Courtesy North House Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Blacksmithing is one of the offerings at North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota.
Step into the small classroom beside the Lakeshore, and you are enveloped by the appealing smell of fresh-cut wood or earthy clays and the engaging ring of laughter. All around you, the handful of students – youngsters and oldsters, side by side – enthusiastically tackle their tasks, perhaps weaving sweetgrass baskets, carving wooden figurines or forming pottery vases. The pure joy of learning with others is palpable.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the folk school.
“You go in there thinking, ‘I can’t do this,’ and you come out so proud of yourself,” Kathy Rice sums up the folk-school experience. Kathy, a Grand Marais, Minnesota, resident, is on the board of Lake Superior’s oldest such venue – North House Folk School – and is a frequent attender of its classes.
She has lots of company. North House draws more than 2,300 students to its 350 or so annual classes, numbers echoed in the hundreds, if not matched, by the other five regional organizations offering traditional skills learning.
Courtesy North House Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Learning willow basketmaking at North House Folk School.
Besides North House, you can find traditional skills classes at the Porcupine Mountains Folk School near Ontonagon, Michigan; at Lost Creek Adventures in Cornucopia, Wisconsin; at the Madeline Island School of the Arts in La Pointe, Wisconsin; and in Minnesota the two newest entries around the Lake, the Ely Folk School and, just this year, the Duluth Folk School.
Some open seasonally, some continue all year. Together their courses cover almost any traditional skill you can imagine – sculpting, painting, pottery, boatbuilding and even toolmaking from swords to wooden spoons.
Folk schools are gaining popularity around the Big Lake and the world, attracting students for weeklong courses to afternoon sessions. Big Lake folk schools often highlight our Native and Scandinavian heritage, emphasize family and generational learning, teach appreciation for the natural environment and celebrate making things with one’s hands.
The name “folk school” comes from the Scandinavian folkehøjskole, a movement started by Danish theologian, writer and philosopher Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig in the 1830s, when education was for the upper class, often unaccessible and useless for common people. “Grundtvig lived in a world where people needed to be fierce and independent,” says Greg Wright, executive director at North House. He felt that “communities and neighbors who share their stories and learn together look to the future together.”
That reflects today’s appeal, he says, especially in the Lake Superior region. “The people who have found this place and call it home over generations, they’re hardy, love to live in a beautiful place. They are creative, because you have to be to make the North work, and they have an independent spirit.”
Paul Sveum, a wilderness guide who teaches about survival, edge tools (aka knives, axes, swords) and bushcraft for Lost Creek Adventures finds value in introducing people to local resources in a hands-on setting. “We need people to care about the earth – the best way to do that is to show them, here’s the birch tree, here’s the ecosystem it lives in, here’s what you can do with it.”
By the very nature of the classes, which often use natural materials or represent local landscapes, folk schools connect people to their locale. Heidi Bukoski, a Michigan fiber artist and jewelry maker, gives an example where she teaches. “The Porkies folk school focuses on using copper, native plants, native materials, things that really preserve what can be so easily lost.”
What attracts so many students, though, mainly is the fun and the camaraderie. Many return time and again.
At the Porcupine Mountains Folk School, Barbara Braithwaite has taken classes in building Adirondack furniture, making a Greenland paddle, wet and dry felting, creating copper jewelry, building a Shaker-style bench, oil painting and making a cutting board.
“I am not a self-starter in the arts and crafts world,” she admits. “I need lots of step-by-step guidance and supervision. That’s why I take these sorts of structured classes.”
Plus, she jokes, the instructors in her woodworking classes were “very patient in showing the clumsy and ignorant how to fashion furniture and other wooden items.”
Schools in Duluth (open this year) and Ely (opened last year) have local community building in their missions. In addition to courses in Ely, residents and visitors can join weekly gatherings to work on crafts and socialize. In Duluth, the new school is encouraging people to suggest classes.
Those operating the schools often witness the joy of generations learning together, says Greg Weiss, owner of Lost Creek Adventures. “Oftentimes, it’s the child who will inspire the adult. His dad may or may not want to be there, but the child wants to be there. They’re super motivated and love it.”
Greg Wright of North House sees mirth found when families try some classes. “There’s something really meaningful about being in a sausage-making class with mom and dad,” he chuckles. “Sausage making is messy business, everybody going, ‘Ewww!’ together. But later when you’re sitting around the campfire, and you’re cooking those sausages, there’s no ‘ewww’ about it. A family that makes sausage together, that builds their own timber-framed sauna together, a wood-canvas canoe together, then paddles out into the northern wilderness – this is elemental stuff.”
At North House, Kathy loves the weekend pizza potlucks around the outside bread oven, where students bring toppings for the pizza crusts made by the staff. “We can tell by people’s battle scars what they are taking,” she teases. “If it’s carving class, their hands all bandaged and they have wood shavings on their clothes.” (She remembers this well from her lathe class.)
1 of 10
Courtesy Madeline Island School for the Arts
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Gorgeous land and lakescapes draw students to the plein air painting classes at Madeline Island School for the Arts near La Pointe, Wisconsin.
2 of 10
Courtesy Porcupine Mountains Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Watercolor painting at the Porcupine Mountains Folk School by Ontonagon, Michigan.
3 of 10
Courtesy Porcupine Mountains Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Heidi Bukoski, a fiber artist who teaches at the Porkies.
4 of 10
Courtesy Porcupine Mountains Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Birch furniture making at the Porkies.
5 of 10
Courtesy North House Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
A natural plant dyeing class at North House Folk School Grand Marais, Minnesota.
6 of 10
Courtesy Lost Creek Adventures
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Scott Roush from Big Rock Forge heat treating a knife blade at a Lost Creek Adventures workshop in Cornucopia, Wisconsin.
7 of 10
Courtesy North House Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Flat-plane figure carving at North House.
8 of 10
Courtesy North House Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Students put the ribs on a canoe in the wood-canvas canoe building class at North House Folk School, which was started by a boatbuilder.
9 of 10
Courtesy North House Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
The bread-making classes at North House are extremely popular and often use the outdoor, wood-fired oven for baking.
10 of 10
Courtesy Duluth Folk School
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Mark Lavalier teaches the extremely popular bike maintenance offerings at the new Duluth Folk School.
Setting can be as attractive as the classes. Only 4 years old, the Madeline Island School has already attracted some 700 students to its plein air and studio painting, photography, quilting and fiber arts courses. “The island for us, obviously, is key,” says founder Charles Meech. “The images that you get with the lights, the sky, the Lake and the green.”
At Madeline Island, courses last about a week. “Everyone arrives on a Sunday and leaves on a Monday,” Charles says. “You’re with your teacher for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
The teachers are another attraction. Hundreds of instructors from right next door or from far overseas have taught at the regional schools. So besides connecting us to our local resources, history and traditions, Heidi says, folk schools bring in the wide world to our doorstep.
“Our area has so many talented people, says Greg Weiss of Lost Creek. “Knife makers, potters, glassblowers, lots of different fiber artists, quilters. People are attracted to this area who want to be more self-reliant. It’s funny that we have an area with every single instructor you need, but we don’t have the population to fill the courses.”
Greg estimates that 75 percent of the Lost Creek workshop participants come from more than 60 miles away.
North House estimates that 10 percent of students are local and the other 90 percent come from elsewhere. In 2015, that meant from 42 states and two foreign countries.
Independence and self-reliance are considered hallmarks of folk schools, and both play into the original stories of our reigonal schools.
Local boatbuilder Mark Hansen is credited with founding North House, but it was really launched when local volunteers offered Inuit kayak building, Scandinavian bowl carving and canoe-paddle making during 1995 and 1996 workshops. Interest continued to increase and in 1997, a board of directors officially founded the school.
In the Porkies, a serendipitous encounter led to the creation of its folk school 10 years ago.
In winter 2006, heading home from skiing in the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, Karen Berg’s partner, Bruce Ruutila, asked if she wanted to see the old park manager’s house. The building was slated to be demolished, along with an apartment house, several garages and a carpenter’s building.
“We expected to peer through the windows, but discovered that the door was not locked, so we went inside. Immediately it was easy to see it was still a beautiful rustic home with a perfect view of the Lake. We realized this campus was a valuable piece of history that should not be destroyed.”
Karen and Bruce, members of Friends of the Porkies, got the group to ask the park staff to delay the demolition. That fall, Friends of the Porkies sought permission to restore the buildings and start a folk school. And so one was born.
“We are remote … far from any venues that offer opportunities in arts and crafts, especially venues for contact with nationally recognized artists,” says Sally Berman, also with Friends of the Porkies. “We saw an opportunity to fill a need, and we ran with it.”
On Madeline Island, Charles founded the school as a retirement project after purchasing a 25-acre former farm. “Everything is brand-new except for the farmhouse,” he says. The school now has a “branch” campus, a ranch in Tucson, Arizona, for classes in winter.
However they got started, the schools now deliver both relaxing “learning” getaways and important ties to our past.
“From my experience teaching college,” says Lost Creek’s Greg Weiss, “a lot of college students have never done anything with their hands except use a smart phone. … We need to get people back to these skills.”
Greg Wright of North House agrees. “We’ve forgotten about the power in our hands, that ability to create with our hands engages our mind and speaks to our heart. That’s what the folk school journey is about.”
Instructor Spotlight
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Ian Andrus
School: North House Folk School, Grand Marais, Minnesota
Courses: Black-ash pack baskets, yurt making, foraging for spring wild edibles, traditional wild rice harvesting
Inspired by “traditional” lifestyles, Ian makes a living from fashioning birchbark and black-ash baskets, birchbark canoes and yurts. He, his wife, Rachel, and 2-year-old daughter Nora live in a yurt near Grand Marais without running water or electricity and plan to operate a small farm on their heavily wooded acreage outside of Lutsen.
“My favorite thing about teaching at North House is the fact that everyone who is taking classes is there because they want to be. They are interested in learning something new and usually very excited about it. As an instructor it is so easy and refreshing to not have to worry about whether or not your students are interested, and it allows you to dig deeper into subjects.”
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Dawn Walden
School: Porcupine Mountains Folk School, Ontonagon, Michigan
Courses: Basket weaving
A member of the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, Dawn specializes in the ethno botany of the northern Great Lakes Ojibwe people. Her work is showcased in many books and museums and is represented by the Cavin-Morris gallery in New York City. Most of what she teaches involves traditional craft techniques using local plants. For her own contemporary works, she collects materials from around her home in the Upper Peninsula and devotes winter months to sculpting and other art projects.
“It’s exciting when you study these ancient techniques and replicate something. It’s amazing the journey your mind goes on – thinking about ancient times, how people had to get by with containers made of grass or bark – totally different than the life we live today. It connects you to different cultures. It means getting into a quiet situation where everything is turned off except a pinpoint focus of what we’re working on. I really believe it’s important for our mental health today.”
Old Ways Become New Adventures at Folk Schools
Paul Sveum
School: Lost Creek Adventures, Cornucopia, Wisconsin
Courses: Knife making, bushcraft, wilderness survival
A field guide for Lost Creek Adventures, Paul spends half the year living in the cabin he built in Cornucopia and the other half in Maine, where he teaches with the Jack Mountain Bushcraft School.
“I get a kick out of seeing people come to my program who just want to learn something new. I like helping people through a crafting project they don’t have a lot of familiarity with – and by the end, they’re intimately familiar because they’ve made it.
“The construction is often a vehicle to a greater life lesson. Being able to sit down with them. Watching the transformation. Coming in stressed out, and over the course of an afternoon, they relax, calm down, laugh. That’s been the role of crafting forever. That’s been part of the crafting process from Day One.”
Felicia Schneiderhan continues to learn by trying things, like ice climbing (which she will write about in the October/November issue).