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April 30, 2008
Dear Friends and Family of the Vermont Semester,

This is my final update before we depart on our spring expedition. Soon we will be heading southwards by river and stream, paddle and pole, to Marlow, NH where we began this amazing journey four long months ago. The past weeks have been a blur of activity, days flying past at breakneck speed, hours disappearing as seconds. After two weeks of almost continuous good weather, we are now looking out at gray skies and listening to rain pattering endlessly on the tent. The trees have begun to erupt in green color, tiny leaves blossoming into existence. Each day as I look out into the forest, I see an ever-growing green tint in the treetops and along the branches. Today I noticed that the Red Maple leaves are coming out, slowly unfurling their soft, transparent green leaves. Spring is on her way with a passion!

The past two weeks have been ones of creation, preparation and exercise. In trade for the use of his workshop to build our canoe, we worked three mornings for Bill Manning, the founder of Sterling College. Bill lives a mile down the road and has many interesting projects going. We cut and stacked firewood for his maple sugar house, cleared land for a new field, and lent a hand to running his sawmill. We were very excited to borrow a few canoes from Bill and make our first short trip on the river. In tandem canoes, we paddled downstream, learning and practicing paddle strokes, steering techniques and, after a short stretch of mild rapids, the basics of “ferrying” or navigating through fast moving water at a 45 degree angle to work with the current. We all have much to learn about reading the water and more advanced canoe handling, but our morning excursion was a fun and beautiful start. Further inspiration to get on the river came soon after, in the form of a slideshow presentation from Master Maine Guide Polly Mahoney. She shared some of her extensive outdoor living and teaching experiences with us, from guiding in the Yukon to leading canoe and dogsled trips from Western Maine. Polly and the two friendly huskies she brought along were a beautiful example of the joy in the outdoors that one can find, anywhere and anytime.
Polly’s partner Kevin Slater is also a Master Maine Guide and is a canoe builder. He arrived on the 14th of April along with two of his devoted huskies, to share his knowledge and skills with us so we could build a beautiful eighteen and a half foot wood and canvas canoe. The art of building a canoe is a simple yet detail oriented ordeal with many intricacies. I will do my best to outline the process as we were taught. We started right away in groups of three or four per shift, switching at lunch so that we all got to see all of the steps. We made some modifications to the form we would build our boat on and began preparing all of the materials: shaping the white cedar ribs and planks to make them smooth and rounding the edges with a hand plane.

Once all of the wood was ready, we fired up the propane powered steam box and watched as the canoe ribs inside were “steamed” up to 170 degrees. Hot and dripping, we removed them one by one and bent them carefully over the wood and metal form, nailing the ends to the gunwales (rails) on either side. This may sound easy but it took us much of a day with many frantic moments and exclamations of “hurry up!” and “quick, quick, the wood is getting cold!” All through this, Kevin remained calm and instructed us with the patience of one who knows it is all going to work out just fine.

Kevin Slater, our canoe building teacher

Then, on top of the ribs, we nailed the thin (3/8”) cedar planking, covering the entire canoe and giving us our first glimpse of what this amazing creation was going to look like. The next few steps blend together many details: installing beech deck plates bow and stern, the seats, and the thwarts amidships, sanding the outside hull. The big day came when we suspended a long piece of white canvas from the walls of the workshop and carefully lowered the canoe into its new skin and slowly pulled and stapled it tight to the gunwales. With only a few days left, we applied canvas filler to the canoe, sanded the woodwork and began varnishing and finishing. As I write, the first coat of paint is drying and the woodwork shines through four coats of golden varnish. Reflecting back on the whole creation process, I marvel at the wisdom and timelessness of this design, which descended from birch-bark canoes and includes the wisdom of generations. Every piece of the canoe is replaceable, from the ribs to the planks to the canvas skin. Wouldn’t it be nice if more things in our lives were so serviceable?

You may wonder what we have been doing apart from spending huge chunks of time on the boat. It is quite possible that the most common thing for us to hear when asking what needs to be done next is “well, there is always more brown ash to pound!”

Pounding ash in teamwork

It is also very likely that anyone passing by the lawn by the pond would see several young, apparently healthy high school students sitting on the grass, smashing on a log with a wooden mallet. Contrary to the belief that we have all turned into cavemen on this trip, the pounding and grunting and sweating has been for a purpose: to create a beautiful, strong and functional pack basket which will hold our gear while we paddle the river and serve us for many years of carrying. Ashira Knapp has been here with Chris and baby Owen for the past three days, to teach us how to weave the brown ash strips we so laboriously pounded apart. Starting truly from scratch at the living tree, we learned how to create this useful tool, how to weave the upright strips together, add cedar runners and a bottom and weave up the sides with smaller strips of ash, finishing off the top with a thick ash rim and colorful cotton straps. Each basket is different in shape and proportion but they were all made with much love and are filled with joy, even as they sit “empty”.

Celeste finishing her basket

As some of you know, the Knapp’s visit came as part of our last parent visit weekend. It was very special for us students to see all of our families and to spend time with them camping out in the field, cooking good food together and showing them what our life has been like here. On Thursday night here at NorthWoods, we gave a public presentation on the winter journey and were excited to share it with our families as well. Our presentation included a display of our finished paddles, spoons and other crafts completed in the past few weeks. This was the first time we showed more than a few pictures from the winter so it was fun for everyone to see some of the sights we saw throughout the snowy months. The weekend ended with many warm smiles, encouraging hugs, bellies full of delicious food and happy goodbyes. On the same celebratory note, we were all honored by a visit from Joey’s family last week.

Passover celebration at NorthWoods Stewardship Center

They brought a delicious Passover feast and carried out a traditional Jewish Seder for us. It was wonderful to have all of the excitement and company and the opportunity to experience different traditions. With moods a little lighter and belts a little tighter, we said farewell to our visitors and returned to our small community life with a contented sigh.

As a community we have been together as if on a boat in the ocean, working as one to reach our destination. We strive to meet the challenges of community living, depending upon one another for the good of the whole, working towards a peaceful and joy filled journey. Our path has not been without waves, lifting us to new heights or bringing us crashing down. We are learning a great deal and are moving closer to mutual understanding and truth. This month, we rode the waves of hardship and change as the group went through the very difficult process involving one of our group members, some misunderstandings and actions that did not support our community as a whole. To give us all some time to sort things out, that person left the group for a short time and has returned after a few days spent with Lynne and Misha at base camp. A change towards the positive has begun to happen. The whole experience has shown us the importance of holding strong to the truth, working with commitment, and always being conscious of the community as a whole in order to reach a place of greater communication and understanding. We are looking forward to a positive and strong conclusion of our journey, with a vision of healing for the future, of our family here and for the rest of the world.

As this writing comes to a close I would like to say from the heart of the Kroka family, thank you so much to all of our parents, families, and friends for your love and support. Without your excitement for our wellbeing on this journey and your willingness to let us be away from home, discovering and learning, none of this would be possible. We love and thank you all.

Until next time, this is Jesse the Scribe.

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