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| Our first skiing lesson with Misha |
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| Tim Morse and Rosa DeJong |
After arriving on Wednesday and eating the traditional Kroka potluck, we said goodbye to our parents and started the five month long journey with our teachers Nate, Lisl and Lu. We are a group of 13 students:
Sam (16) from New Hampshire – likes long walks on the beach, poetry and rose gardening.
Bridie (17) from Vermont – likes singing, fishing, archery, hiking and puddle jumping.
Jon (20) from Florida – enjoys beaver dams/ponds/ the beaver themselves, banjo and carving holes in the ice.
Julian (16) from New Jersey – likes soccer and getting caught in the rain.
Rosa (17) from New York – loves trees, long underwear, fresh air, drawing and being alive.
Mathilde (20) from Norway – enjoys wintertime dipping, skiing, singing, making things by hand and laughing.
Tim (15) from Maine – appreciates food, sleep, sailing and skiing jumps.
Jake (17) from California – likes banjo, jam bands, riding bicycles, downhill skiing, climbing, hiking, music, art, forests and fishing.
Zane (16) from Massachusetts – enjoys snowboarding, carving, camping, writing songs and books, sitting with a good group of people and chatting.
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| Tim, our ski manager, drilling holes in skis |
Serene (20) from Colorado – loves the ocean, hiking, dipping beeswax candles, hugs, singing, circles, collecting stones, laughing and living.
Chloe (18) from New Hampshire – appreciates a good session of knitting, with a nice cup of tea, a rip-roarin’ contra dance and straight gigglin’.
Tobias (17) from Vermont – loves snacks, packs, flax, hugs, cakes, gloves, jet packs, mountains, cheese, dirt, power metal, cats, couches, running through the darkness, greeting the morning and wizards.
Myself, Nimrod (16) from Pennsylvania - I like reading, carving, cooking, writing updates and more.
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| The knife handle takes shape |
On Thursday, we set out on our next great adventure – skiing with Misha! We tumbled and rolled in the snow but managed to follow a straight line by the end of the morning’s class. We had loads to do after lunch. Some of us started knitting a hat with earflaps, while others went with Nate to the workshop to begin working on our hand-carved, cherry-burl knife handles. Everyone made good progress. Chloe broke the end of the saw she was working with and set the tip deep within her knife handle. Then, we enjoyed dinner together and settled down for the evening.
We are now more settled into the rhythm of the day. We get up at 6:15 and do our chores; some split firewood, some cook, some sweep, until breakfast. We then have our morning class, lunch, afternoon class, two hours of free time and, before we know it, dinner is served, the indoor evening class is spent and we go to bed in our sod-covered lodges and our warm sleeping bags.
We are all assigned big jobs: some are responsible for the maintenance of the camp, some organize our food schedule and make sure we eat a healthy diet, I write this update and more. Zane was first to act on his job as Medic after Tobias cut his finger, and we all hailed that moment as our duties settled in, bringing on our shoulders a weight of responsibility most of us never felt before.
On Friday, we went on a bushwhacking ski run around Kroka to experience what is it is to ski in the wilderness. Every day, we learn new things and prepare for February, when our 300-mile skiing expedition will begin.
-Nimrod
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| The knitting has begun |
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| Mathilde Vikene and Nate |
The Poet’s Yurt
Snowflakes falling soundlessly,
Swinging gently from side to side
On their way.
A small creek rushing past stones,
Conquering branches in its path.
Green leaves, yellow-green, newborn -
Just there, you can barely see them -
Smelling the first air out of their shells,
Hear that sound? That’s the wind blowing,
There must be pines near, they have their
Own special sound.
A bird flying high, the new from the next hilltop.
A comforting hand on a shoulder, a shared glance.
Oh! She shouts, not only with voice,
But with her whole body
That’s amazing!
The beauty of the world “resonates”
In the cavity of her chest,
Playing her heart strings,
Flowing out of her throat.
May these months bring this girl closer to me.
-Matilde Vikene
The Wrong Knob
Crummy and smelly is how I felt,
Days of toil do that to a man.
Warm I was, under my layers,
Then suddenly freezing, pain,
Courageously thrusting my head through the stream
Searing, no, flowing down my back,
Torturing, no, healing my skin.
Then it’s over: “Oh refreshing!”
I felt elated, because in my shower,
I just did luckily, turn the wrong knob.
- Julian Dahl
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| Jon |
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| Jake |
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