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3/24-4/1

Well. . . we are here, all fifteen of us, at the NorthWoods Stewardship Center in East Charleston,Vermont, our new home for the month of April. We left from Somerset Reservoir two months ago as a community getting to know each other, excited about learning how to live in the bush in the winter, with 300 miles of the beautiful snow-covered Catamount Trail on our horizon, unsure of what we might see on our journey. We have encountered many things on this journey, both challenging obstacles and purely blissful moments, each one of us experiencing these as something slightly different. For some it was passing through peaceful woods of White Birch and Sugar Maple, watching the shadows of the trees dance around the forest floor of sparkling white snow as the sun spun around in the blue sky. . . or crossing the small gurgling streams and watching the cold water rush over the rocks. . . or coming to life in the frigid air to a morning melody of Chris singing “the day begins, the day begins, Oh joy the day begins”, accompanied by the cracking and popping sounds from the woodstove.

. . or peacefully walking up a hill tipping Fir boughs until your arms just can’t hold anymore. . . or ignoring the sharp pain in your left shoulder from the weight of the skis in your backpack as you hike alongside the rushing highway . . . or feeling the sensation coming back to your fingertips as you curl up next to the woodstove, cuddling a steaming bowl of chagga. . . or grabbing onto trees to help you right yourself from getting pummeled by the sled. . . or feeling a slight twang of pain in your stomach every time you hear that screeching scraping sound of your skis barreling over rocks on the trail. . . or the proud feeling of leaving a layover knowing that the food pack-out went well, the group journal pages and thank you notes were written, the e- mail update was sent, your skis were waxed, you completed a Main Lesson Page, you dried your boot liners, and you sewed that patch on your pants. . . or the overwhelming feeling of having to catch up in your journal from six days ago and not even remembering what you did yesterday because each day feels like a lifetime. . . or feeling frustrated that you can’t remember which direction to face the door of the tent. . . or dreaming of two feet of powder covering the world outside and waking up to the sound of rain falling on the fly. I could easily write another sixteen pages of these single moments in time, for these are the moments that, when pieced together, cover the 300 miles of beautiful trail and roads of Vermont that our feet and skis have covered. It is an incredible feeling to know that these moments will always lie in the exact places where they occurred, as well as inside each one of us, as memories. I think of what Mary Stewart, one of our guest storytellers told us, that we have carried each other’s stories in our backpacks along this whole journey. . and there is always room for more in the depths of our eternal backpacks.

The final and fifth leg of our journey North was certainly made up of many different stories and single moments in time. We arrived at the NorthWoods Stewardship Center at different times, our backpacks overflowing with stories from the past week of individual and small group solos. The Plan: Tom goes solo the entire leg. Paul-Ivan, Hans and Colin spend two nights on their own and meet up on the third day to finish the leg. Daniel, Evan, Andy and Tommy do the same. Lily and Hannah spend two nights on their own and meet up with Sarah and Ilene on the third day. Sarah spends two nights on her own and meets up with Ilene, Lily and Hannah on the third day. Ilene and Evan spend one night alone then meet up with each other on the second day, then split up to meet their other groups on the third day. Chris, Ashirah and Stefan spend two nights alone and meet up on the third day. Sounds a little confusing. . but worked out quite nicely, with a few minor changes here and there. We each wrote out an Expedition Plan with planned daily mileages, campsites and travel routes, and would follow a safety plan of calling the Kroka Office in Putney to tell Misha or Lynne (or the voice on the answering machine) who we are, where we are, where we planned on camping that night and how we are.

Our last few hours at Sterling College, which was a wonderful “liveover”, were spent hunched over V.A.S.T. (Vermont Association of Snow Travelers) maps and Vermont Gazeteers as we created our own Expedition Plans for the thirty miles from Craftsbury Common to East Charleston. Some of us who are more comfortable with a map and compass were able to plan big bushwhacks and mountain and swamp crossings, locating landmarks and reading the topography of the land, a skill that is so important to this nomadic and spontaneous way of life. And for those of us who are not so navigationally gifted, such as myself, it was enough of a challenge figuring out which road we were on and in which town with a map that we found out later was old and mislabeled. But for all, it was quite a learning, and sometimes humbling experience.

My first day hit me with one of the humbling experiences. An original plan of “Head North from Sterling College on road, Pick up Snowmobile Trail 16 to Lake Parker, camp at Lake Parker” became “Head North from Sterling College on road, miss the turn-off for the snowmobile trail, end up on Creek Road, get directions, a magnet with an eagle painted on it, and offered peanut butter fudge from Miss Viola, walk along a road not labeled on the map, walk into woods, walk out of woods, think that I am in South Albany (where I should be), only to look at the billboard of a church that clearly says “East Craftsbury Church” (a few miles south from where I had started. . yes, it baffled me too), have a nice lady in the Community Center draw out a route for me on my map in yellow marker, after explaining what all the “backpackers are doing walking around” here, follow Andersonville Road to Daniel’s Pond Road, make camp 1?2 mile down Daniel’s Pond Road, five miles southwest of Lake Parker.”

This is how some of our solos unfolded. . we found our own paths and our daily destinations became wherever we happened to be when we felt like stopping and setting camp for the night. . . or when we thought that darkness was soon approaching, although the latter usually occurred around 2 in the afternoon. We walked along beautiful deserted dirt roads that weren’t on our maps, bushwhacked and “farmwhacked” (in Daniel’s case) through the mountains and forests (and occasional corn fields and cedar bogs), found perfect campsites with all of life’s necessities within a five-minute walk, also slept in a broken-down school bus, fully furnished with beds, carpet, a table and lawn chairs, a deck with an amazing North-facing view of the mountains, a grill, and interesting books to read (Sarah, Evan and I were thrilled with this discovery), walked along ridges with beautiful mountain views, played an intense game of cribbage with a friendly woman (Colin got “skunked”), followed Turkey, Otter, Coyote, Hare, Moose, Deer, and Raccoon tracks around streams and into woods, mingled with the locals, who gave directions that were just as interesting as they were, observed Pileated Woodpeckers in the early hours of morning, felt what it was like to not have any idea where we were, then experienced the pure joy of popping out onto a road or stream that we could locate on the map, and adventured up mountains in deep snow, crossed swamps, streams, rivers, and muddy fields.

We had all chosen our own menus and packed our own food, which included spaghetti, kasha, whole oats, beans and quinoa, mashed potatoes, lentils, dried vegetables, cheese, rolled oats, macaroni, bear mush, and biscuit mix, which we cooked over open fires in our assortment of pots, fry pans, and the coffee cans we rescued from Sterling’s recycling center. However, we also enjoyed and appreciated getting invited into homes for pizza (Tom and Paul-Ivan) and shrimp and tea (Sarah), and being generously offered pounds of pork, hamburger meat and sausage, a candy bar and soda (but Colin did turn down chicken, noodles, steak and bacon). We were offered rides (some taken, some declined), advice (“that mountain is gonna be a b*tch to climb”), illegal substances (Lily declined an offer from a friendly middle-aged woman), mugs of hot maple syrup (Hannah had a lot of energy that morning), and good ‘ole friendly conversation. . as well as some guarded conversations, as people were, unfortunately, a little apprehensive of “scary teenagers” walking along the roads in small groups carrying axes, knives and saws, sometimes shoe-less and wet, as Tom experienced. . . “So there I was walking barefoot on someone’s driveway with my pants rolled up, a blood-shot eye [from a Hobblebush attack], clutching a huge piece of birch bark, which I intended to start a fire with, in one arm, and a big pair of boots in the other, when a big black SUV comes up the dirt drive and powerfully glades to a stop.

‘Can I help you?’ says a lady poking her head out the window.” (Excerpt from Tom’s Group Journal page). He was only bushwhacking, folks! We experienced the happiness and freedom of being able to make our own decisions. . . of waking up with the sunlight and deciding I’m going to hike twelve miles today, bushwhack up a mountain, sit by a stream for forty- five minutes eating day food, follow the tracks of a coyote into the woods for a half-mile, sleep under a canoe that was chained to a tree, and boil my beans and quinoa in sap. Here are some other experiences: Ashirah had a beautiful hike through the mountains on an unplowed road that she had been told she “can’t get through on that road. . that’s for darn sure!” Stefan had an amazing time following his compass bearings, bushwhacking through the mountains. “My successes felt very good!” Hannah met some very kind people listening to Vermont Public Radio in a sugar house, who gave her a whole mug of steaming maple syrup and offered her a whole gallon, which we still have not forgiven her for turning down! Paul-Ivan was found lounging in a beach chair on private land. . in aviator sunglasses, Han’s enjoyed the time by himself and the freedom of the trail! Colin stopped to make his check-in phone call with the office, “got skunked in a game of cribbage, and left with five pounds of frozen meat.” Evan found amazing campsites, one with an amazing view of the Northeast Kingdom. “It felt good to be on my own.” Chris felt inspired to write a poem: Somewhere along the trail, I slipped onto my shell, And the Fir Tree, Was the Fir Tree, And I was me, Now what would you trade for that? Sarah and I held Hannah back from swimming fifteen feet into the freezing Lake Willoughby to grab a “20-footer” fish that lay dead on the ice (20 feet. . 1 1/2 feet. . what’s the difference? “Oh come on, Ilene, it was at least TWO FEET!” Hannah has just said to me). Tommy, Evan, Andy and Daniel (aka The Lost Boys) spent five hours at Penelope’s house, doing farm chores, cooking a breakfast with food that mostly came from Penelope’s farm; scrambled eggs with broccoli, sausage, lemon-balm tea, hash browns, and grapefuit. Penelope volunteered to teach us about plant sex. The Lost Boys also discovered a way to play Dungeons and Dragons on the trail. Yep. . we had an incredible time. An amazing final leg all the way up the hill to our new home in the meadow at the NorthWoods Stewardship Center. We celebrated our arrival here with an evening of singing, contradancing, with Chris as our caller and Lily as our fiddler, and eating salad, baked macaroni and cheese and special homemade donuts with raisins, melted chocolate dollops and carob powder, which went very well with Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. We’ve set up our small village at the edge of the woods, complete with four tents (one “circus tent” for the girls, one wall tent for the boys, one larger wall tent for eating, cooking and gathering, which Stefan has beautified with shelves, and one tent for Chris, Ashirah and Stefan) and a beautiful tool rack, which Tom has built. Thanks to our Electricity Guru, Paul-Ivan, we are able to have light inside the large wall tent, as long as we peddle the human-powered generator for ten minutes each every day.

We have been living our life here with a nice balance of physical and brain work; playing soccer and ultimate Frisbee in our “front yard” or jogging in the mornings, taking “see-what-we-can-see” walks in our “back yard”, continuing camp chores, repairing and organizing all of the winter gear, and wrapping up our Big Jobs with presentations and Main Lesson Pages. We’re looking forward to our time spent here; finishing our paddles, making pack baskets from Brown Ash, building the canoe, choosing new Big Jobs for the remainder of the program, eating more fresh vegetables and homemade sourdough bread and yogurt, and cutting back on our lard intake, as well as many guest teachers, Main Lesson Pages, lessons, soccer games, and contradancing (we hope).

Now it is time for me to sign off as Scribe. . well, technically I’m still scribe for another few days, but that’s not long enough to write another e-mail update. It has been pure pleasure and delight sharing our journey with you by way of cyberspace. I appreciate the many people who have told me how much they have enjoyed reading about our experience and how many other people they have forwarded the e-mails too. Spread the word of The Vermont Semester Program! I am reminded of a conversation that I had with Andy’s father, Jeff Staudinger, at the Parent Visit in March. I told him how sometimes it was difficult to write about such personal experiences in the e-mail, not knowing exactly who was reading them. He smiled and told me that if I needed the inspiration of knowing who to write the updates for that I could always think of “Andy’s dad”. . I could always write to Andy’s dad. . and all the “Andy’s dads” of the world. . because those are the people who care about what we are doing on this journey.

So, to all of Andy’s dads. . I have written these updates for you. . . from one heart to another. Take care!

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