Blog #2: Meet the Team

I would like to begin this blog post by introducing all the members of the team, their assigned trail names, and their responsibilities, also known as Big Jobs. Without further ado…

Elena- Elena Blaina

Basecamp food and trail snacks (day food): responsible for packing our day food for expedition as well as planning meals for Basecamp

Calla- Calladin

Dinner and breakfast trail food: Responsible for planning and packing our expedition breakfasts and dinners

Griffin- Manticore

Kitchen: Responsible for organizing the kitchen (pots, pans, spoons, bowls, sponges, soap…and taking care of the animals that feed us milk and yogurt!)

Pele- StandBuy

Healer: Our medic of both physical and emotional wounds, as well as keeping our space sanitized so he doesn't NEED to heal us.

Elijah- The Prophet

Energy and firewood: Charges our headlamps, makes sure we always have enough firewood, basically in charge of all things fire related including the stoves

Sydney- Melbourne

Logistics: Basically our super important travel agent, responsible for reserving us ferry ride tickets across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, places to sleep at cabins and hostels, along with history tour guides of Quebec City. Melbourne also manages our group’s budget.

Julia- Salinger

Gear: looking after fixing and adjusting our snowshoes, tents, tarps, and more!

Katarina- Dogerina

Water: Hydrate or Diedrate! making sure we have safe water and drink enough, even when we are cold and don't want to have to pee!

Sarah- Helmet

Traveller: Ski, snowshoe, and boat care. We wouldn’t get far without our traveller along for the ride with us.

Eliza- Price is Right

Repair: Responsible for fixing or helping with repairs of both group and personal gear.

Audrey- Oddtree

Scribe and vanager (van and trailer manager): writes the blog, and acts as a mail carrier. Maintains and repairs the van and trailer as the vanager. Obviously the two most important roles should be filled by someone as brilliant and over qualified as Oddtree...

Rachel- Rashell

Navigator: plans out our entire route and is responsible for keeping us NOT LOST

Kai- Caillou

Camp: keeps our camp clean and organized so that systems run smoothly and gear isn’t misplaced. 

You know our team, now this is what we are doing...

Week two began with us celebrating and commemorating Martin Luther King Jr.. During dinner we listened to his famous, “I Have a Dream” speech. Many of us had listened to or read parts of it previously, but only a few of us have ever listened to it in its entirety. After listening to the speech there was silence at first. Silence from the awe and power in MLK’s voice. There was silence because we had all forgotten for a moment that this speech was written and delivered in 1963, 57 years ago.

Many issues MLK sang of are still very present today. We can not deny the power of the civil rights movement and other pushes for change, as there have been great improvements. We also can not and must not deny that positive change is still needed. We as a society have not yet reached the ideal this country was supposedly founded on, equal rights and opportunity for everyone, despite many acting as if we have.

We also discussed our group’s composition. We look around the room at each other’s faces – all white. We have more opportunity and privilege in this country simply because we were born caucasian. The outdoor industry community has historically been dominated by white males. This too, is slowly changing, but faster for white women than for African Americans. The lack of diversity is present on semester, and is something we want to see change. Making this change happen is a difficult process. It is difficult to take cultural differences into the equation, to change the community to a more welcoming and safe environment. These are hurdles that can be jumped, especially when there are people who use their privilege to make room for those who don’t have the same opportunities.

While this discussion was held Monday night, the topic stayed in our minds the rest of the week. 

This week has been very rhythmic, skate skiing practice and academics in the morning and knife hafting in the afternoon. Slowly, all of us are mastering our skate skiing techniques with the help of Jo’s tips and tricks and Misha’s inventive races. One of which comprised of teams of two. One person would skate ski while pulling their partner along by their poles. Partners would switch halfway around the loop. Once they’d reached the start/finish line they’d switch to double poling, where partners wrapped their arms around each other’s shoulders and only used one pole each. This race was quite a spectacle to behold, arms and legs in every which direction, screams and grunts of frustration emanating from all around the track. These races are a great way to disguise physical exertion as something fun. 

Unfortunately, not all of us had the pleasure of participating in this particular activity, as the plague has befallen our group. One by one it has made its way around our community, ripping our throats, clouding our heads, raising our temperatures, but also gifting us with the opportunity to sleep in and skip chores.
The rest of us who haven’t yet fallen prey to the illness have found a number of other inventive ways to destroy our bodies. Just kidding, that’s only partly true… As I was saying, the rest of us have been forced into a strict regimen of Emergen-C, vitamins, hot hot hot hand and dish washing, and early bedtimes. While Emergen-C flavors are questionable, more time snoozin’ in bed is not. 

Despite the many of us who are under the weather, we are still on track to finish our knives, as some of us are speedy crafters who are ready to sand and make sheaths for those of us who aren’t well enough to make their way to the workshop.

The knife and sheath making process is not easy, especially making the sheath pattern. This brought forth both tears of frustration and of joy when we finally crossed the finish line. We are getting close to the unveiling moment when we finally get to gift our knives to each other. 

This past Monday morning we had our first navigation class with Nathan Lyczak. We started with the basics –  a table, map, and experienced teacher. Though we all have different backgrounds in navigation, compass, and map reading, our end goal is to be able to find a very specific part of a forest using map and compass and then explain over radio where we are.

This skill would be useful (essential) for search and rescue missions, which, knock on wood, we won’t be doing, but still need to be prepared for. Our lesson started with us looking at a map of the area around Keene, NH. The same thought was going through many of our minds, “This is going to be so boring, I can already read a map, Nathan. I know what roads look like, I can understand contour lines...” But we soon realized that there is a lot that we don’t know or understand about maps. We went around the table pointing out different features on the map and explaining or guessing their purpose.

Soon enough, we began pondering complex thoughts, questions, and ideas which took us on a make believe trip around the world. Luckily, we had a globe in the yurt and so we were back in time to go skiing. 

Skiing was a trip in itself (a slip, TRIP, and thump for me). The warm weather and rain that came in this weekend turned our beautiful snowy ski trails into malicious ice sheets. So we hopped into the van and drove to Dublin, NH which has an amazing system of groomed ski trails open to our use.

“Constant movement” is our motto, but breaks are taken anyways, despite Jo’s best efforts to keep us a’ glidin'. We also started working on V2 skiing, another skate skiing method. It requires a rhythm only a gazelle trained as a ballerina (or Jo) could possess, but that did not did not deter us from trying. In the end, it turns out that it doesn’t take a gazelle ballerina to V2, it takes a bunch of smelly, high on life semester students with a patient teacher. 

V2 skiing isn’t the only way to work up a sweat…Tonight we’re going to hit the town of Nelson for some contra dancing. So clean your faces, brush your hair, fling on your snazziest non-stinkiest clothing and make your way down to Nelson. Personally, I’ve only been contra dancing once before, but recently I’ve learned that apparently not only the older generation contra dances. I was told, via the grapevine, that the Greenfield dance is where it's at, with all those young hip contra dancers, whereas Nelson is known as the “birthplace of contra”. But we are going to Nelson and we’re going to have a swell time.

That’s it for this week folks! Please send donations in the form of sweet food divisible by 13 (17 if you want to feed our teachers and farmer). We accept cakes, cookies, brownies, biscuits, chocolate, dried fruit, jerky… But we also appreciate the SWEET comfort of your words so do send letters! We really do read them, and sometimes write back ;)

Sincerely, Oddtree

P.S. 

Butter is life. So here is a beautiful, on point poem about the very thing:

Butter 

By Sydney Harris

Delicious slippery Lipids

in a beautiful brick- like block

you can make the unimaginable palatable

maybe even a dirty sock