Blog #2: Learning to Thrive in Winter

Hello All!

Here at base camp we’ve spent the last week in further expedition preparation. We have been working hard to complete our knives. After finishing the blades, we set the metal into square blocks and crafted our handles from different shades and densities of beautiful wood to make a unique variation between our creations.  It has been wonderful watching the hard blocks of wood transform into curves and slopes that form to the hand holding them. 

When this process was done we began creating the sheath, first learning the contours of our blade and then working the leather to hold onto the knife like a dear friend. When the leather was wet we created a design on our sheaths that might particularly speak to the person to whom we were gifting the knife.

             In this past week or so we experienced a great rain, which brought some warmer weather but took with it the snow. So very disappointing, but it gave us the opportunity to let our Nordic skis have a break and gave our ice skates a chance to breathe. We hustled out to the beaver pond with high hopes for snowball fights and hockey. Sweet swirling snowflakes that danced gracefully through the sky met us there. These moments on the ice were highly cherished by the whole group as we found ourselves laughing our butts off in between our bumps and bruises.

We chased each other

And we raced each other

And sometimes we fell and slid a long ways

In order to cool down and clean off from our skating venture, we jogged to the main Kroka pond where a hole through the 17” ice had been cut for us. I was the first to arrive and I watched as Oliver gracefully slipped into the water and then shot up like a rocket, pulling himself out of the water and onto the nearby mat. He turned to me and exuberantly exclaimed:

“Alright Zaboski, it’s your turn!”

I didn’t allow myself the time to think, and in the swirl of it all I was suddenly plunging into the ice water. My skin felt so alive I could sense every sleepy nerve awakening. As I clambered out of the pond on to the mat next to Oliver and hollered like a mad woman, he joined in and we welcomed the rest of the students to the swimming hole in that manner. Soon there was a group of us like fireworks, jumping up and down, yipping and yelling, eyes wide and wild prepared for what life had coming for us. That mood changed after we had all dunked and we again became aware of the fact we were standing in swimsuits, dripping wet, in freezing temperatures. Our huddle dispersed in the direction of the substantially warmer Big Yurt. When I arrived, it was like a clothing bomb had gone off. All the gear we’d been wearing before was strewn across the floor and the owners of every item were congregated around the wood stove for warmth. Who could blame them!  It was a hoot watching my semester mates Andrus and Rosa run outside, still in their swimsuits, to take a further snow bath. The rest of us listened from the warmth of the yurt to their sharp screams of delight as they tumbled through the snow.

Our classes have been wide-ranging and fascinating. We’ve had navigation with Nathan where we are learning about different kind of maps and how to read them. In his class, we have also been making ourselves comfortable with how to use a compass and how to orient ourselves to the world around us. In Hanah’s nutrition class we did a fun exercise where we blindfolded ourselves and had to describe different foods without saying what they were. We had a guest teacher Pasha who came and drew with us, giving us valuable tips about how to draw something as it actually is from the world around us. In the evenings we had a couple different song leaders come to join us in song; teaching us new ways to bring our voices together.

We pulled our still lifes from the objects around us

And at the end, we admired everyone's work

We are just starting to gear up and prepare for our mini White Mountain expedition next week, and we are keeping our eyes open and bright for exciting and adventuresome moments that may meet us along the way.

Yours truly,                           

Your scribe:              

Grace C. Zaboski

Will we have these on trail?

Catching air!

Rosa and Ezra working on the Energy Big Job