. We will use those skills when we arrive at our next layover, at the Northwoods Stewardship Center in a few days.
Here at Heartbeet Lifesharing, we are preparing for our small-group solos: a four-day leg in which we will travel in groups of three students, and the group leaders will travel a few hours behind us, and, except in event of emergency, have no contact with us aside from the notes we will leave along the way informing them of our continued safety. These four days will undoubtedly be a very special and transformative time as well, preparing and strengthening us for the spring semester.

Thank you to Heartbeet Lifesharing, our hosts at this layover. Heartbeet is a biodynamic farm and intentional community working to provide a supporting environment to adults with special needs. We enjoyed being here greatly!
Kai's Beatles Band at Heartbeet Lifesharing

Thursday, March 7, 2013

NHVSP Update 6

NHVSP Update 6


 


During this second leg of our journey, we transitioned from adapting to the rhythm of trail life to focusing more heavily on our studies: learning survival skills, reading and writing poetry, natural history, and getting to know the trees of the area through detailed observation and sketches. At the last year-round homestead we passed on one road, we met a hunter, who gave us a coyote that we learned to skin. We learned to coal-burn spoons by taking a “spoon blank” — a rough piece of spruce, at first — and then using a coal to burn a bowl into it, and then carving out around the bowl.

We learned the story of the King of the North and the Queen of the South, and the constant back-and-forth they have throughout the winter.

The King of the North and the Queen of the South

All through the winter, there’s a story that gets acted out many, many times — about once each week. The King of the North blows and blows, trying to push his way onto the throne, and clear the sky. He’ll bring clear weather when he finally sits on his throne. Then, he takes a day of rest, and when he rests, he sits comfortably on his throne, and the Queen of the South takes notice of his repose. She sends out her scouts — her horses (“mares’ tails”) and her fishes (“mackerel scales”). And then she comes behind them, and brings cloudy weather, and pushes the King of the North off his throne.

We felt a bit of the Queen of the South’s influence one night early on in the leg, when the wind was so strong we had to get up during the night and stake down the tent!

Later, we went out for personal solo time: we built fires, wrote in our journals, and cooked meat. We met with a logger, Lawrence A. “Tweeter” Felion, a venerable man with over sixty years of experience logging. We interviewed him about his experiences logging in the Vermont woods, and about the changes he’s witnessed in the forests and how logging takes place.

We did shelter group solos, when we went out in groups of three and built and spent the night in lean-to shelters. To get to the spot where we did our shelter solos, we first had to learn to test the soundness of ice.

How to test the soundness of ice using a pole

Get a pole, perhaps three inches in diameter, or maybe a little less, and perhaps seven or eight feet tall. Strike the pole upon the ice three times in the same spot. If the sound of the pole hitting the ice changes from one stroke to the next, the ice is probably not safe to walk upon. If the sound stays the same from one stroke to the next, the ice should hold a grown man without skis (wearing skis distributes a person’s weight, and can enable one to walk on thinner ice).

I learned the importance of testing the safety of ice the hard way — I got my boots wet! Luckily, it was a warm day, so they dried pretty quickly. But if it were cold out, it could have been a bad situation! I would have had to build a fire and remove and dry my boots.

Then, we built the shelters of logs and boughs, and built fires in them and cooked our meals.

How to build a simple lean-to shelter

First, choose a location for your shelter. A shelter should be built on high, level ground, so water doesn’t drain toward it. Look for places that are sheltered from the wind, where there are plenty of natural resources for you to use — poles for building the shelter and for firewood, boughs for making the roof water-resistant and for bedding, and water for drinking and cooking. Also, look for locations that have natural features, such as trees and rootballs, that you can use as part of your shelter. It’s important to take the time to find a good spot for your shelter.  Once you have selected a location, look for any dangerous widowmakers, and fell them. Saving your life from hypothermia would be kind of ironic if you’re going to be killed by a falling tree in the night.
Second, frame your shelter! This is the fun part. Position your shelter so that the wind blows at the back corner (if it is blowing directly into your shelter you’ll be cold, and if it’s blowing side-on, you’ll get smoked out). For a basic one-person lean-to shelter, use two forked sticks, and lean them up against two trees, high enough that the bottoms of the forks are about six inches above your head when you sit between them. Put a ridgepole in the forks, spanning the two trees. Cut rafters, and lean them up against this pole, at about a forty-five degree angle, and about three inches apart from each other. You will sleep under this roof. Place a green pole under the ridgepole on the ground, to mark the edge of your bed so you don’t roll into the fire. Using a green pole will make it less likely to burn. Make sure you’ll be far enough under the roof so snow or rain won’t drift in on you too much. Your fire should be at least a foot away from the bedpole and  the “reflecting wall”. The reflecting wall is a wall of logs, maybe four feet high, that you build on the far side of your fire. Use four stakes pounded into the ground to support the wall, and place logs in between them.

Third, make your roof and bed using conifer boughs. The boughs should all be upside down, layered like feathers. Angle the roof boughs against the rafters, so the ends don’t poke down through the gaps; overhang the boughs at the top so water doesn’t run down the rafters. Your bough bed should be six to eight inches thick when you’re laying on it to insulate you from the ground (if you’re using a pad, you can skimp on this somewhat).

Finally, build your pole fire. This t­echnique is sometimes called an “Indian chainsaw”, because the logs don’t need to be bucked up before burning. To build this fire, burn a number of limbed poles, starting at one end. Throughout the night, every couple of hours, you’ll need to pull the poles further onto the fire to keep it burning. Place the poles so the tips tilt down into the fire (make sure the ends of the poles that stick out of the shelter are higher than the ends in the fire). Make a roller from logs if you need to.

Congratulations! You have now finished a simple shelter that should let you survive the night.

P. S.: To cook in your shelter: Place a pole across the top of your shelter from the reflecting wall to the ridgepole (wedge it in between the rafters to keep it from moving). Then, make the “spunhungan”, or pot hanger, by finding a forked stick, and cut it so one end is longer than the other. Cut a notch in the long end of the fork big enough to fit the bale of your pot. Then, hook the crotch of the stick over the cookpole, and hook the bale of your pot into the notch. It should now support the pot over the fire.

Don’t put your ridgepole too close to the fire! Zack learned this the hard way, when his bough roof dried out through the night and caught fire at four o’clock in the morning. This is especially a concern for multiple-person shelters with a fire between two ridgepoles, where the ridgepoles might be quite close together.





After we got back on the trail, we climbed Mount Abraham. It was pretty wild on the peak, with the wind blowing the snow so hard that we could barely see, and the sign at the peak unreadable, covered with several inches of rime ice. We skied down the Sugarbush ski resort — that was a lot of fun! At camp that night, we learned to make snow-cream — ice cream made using snow.  Very delicious!
 
How to make snow cream

Take a few big bowlfuls of powder snow, and put them in a large pot. While gently stirring, slowly pour in two pints heavy cream, half a pint of maple syrup or honey, and vanilla to taste. If necessary, add more snow to get a soft and fluffy consistency. This makes about twelve heaping bowlfuls.

On the winter trail, you can use powdered milk as a substitute for the cream, and use sugar for the sweetener. That way it won’t be too heavy to carry, and you can carry a lot of it — although probably not as much as we want!


Writings of thanks



Ode to Maxiglide:

On days with sticky snow
I feel like there’s nowhere to go
Skis are quite slow
And take much energy to go
When hope is lost
When time stands still
No one else can we turn to
But Maxiglide
Makes a very nice ride



To my left leather glove, on its having gotten badly burned when I attempted to dry it when I was very tired during my shelter solo:

Glove — tool — strong and malleable and warm —
You gave for me
You suffered loss, once a whole glove
unmarred
of a pair
now
“Lesser” — whatever that means.
You kept my hand warm to-day
on the mountain.
Is that not
Greatness? A task accomplished
by a tool
I do not know how to make,
you
hold me warm
and protect me.
Glove, for what did you suffer this loss?
For mindlessness, for impatience
For my not taking sufficient care —
I am sorry.
Not for to break you, to
then be reforged
as a book rebound, but
simply through
Negligence.
I will patch you, when I reach the right time
with
Duct tape, and
Care
and will you still be “lesser”, Greatness?

Ode to skis:

                        Praise be to my skis!
                        My glorious chariot of the mountainside!
                        You triple the speed, quadruple the fun!


Ode to the Stove:

Praise be to the stove
Without you we survive but with you we live.
You are an unruly burden but the energy we sacrifice is returned tenfold every evening.
Containing our essential fire, you give us its heat while protecting us from sparks and smoke
A surface to cook on is merely a bonus.
Praise be to the stove.


Love Poem to Fire:

We first met when I was young,
and you were introduced as a strong spirit
with the power to kill.
I was taken by you instantly
because you hold a strength within you
far more powerful than the strengths I hold.
Even at your weakest moments
you are able to find
the place inside me that needs you most
the place that needs your warmth
and your red hot smile.
That’s why I love you,
because no matter what the conditions,
you share your deepest qualities
with me,
and I feel your warmth again.

Memories from the leg

The second leg has flown by even faster than the first. I have learned so much from Chris. It was a great experience to build a shelter with a fire and sleep in it with Kerensa and Lotte. We had lots of liveovers to learn about trees. Now Chris has gone and Emily has joined us, I am looking forward to this next leg and can’t wait for spring to come.




There is a great big rootball, and more poles than anyone could ever ask for. After four or five hours of work, we three had a pot of pasta and veggies boiling, and room to curl up for sleep.  Now the snow is lightly falling, and the patchy roof is letting some flakes in. But I have no qualms with Mother Nature on a night like this. The long logs are burning blue and bright. There is an incredible feeling of contentment in this camp.




The shelter was exciting, though. It took about seven hours to make. It wasn’t really fantastic looking at first, but it got the job done today, so I guess I’m ok. But I felt like I was in a coffin made out of spruce boughs all night. So that should say something. It was like a triangle open at the apex, very slightly, and without a roof. Well, it had kind of a roof, in some parts. In the part that didn’t need it, so I got snowed on all night. A good night, nonetheless. 


“coyote”

when it was naked and no longer looked
like itself, this totally wild
thing looked like nothing real I’d ever
seen It looked most closely
related to zombie animals
in Zelda video
games




Thanks to Chris, our teacher on this leg! Also, thanks to Leah, who accompanied us for the first five days — it was a pleasure to have you!