Mascoma Valley High School and Indian River Middle School
West Canaan, NH (April 23-24)

Wow, what a great start to our 2008 tour! Chris Morse, a super-enthusiastic art teacher at the high school, has worked for several years on developing an interdisciplinary Environment and Arts Week, which culminates in a weekend festival open to the public. It started as an unusual partnership between the art and science departments, and Chris has since gotten other departments in on the game. He has developed it to the point where he's gearing up to apply for a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to fund the festival – good luck on that, Chris.

The schools are perched high on a hill, and we had a prime spot in a courtyard between them. The students we saw varied from a group of second-graders from Canaan Elementary School to high schoolers who were roam the exhibit at their own pace, to a dozen students who traveled from the private Cardigan Mountain School to experience Ways of the Woods. About 435 students, teachers, and other passersby got a chance to tour Ways of the Woods, and almost  everyone in both schools got a chance to see the exhibit when they ran back and forth to the bus and lunch. One of my favorite quotes from our comment book was from a fifth-grader who wrote, "In the woods you don't have to live up to anything. You can just be yourself.”

We had the company of Dustin Coates, an incredibly skilled wood turner who demonstrated his work to the students. His work included bowls and goblets turned from burls, tops and knick-knacks made from lilac wood, and tiny rattles smaller than a dime. We heard his booming laugh echoing in the courtyard as he engaged kids and adults of all ages. Hopefully we'll be seeing him again.

It was nice a great opening event for 2008, and we look forward to visiting schools from Madrid, NY to Dover-Foxcroft, Maine in the coming weeks.

—Jessie

Did you visit Ways of the Woods in Lancaster? Please

Telstar  High School
Bethel,  Maine (May 15-16)

There’s no place like home.  Our hometown Bethel friends have heard lots of stories over the years about developing and touring with Ways of the Woods.  For the most part, though, they have only actually seen it all packed up parked in the lot next to the movie theater, awaiting its next voyage. To correct that problem, we decided to drive down to the high school to share the exhibit with local students and host a reception for our neighbors. 

We saw mostly high schoolers, plus a few middle schoolers, and were very impressed with their interest and attention.  I think we impressed them too.  One boy told us Ways of the Woods reminded him of a class trip to a museum in Boston.  Gabe also overheard a classic exchange between two kids:

Girl, to boy: “Why do you want to watch this video?  You can’t even finish your English project.”
Boy: “Yeah, but I’m interested in this.”

And you know there’s hope for the world when a 9th grader writes something like this on a leaf for the message board: “I love the outdoors and I hope my kids do too.”

Our reception was a grand time, with food, friends, a rainbow, and music from fiddler Patrick Ross–who joined us despite his broken knee.  Watch for him in the upcoming Hollywood adaptation of Jack London’s classic wilderness adventure tale Call of the Wild. 

Our Bethel stop was all we could have asked for. We are glad to call this town home, and hey, it’s always nice to sleep in our own beds!

—Jessie

Discover Wild New Hampshire Day
Concord,  NH (April 26)

Wow—who knew that our first public event of the season would be our busiest day ever?  The combination of gorgeous weather and an ideal location within a great event resulted in more than 2,600 people touring Ways of the Woods in only five hours.  For much of the day, we had a line 30-50 deep just to get inside the trailer!

Discover Wild New Hampshire Day is hosted by the state Department of Fish and Game each spring to get people excited about upcoming fishing and hunting seasons.  Nearly every exhibitor had some kind of neat hands-on activity designed to get kids to participate, so we saw lots of families coming through Ways of the Woods. You could also practice fly casting, check out aquariums full of fish from a hatchery, visit any number of conservation organizations, try out a hunting simulator, pick up your licenses, and lots more. It’s great to see these traditions being passed on.

In between frantically refilling brochure racks and trying to keep track of everyone, we had a chance to talk to some great people.  Concord is slightly south of the Northern Forest, but we heard lots of stories of camping and traveling and hunting and fishing through the region—once we explained to people exactly where we’re talking about. The Northern Forest is a special place, and that’s why connections can run deep even for people who don’t live there year-round.

—Jessie

Foxcroft  Academy
Dover-Foxcroft,  ME (May 1-2)

Imagine our surprise when we checked into Nelson’s Guest Rooms in Dover-Foxcroft and Lois, the proprietor, asked us, “are you from the same Northern Forest Center that wrote this book?” She held up a copy of At Home in the Northern Forest, which the Center published in 2001.  It turns out that her husband Bob was interviewed and photographed for the book—and here we were staying at their home all these years later.  It’s a small world after all.

Foxcroft Academy is one of Maine’s “town academies.” These are technically private schools, but most of their students come from nearby towns that pay tuition because they don’t have their own high schools.  Because they’re not subject to the same rules and expectations as traditional public school, private schools often do things you wouldn’t expect to see in small Maine communities.  Foxcroft, for example, is breaking ground on a new dormitory so it can increase the number of boarding students admitted. While we were there, we met kids from Russia, Korea, China and elsewhere who were there to learn English and live small-town, New England life. It’s a great opportunity for them, of course, but it’s also a chance for the Maine kids to be introduced to lots of different cultures that they otherwise might not get to know.

We were thrilled to be joined in Dover-Foxcroft by basket maker Gabriel Frey, who also demonstrated with us last year in Calais and Skowhegan, Maine. He rounded out our presentation by showing the kids how he turns a log into a basket—pounding and the log until the rings peel apart, then peeling, splitting and cutting the strips into whatever sized splints he needs to make a particular basket. The students loved this, peppering him with questions and jumping at the chance to try out his tools.  A couple of boys from one class were so enthralled that they brought another teacher out to show him around later in the day. When they left, they were dead serious about hunting down a perfect brown ash tree so they could make some baskets.

During every class at Foxcroft, kids wrote things in the comment book such as, “This was the highlight of my day,” “One of the funnest things we’ve ever done in art,” or, my personal favorite, “I think Ways of the Woods is a very inspirational idea.”

Thanks to the students, teachers, and assistant Head of School Mrs. Postlewaite for showing us a great time at your great school.

—Jessie

Northeast  Forest Products Equipment Expo
Essex Junction, VT (May 9-10)

One of the great things about Ways of the Woods is that it can work at so many different kinds of events.  Sure, we do lots of schools, festivals and fairs, but we also get down to the nitty-gritty at events like the Northeast Forest Products Equipment Expo.  People come from all over to take a look at the latest machines and tools to keep their sawmills or logging operations going, and to just catch up with other folks in the business. Where else can you test-drive a log loader or a grapple skidder?

After two days of conversations, a couple of things are notable to me about this event’s patrons.  Logging is probably one of the few professions that still tends to run in the family, which is evident from the multi-generational groups walking around together.  Also, they are darned proud of it.  Many of those groups arrive decked out in matching tee-shirts, hats, or jackets proclaiming the name of their businesses, like members of a sports team. It seems that logging is more than just a job to most people who do it. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a logger whose father wasn’t also a logger. The old-timers like to talk about how there are certain plots of land they’ve harvested several times in their careers, taking pride in a job done well and with respect for the land. I hope the number of young people at the event indicates that this work has a future as well.

Plenty of people came back to see us multiple times during the Expo, and we even got a comment that Ways of the Woods was “the most important display of the show.” We saw more than 1,100 people in two days, including several directors of the big fair that’s held every year there at the Champlain Valley Expo grounds. They all indicated they’d love to have us there for their event too. Sounds like fun to me!

—Jessie