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Joan Farnam (left) Paul Hayden (right)
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A North House Folk School student muscles the rib of a kayak into place (right).Bob LaMettry hikes up the mukluks that he just made.2 of 9
Layne Kennedy
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Teaching traditional skills like kayak making brings satisfaction aplenty to folk school instructor Mark Hansen, working here near the school’s red building.3 of 9
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Hands-on learning can require a good pair of walking shoes, students discover in a North House Folk School class run by nationally known photographer Layne Kennedy. Layne took his students (clockwise from upper left) to meet Grand Marais residents, on the Kadunce River, at High Falls on Pigeon River and, of course, beside Lake Superior. He teaches the class in July.4 of 9
Joan Farnam
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Bob LaMettry hikes up the mukluks that he just made. PHOTO BY JOAN FARNAM5 of 9
Layne Kennedy
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Teaching traditional skills like kayak making brings satisfaction aplenty to folk school instructor Mark Hansen, working here near the school's red building. PHOTO BY LAYNE KENNEDY6 of 9
Joan Farnam
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Elegant Scandinavian-style wooden bowls (top) get their start as a simple log (bottom) that students Carol Hume from Minneapolis and Glenn Strid of Duluth, Minnesota shape into form at one of the North House Folk School classes.7 of 9
North House Folk School
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Jonathan Waugh of Cloquet, Minnesota, (top) fine tunes the skis that he is making while North House instructor Mark Hansen (bottom) does a little shaping on another pair. (photos courtesy North House Folk School)8 of 9
North House Folk School
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Young and old enjoy the hands-on aspect of classes at North House Folk School.9 of 9
North House Folk School
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The Schooner Hjordis.By Joan Farnam
No one actually leaps on the worktable at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota, to dance the mukluk jig after finishing the hand-made footwear, but proud grins dance across faces.
“I’ll get up on the table and do a little dance if you want,” offers Bob LaMettry as he pulls on the moosehide-and-canvas mukluks that he just made.
He laughs with pride as he looks down at the handsome mukluks on his feet. “I’m going to have to work on my sewing a little … and I’m going to start on my next pair right away.”
On this cold winter weekend, enthusiasm and accomplishment warm the two buildings on the North House campus.
In the blue building, Jo Wood teaches a mukluk class at one end of the large room with spectacular views of the Grand Marais harbor and Lake Superior. At the other end of the room, Jon Ström leads his students through the complex crafting of graceful Scandinavian-style bowls created from solid chunks of birch.
Nearby in a cheerful red building, students fashion Adirondack chairs and Ojibway-style snowshoes.
Hand and power tools shape black ash or birch under the watchful eyes of carpenter Gary Nelson and John Beltman, the snowshoe instructor.
It’s another busy weekend at one of the most extraordinary schools on Lake Superior.
Since its 1997 founding as a place where folks could learn for the sake of learning, North House Folk School has drawn students from as far away as Alaska to tackle traditional crafts and skills of the northland.
Last year, more than 6,500 people joined in North House activities. They took classes from some 70 instructors of skills from boat building to Norwegian wool embroidery, birch-bark weaving to timber framing, rosemaling to photography, storytelling to Scandinavian folk dances.
They attended wooden boat shows and solstice festivals, baked bread in a wood-fired oven, learned about medicines found in the woods and about the ecology of Lake Superior. Some sailed deep waters on the school’s schooner.
They also danced together (usually not on the tables) and ate together and learned together, celebrating community.
“North House is where we encounter life with our hands and build community as we learn,” says Greg Wright, executive director of the school. “It’s a place for life-enriching learning and creativity, a place that embodies the North by teaching the crafts of the North.”
That philosophy did not spring out of whole cloth from here. Folk schools have a long history in Scandinavia, inspired by Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, a Lutheran bishop in Denmark in the 1800s. Grundtvig believed that working with one’s hands and creating alongside others was the basis for being human, explains Mark Hansen, a North House founder.
“He thought that life should be expansive, and you should just lap it up with your senses. The whole idea of education to Grundtvig was very meaty, a fleshy thing we call life.”
Mark, who heard of Grundtvig in his childhood Lutheran home, visited folk schools in Norway several years ago to see the bishop’s ideas at work.
When Mark returned to Grand Marais and started a kayak-building class in the community education program, he continued to think about those Norwegian folk schools.
Bolstered by overwhelming response to his kayak class, Mark approached others about setting up a folk school in Grand Marais. In this community that stretches from Lake Superior inland to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, it wasn’t hard to find talented, skilled people intrigued with the idea. The region has always attracted artisans, craftspeople and those interested in living close to the land and far from city hustle.
The school would need to be community-based, organizers decided, and courses should cross generations and focus on using one’s hands. The classes should expand knowledge about the traditions and culture of the North.
“We started thinking about classes in foods, shelter, transportation, medicine and storytelling,” Mark recalls.
Cook County residents from all walks of life volunteered services. Among those leading development of the school, whose varied backgrounds tell of the early diversity, were Tom Healy, timber frame contractor and instructor; Dennis Rysdahl, North House board president and co-owner of Bluefin Bay Resort in Tofte; Mike Schelmeski, woodcarver and forester; Peter Henrickson, timber-frame builder, basketmaker and North House instructor; John Wood, physician; Betsy Bowen, woodcut print artist and author; Peter Barsness, biology professor; Philis Anderson, Norwegian fjord horse owner and instructor; Donn Eliasen, contractor and Wendy Hansen, social service administrator. In fact, though, the whole community helped.
“It was remarkable, absolutely remarkable,” Mark remembers.
As destiny would have it, the U.S. Forest Service, which had been housed in two large 1930s warehouses on the harbor, decided to move to the edge of town. The service donated the warehouses to the city of Grand Marais.
Not quite sure what to do with the gifts, the city council readily agreed to let North House use the buildings for six months.
During those first six months, 383 people took classes, twice the number expected, says Executive Director Greg Wright.
“People kind of scratched their heads and said, ‘Hmmm - maybe we’re on to something here.’”
“We’re a culture of spectators, and this is not about being a spectator,” Mark Hansen explains support. “This is about doing, making things happen and finishing something. I knew it would go well.”
When the city agreed to a long-term North House lease on the buildings, the community rallied with volunteers to clean, redesign, reroof and paint them, turning the warehouse space into comfortable and well-appointed classrooms.
Tom Healy, the volunteer administrative director in the early years, explains the school’s success this way: “North House actually fit the character and identity of Grand Marais. It used the assets that existed in the community already, including the buildings, the land and the feel of the property … but not just that. It used the talents of the local folks who were brought in to give the classes.… It was just a perfect, perfect fit for the community.”
The curriculum expanded almost overnight. Then the school acquired Hjordis, a 55-foot gaff-rigged schooner for classes and sailing expeditions. North House also “acquired” a skipper. Mark and Greg tell about finding Hjordis in Knife River. Once they bought it, they realized that they had no captain to sail it northeast to Grand Marais.
Mark went to a nearby hardware store, asking if anybody knew anyone who could help.
“Why don’t you talk to Matthew over there,” he was told. “He’s a captain.”
Matthew Brown was indeed a licensed captain and agreed to pilot the schooner up the shore.
“By the time they pulled into Grand Marais, Matthew had been officially volunteered to head up the Hjordis project,” Greg says.
That project now includes trips to the Apostle Islands, to Isle Royale and along the Ontario coast. The boat also serves as a learning platform on fresh-water ecology for elementary-aged students. An inspiration to those on shore and on board, the beautiful schooner heads out nearly every navigable day.
Besides broader educational themes like northern ecology and sustainable living, North House offers practical skills like boat building, timber framing and even casket making.
“Timber framing has been a very visible and very successful component of the curriculum, in part because there are timber-framing schools on both coasts, but none in the Midwest,” Greg says.
Classes give construction opportunities to students unskilled in wielding hammers and to those experienced in woodworking. Students in “Build Your Own Timber Frame” can take their hand-made building home (the logistics of which should be determined before the class). Even beginners quickly become comfortable in the supportive environment.
Gary Nelson, a professional builder who teaches everything from how to make an Adirondack chair to how to build Thoreau’s cabin, sometimes works with students who have never hefted power tools.
“They’re afraid of tools, afraid of even trying.”
After being shown proper use, Gary says, “I can see their confidence building.” Soon even novices move around the tools like pros.
Students’ delight at learning new skills inspires the instructors.
“I do this kind of work for a living,” Gary says of carpentry. “After awhile, you tend to take it for granted. But when you see how excited people get when they’re learning it, it lets me see how much it means to me.”
Many instructors are self-taught and love to pass on skills. Some are drawn to these crafts in search of their own Scandinavian roots. Jon Ström, for example, says his ancestry sparked his interest in Swedish woodworking.
“I’m half Swedish, and it’s like my traditional roots are being carried through to me.… I’ve found them and am passing them along. That’s the joy of it.”
Joy comes to students, too, something impossible to miss during the winter workshops attended by the newly skilled mukluk makers and woodworkers.
Take as evidence a smile that carves its way deeper and broader onto the face of one student as he in turn carves the final touches onto his light, graceful birch bowl.
Learning to create with your hands satisfies the spirit, school founder Mark Hansen says.
“There’s a healing thing that happens when you work with your hands,” he says, echoing that Danish bishop.
“It’s not about efficiency, it’s not about proficiency. It’s about learning to be a human being with all your senses.”
HANDS ON PHOTOGRAPHY
by Paul Hayden
We wade up the exact middle of a Minnesota north shore stream toward a waterfall, camera packs, tripods and paraphernalia strung over our bodies. This is one “trail” that Layne Kennedy, one of the nation’s top photographers, said we must travel to learn the tricks of his trade, so to speak. Layne takes our crew of five intrepid individuals - some experienced photographers, some not - into the field to teach us what a practiced eye can focus through the viewfinder.
North House Folk School calls this a three-day practical hands-on course in photography, but it really is a class in confidence building. Point-and-shoot is not the purpose; see-and-capture, with an eye toward creativity, is our game. Learn your equipment. Learn to see beauty in something that you normally overlook.
Layne’s years of shooting for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated and many publications come through subtly as he corrects an aperture setting, adjusts the frame, suggests a new angle. The student learns how to experience the moment, not just be present.
Almost still wet from immersion in our classwork, we revel on the final evaluation night to see our work appear on the “big” screen. “Not bad,” we say collectively. “But, I can do it better,” we add individually. Watching his students, Layne settles back, with a picture-perfect smile on his face.