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Vermont Semester
A 600 Mile Journey By Ski and Canoe (January-June 2004)

26 January, 2004

Friends, families, and interested members of the community,

Our third extremely busy week here at our Newfane Base Camp began with downhill skiing at Stratton Mountain. We then spent much of the remainder of the week sewing mitten shells, mucklucks, and stuff sacks. The end of the week was spent mostly on Wilderness First Aid, as told to us by our own first aid guru, Rebecca. The first part of Saturday we spent working on knife sheaths with Michael, and then we spent Sunday as a rest day.

Going to Stratton Mountain for downhill skiing was an odd experience. The whole place seemed to revolve around money and advertising. It was really fun to go downhill skiing, but it seemed a shame that it had to be in such a huge place that was so obviously not thinking about its effect on the environment.

On Tuesday, we went to Misha's house to sew mucklucks, mitten shells, and stuff sacks. Perhaps it is because of the hours of frustration that the final products were so satisfying to complete. The muclucks (a type of shoe) were probably the most frustrating, but the finished products make it worth our while and then some. It took two days for half the group to cut and sew all their personal gear. As we finished sewing, we picked up where we had left off with the "REALLY Big Projects." Evan went back to his food, Saul to his maps, Emily to the trip finances and Stefan to his equipment.

Friday was spent on wilderness first aid: discussing what injuries seem possible, learning how to deal with them, and practicing through simulations. While we hope we¹ll never need to practice any of the things we learned, but the lessons and simulations were very reassuring and fairly hysterical.

We spent the morning of Saturday, the 24th finishing our knives and making sheaths for them. It is thrilling to hold a sharpened blade in your hand and know that you made it. The second part of the day was again spent on wilderness first aid. You can never be too prepared.

Sunday was our rest day, and we spent it on big jobs, projects around base camp, and relaxing. We went out to eat dinner at the Brattleboro Food Co-op, and then came back to base camp and watched a movie. It felt a bit strange to go out into the "real world" and get a flash-infusion of the "civilized, normal, real" hustle, bustle, speed-driven-Sunday-afternoon World we seem to have escaped. Already we are looking at society so different form the people we stood in line behind at the Co-op Deli. We have become bonded through our body odor, bad inside jokes, and innumerable blunders.

We have had a very busy week getting our lives in order, tying up loose ends, loosening more ends to be tied, and generally keeping busy building towards the end of the month. After January comes February, and our nice bundle of tied ends melts into a parallel set of Karhu Orion Backcountry Ski tracks, winding three hundred miles through the Vermont woods.

From the Vermont Semester Program,
Jane Larsen, scribe