North House Folk School was a hub of activity this past Friday through Sunday as folks came together to revel in winter activities. Here two ladies display Christmas figures, a Tomte, and Sankta Lucia. The students in the class started with carving and painting a carrot and moved up from there. Harley Refsal, the instructor for the course, helped shape the wood before the students began their work. Several hundred people took part in a wide variety of activities that included a Coldsnap Poetry Slam, deep freeze chili feed, and even a snowshoe shuffle traditional community contra dance over the course of three days.
Several hundred people from near and far took part in North House’s annual Winterer’s Gathering held last weekend at the North House campus in Grand Marais.
“It was wonderfully cheerful, a charming event because everyone who attended is a big fan of winter,” said North House Program Director Jessa Frost.
In the red and blue buildings, attendees learned crafts, customs, and the history of winter travel, and traditional ways of life in the Northland.
Grand Marais Recreation Park was also the site of a winter camp where some set up tents and yurts to house themselves in through the three-day event.
Participants took part in a wide variety of classes. Among the offerings was a stool building session, maple syrup class, backcountry baking, knot-craft, fat tire biking introduction, gnome carving, and a class to learn how to maintain your leather boots and repair your outdoor clothes. Travis Novitsky, a noted Grand Portage photographer, also shared images of the night sky he has taken over the last 20 years.
Top: The yurt on the North House campus looks empty, but inside it was filled with folks who were taking part in the annual Winterer’s Gathering festival. Above: John Weber, a North House volunteer, stirs a giant pot of chili with a broken canoe paddle. Weber was preparing the chili for the folks who were attending Winterer’s Gathering last Saturday. Right: Paul Linden, a woodworking instructor, cuts pieces of leftover wood into smaller pieces that can be used as fire starters. He puts the pieces in firewood carriers (teeny ricks of wood) like the one in the foreground. Behind Linden is Jack Sneve, who is also an instructor at North House.
There were also more than a dozen short films presented throughout the three days featuring various winter-related topics.
Jon Turk was the keynote speaker, and Frost said he “told an interesting if somewhat complex story.”
Turk holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry earned in 1971 from the University of Colorado. He co-authored the first environmental science textbook in the United States. He has also spent his life on adventures including kayaking across the North Pacific and around Cape Horn, mountain biking through the Gobi Desert and much more. His talk was entitled Communication with Animals.
“Jon talked about what it means to live in a world where things don’t always turn out right, and answers aren’t always clear,” said Frost.
How intelligent are our furry and feathered friends? asks Turk.
“What do they say back to us, and where does consciousness begin and end? Perhaps the first critical step toward global sustainability is recognizing and honoring our communication with animals.”
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