Definitions

A couple of nights ago, Ice brought up a question at dinner—what is the difference between a canoe and a kayak? For a moment the answer seems simple. The four boats sitting outside of the Mountain House are classic examples of both canoes and kayaks: the wide, green plastic boats without a top deck, with two webbed seats, and a series of wooden thwarts across the top are easily recognizable as a canoe, while the shorter and narrower bright plastic boats with a clear cockpit for one paddler and two covered hatches for gear storage is a very typical kayak. There are canoe paddles and kayak paddles, the strokes are different, they are often used in different bodies of water, etc… but there are a wide range of boats that can be called canoes and a wide range of boats that can be called kayaks, so how can the difference be defined? Further complicating things, in England, “canoe” is a blanket term for what we would call kayak and canoe.

In Mason Smith’s essay “You Hear Loons Calling”, he talks briefly about the term “canoe” in the 19^th century. The history of canoes goes back to some of the earliest Native Americans: Smith talks about the early birch bark canoes, with pointed ends reaching high into the air. He says that the canoes in the Adirondacks in the 1870s were similar to Eskimo kayaks and log dugouts, but made out of material typical of European boat building (Rooted in Rock, p. 353). In that case, how is an Eskimo “kayak” so easily compared to an Adirondack “canoe”? It seems like there is not enough of a definition to use these words to distinguish one from the other. If the Adirondack canoe is a more modern style of boat than I had imagined, and was not in fact directly related to the Native American canoes, than how can a canoe be labeled as traditional or non-traditional? Over the summer I worked at a wilderness canoe camp, and they placed more importance on the traditional construction of these wood-canvas canoes than I ever thought possible. The first time I called one of those canoes a "boat", I got dirty looks from everyone in that room before I was semi-politely corrected that these are "more than boats"--they are canoes. That pride for the craft is present in the Adirondacks, but the name of the vessel seems less important. Smith's description of a canoe as a moral object is not about its adherence to a traditional shape, but about the time spent building it and respect for the craft itself. Using a canoe as no more than an ends to a means would be immoral. Maybe, in the Adirondacks at least, the name and specifics of the design are not as important as the time and care that went into its construction.

Sue Halpern

Ned and Mae live off the grid, literally, in a world of their own making.  I was struck by how Sue Halpern illuminated Ned and Mae's intentions in a way that humanized them.  The common perception of hermits to those of us living within society is not favorable; they might be crazy people with bad intentions or missing the ability to connect with others.  Halpern gives life back to Ned and Mae to the point of making those of us in society seem somewhat dehumanized for choosing the consumer culture of our time.  For a writer to convince me out of my comfort is unusual, and respectable.

Obviously, targeting consumerism strikes a nerve to a reader, like me, who only takes some time away, to "escape" to a small town and live in a well-constructed rural place.  Tide detergent and Kraft macaroni are still sold in the grocery store, espresso is served in fine china down the road, and my home is a luxury estate on the side of a mountain.  Escape means less than it once did, when the Adirondacks really presented visitors with wilderness and few feeble structures.  Ned and Mae noticed an impending shift at a time of development and settled deeper into the same woods I merely occasion.  Halpern doesn't commend this pursuit, in fact she suspends judgement just enough for a reader to see Ned and Mae as humans yet still consider them specimen under Sue's lens.

So, they have lived full lives of self-sufficiency, but I must ask to what extend they merely pretending?  How can the fringe of their lives brim the tight hems of our society?  Do they exist apart from everything, as they desired?  Or are they more embedded into the world as most know it than they cared to admit?  I think my distrust stems from Thoreau.

My romantic side wishes them the detached lives they so desired.  My questions are aimed at Halpern, wishing that this essay were a book because her voice seems not to color the depiction of Ned and Mae.  I can smell Mae's nightly popcorn batch I want to hear Sue coax out the inner weavings of their lives.    

Great Camps and hermits

Adirondack Great Camps and Adirondack hermits are two very different, very important parts of Adirondack history and what it means to live in the region. The Great Camps, constructed for the very wealthy and their friends, and the hermits, individuals seeking solitude in nature, exemplify the struggle of the park, the struggle to find a balance between outsiders and insiders. Shoumatoff writes about the ridiculousness of many of the Great Camps: he writes that they are architectural nightmares with bizarre layouts, great propensity to burn down, and paradoxical. These camps, which he notes are signs of having conquered nature though are supposed to provide a means to enjoy nature, embody nonetheless the necessity of outsiders. Hermits are the insiders, they aren't wealthy or opulent or fragile. Halpern writes that Mae and Ned did not become hermits accidentally. They did not wake up one morning to discover they were living separate from others in a hard to reach place with barely any money. Instead, they searched for three years to find the place they would disappear to. The insiders are more intentional. They have to be; there is no money for them to fall back on, no other homes, no stable job in the city like that of the outsiders. 

I think that writing about hermits and Great Camps in necessary in an anthology about the Adirondacks. The abundance of nature and the uniqueness of this place make both possible. I wonder if writing about Adirondack hermits and Great Camps will ever help balance the two extremes of life in the park or if the divide will remain or grow worse. Acceptance of hermits who live off land they do not own are no longer tolerated as lovable eccentricities and great showings of wealth are ever more criticized as awareness of economic disparities in the park grows. I hope that, in the years since 2000, Adirondack writing has become more palatable to a national market and brings a more critical eye to the living legend that is the Adirondack Park. 

Being a Hermit with You

Because it is impossible to go about one's life without having some sort of community connection, no one can truly live their life in solitude. For example, Lily Martindale's family and friends were knocking at her door and ultimately looking after her well-being. And as Sue Halper explains in "The Place of Solitaries", "[w]hen Thoreau went to Walden Pond to live for two years, it was a young man's experiment". Even though Ned and Mae are proclaimed hermits, and their lifestyle "was no more an experiment than tilling the soil is an experiment for a farmer" (120), the fact that they live together in the same house makes the sincerity of their hermitage questionable. Yet, I think that if a person is a hermit in their mind and has made an effort to live off the grid with as little interaction with outsiders as possible, then they are indeed a hermit.

None of the Adirondack hermits we have read about are absolutely separated from society, but what makes them hermits is the fact that they have built their own society that can sustain itself with little reliance on external resources. Halper describes the micro-community of hermits beautifully when she says "[Ned and Mae] have the society of each other, and they have poems, and they have fresh apples, and no one to tell them they can't" (120). It makes sense that if there are less people and institutions involved in running a system, then there won't be as much differing opinions and backlash that hinder a system's liberties. Perhaps hermitage would be better defined by its community byproduct rather than its lack of interacting with the community.

The hermit community is one that survives through stories left behind, and those who aspire to get a taste of hermit customs examine the way ones have lived (mostly through secondary sources, since the nature of most hermit is to limit their accessibility). In "Solo", Sue took a copy of Walden with her on her solo canoeing expedition, treating Thoreau's experience as a model. Even though she was careful to not "bend the rules" (121)-- rules unwritten that had no urgent consequences-- taking Thoreau's book with her was a way of connecting with another human being the entire extent of her trip. As memories of her grandfather flooded her mind, and other people on the lake interrupted her peace, Sue realized the innate futility of her goal to get away from others and have the solitary experience she envisioned. Both Sue and other Adirondack hermits we read about were largely unaware that total absence was impossible, since there was never such a thing. The hermits of the Adirondacks are always known, always someone's child, and even though someone like Noah John Rondeau may never meet Ned and Mae or Lily Martindale (hypothetically, if they were not fictional characters), their contribution to the Adirondack hermit culture -- a sub-culture that cannot be denied even if it is not shared by many -- makes them members of a community. Whether a hermit lives physically alone or with another, in theory, they are always being a hermit with someone else, even if that person is a nineteenth century romantic or living contemporaneously halfway around the world.

If I didn't exist, I wouldn't have to write this

I found Alice Wolf Gilborn to be one of the most perplexing writers we have read thus far. My confusion is not due to complex or intangible ideas presented within her work but rather due to her off-putting tone. After reading her short bio in Rooted in Rock, I think her tone matches her personality. She is an editor, a critical woman whose job is to have an opinion. After knowing that fact, it is not hard to believe that she wrote with such a tone in "Proving Grounds."

I found her overall purpose to be quite perplexing. She often tried to be funny and failed, which made reading the piece quite confusing. I think the comical failure was due to her lacking tone throughout the piece. She seemed to be writing a journal-like entry, something meant to be read only by herself which can be successful but was not done very well in this essay.

What I found most intriguing about this piece is that Gilborn spoke about people coming to the Adirondacks and overcoming nature, overcoming themselves, and eventually finding their roots. "Over coming" nature fell under the umbrella of all outdoor activities, such as hiking Blue Mountain or hunting. She says that when people do this, they are finding their own roots and thus proving themselves. She spoke about a hiker and said, "You know they have hiked a long way or are preparing to hike a long way, but you don't ask them why because part of proving yourself is to do it and not talk about it except to yourself. That you can do endlessly." She talks about herself and says that this is not how she finds her roots, instead her roots "extend only as far as the first comfortable chair."

These few lines made the entire essay much more appealing to me because in her own way Gilborn was overcoming her own nature, finding her roots, and proving herself. Although she did not do this by hiking, but rather by sitting in a comfortable chair and writing. This made the overall personal tone make much more sense. She is not intending to tell this to a large audience, instead she is proving herself by doing it and only talking about it to herself (as she claims the hikers do on their long hikes.)

How To Make Friends Without A Shirt

In her piece, Civic Literacy, Sue Halpern points out the unifying elements of literature. She claims that despite often reading by ourselves, “books serve us a set of images and experiences and emotions that become part of our common language”, and that those of us who may have read the same text might consequently “share a language and a landscape”(129). It’s incredible how many examples of this I can think of, and not just limited to the literary world. Several of us in this house speak Grey’s Anatomy (“He’s coding”, “You’re my person”, marriage post-its, etc.). Many are familiar with the muggles and squibs of Harry Potter, and a few fluent in Pixar (“He touched the butt!”, ”No capes.”, “To infinity… and beyond!”).

Halpern’s example involves sharing the Narnia series with a 9-year old child. One of my recent experiences was quite similar. A few weeks ago, I substituted for the librarian in Keene Valley who was attending a conference for the morning. Every week, classes walk down from the Central School for one block period and have class at the library. The librarian reads them a story and teaches them about a related topic before they pick out some books to check out for the week. When I filled in, the third graders and I talked about vegetables and read a story called “Muncha, Muncha, Muncha”. They told me all about their favorites: carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes (well, maybe those are just my favorites), and tomatoes. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that tomatoes are fruits.

The fourth graders were next, and since I had total liberty as far as my “lesson plan”, I decided to teach them about the brain. We established that it is squishy, has two parts (for now), and allows us to move and think. Although that information probably won’t secure my degree in neuroscience, I thought they nailed it. I chose a short story from Unreal, by Paul Jennings, which was a spooky tale about a boy who can’t speak without finishing his sentences with the words, ‘without a shirt.’ He was teased mercilessly at school for this without a shirt. He couldn’t help it without a shirt. You get the idea without a shirt.

The boy and his dog end up searching an island and finding the bones of his ancestor, a pirate who sailed centuries ago. The bones wanted to be together and reassembled themselves as he found them (these children probably had nightmares about this, oops), until the skeleton was almost complete. Throughout the story, any time the boy said anything, he said ‘without a shirt’ at the end. Each time resulted in a stifled fit of giggles from the class, until by the end, they couldn’t contain themselves. At the end of the story, the dog finds a shirt buried on the beach and brings it to his owner. When the shirt is reunited with the skeleton, the boy claims that he feels much better, and only then does he manage to say it without saying ‘without a shirt.’

After the reading, I checked out the books they picked out and they lined up to go back to school. Despite having only spent 45 minutes with these kids, their departure prompted several rounds of affectionate, suffocating hugs. “Have a good day without a shirt, guys!” I couldn’t believe how quickly they trusted me, asking me about anything from the science of the brain to which books they should try. I figure it must have been because we both now spoke the same language without a shirt.

Whether you speak Law & Order, medicine, Jane Austen, or there is a total language barrier (Adirondack rodeo, anyone?), Halpern’s reflection couldn’t be more accurate.

hermit

In class we talked a lot about weather or not Lily really was a “hermit”. She definitely was not what we generally consider to be a hermit or what we typically think of when we imagine a loner like herself. A hermit is someone living in solitude but Lily was never really that alone. Even when she returned to The Hill she was still connected to the outside world through Jim and Ellie and even the press and random trespassers.

            Still, I think she was a damn god hermit. She was more of a mental hermit than she was a hermit by excluding herself from society. What I mean, is that her mind existed in solitude, even if she didn’t. After leaving the city and returning to The Hill, she was looked after by a few people, but not because she asked them to, or even because she wanted it. She longed for aloneness and time with herself and the place in which she was her most authentic self. What is most impressive to me is that she was able to resist Jim so adamantly for so many years. From time to time he attempted to fill what most people would consider an essential need, the need for intellectual stimulation by contact with others. Lily’s mind was a fortress, even in sickness, both mental sickness and physical sickness, she denied all help, simply because her mind was too strong, too closed.

            Throughout the book I admired her most for that quality, the part of her that loved aloneness without ever feeling lonely. This is exactly why I was so disappointed when she ended up with the doctor. It seemed so counter intuitive to the character Shartle had been developing for 200+ pages, a character made stronger by her solitude. I’m not sure if “the happily ever after” ending was less work than something more tumultuous and Lily-like, but it seemed completely out of place.