The Chronicle, 2018
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2018 President’s Notes 485 Chewonki Neck Road Wiscasset, Maine 04578-4822 ne evening last June, I sat down at Campfire Tel: (207) 882-7323 Fax: (207) 882-4074 Circle with counselors and trip leaders who Email: [email protected] had just finished a very full staff training. The Web: chewonki.org Oopening day of Camp Chewonki was on the Chewonki inspires horizon and their collective energy was rising like the tide. transformative growth, I reminded the group how special it is to gather at Campfire teaches appreciation and Circle; in doing so, we were repeating a Chewonki tradition. stewardship of the natural world, and challenges people For more than 100 years, educators and outdoor enthusiasts to build thriving, sustainable have come to this particular spot, at this particular time of communities throughout year, to do the precious work of nurturing young people and their lives. teaching them about the world around them. I also shared with summer staff the story of this land. More than 450 million years ago, sediment accumulated on the bottom of a shallow ocean that CONTENTS eventually became what is now called coastal Maine. In the 200 million years that followed, 2 Brief History of Chewonki Neck the sediment went through three major tectonic events that squeezed and cooked it with 4 Eastside Pasture Restoration tremendous heat and pressure. Many times over the past 2 million years (a blink of the eye 6 Joy and Jubilance in geological time), glaciers advanced and retreated across this land, even as recently as 8 Polar Bears 13,000 years ago. At times the ice casing the land was nearly a mile thick. As the last ice 9 Blue Frogs retreated, the Atlantic Ocean rose to cover Chewonki Neck under at least 200 feet of water. 10 Power of 8 Girls Since then, the waters have subsided and different biomes, from tundra to oak and pine 12 Big World, Small Island 14 Gathering Tools: EI forests, have drifted over Chewonki Neck in response to the ever-changing climate. 15 Elementary School map Humans have also shaped this place, starting about 11,000 years ago, as the first peoples 15 Waypoint created settlements, harvested wildlife and shellfish, and began cultivating plants. Later, 16 Nashoba Brooks School waves of Europeans cleared the forests for agriculture and mined the thick deposits of 19 You Call That a Toilet? ocean-bottom clay left when the sea level dropped, shaping it into the bricks for building 21 Farewell to an Owl early Boston and many other coastal towns. In the last 100 years, Chewonki has re-shaped 23 People this land again, transforming some of it into an educational campus and revitalizing 34 A Chewonki Year pastures and gardens, while encouraging other parts to grow back as forest. Now, global 40 Honoring a Sister human activity has created a climate crisis that’s changing our peninsula yet again. 41 Thank you, John Explaining the ecological history of this place and our role within it is a critical part of 42 Meet the Woolies Chewonki’s work. It creates the framework we use to teach both staff and students 43 New Home for Fiber Arts (see p. 14 and p. 44); make thoughtful changes on Chewonki Neck (see p. 4); send young 44 Measuring the Sun 55 Sustainable Forestry adventurers into the wild (see p. 6 and p. 10); and encourage them simply to enjoy being together in this beautiful place (see p. 8). CHRONICLE STAFF Editor: Anne Leslie As I looked at the summer staff at Campfire Circle, I felt full of hope. Knowing the past, Design: Bill Fall these young leaders are looking toward the future, writing the next chapter. I trust them to People editor: Carrie Bell-Hoerth do it well. Front cover: Backpackers by a Gaspé Peninsula waterfall Thank you for helping us carry out Chewonki’s mission. Back cover: A (kind of) secret fort on Chewonki Neck Many thanks to all of our photographers: Chris Percy, Alexis Grillo, and many other staff members and friends. Willard Morgan President Printed in Maine on paper that contains 30 percent FSC-certified post-consumer fiber and was manufactured using biogas energy. 1 A Brief History of Chewonki Neck The French Arrive: 1605 Geographer and cartographer Samuel de Champlain sails into Wiscasset harbor. The Rise of the Abenaki: Between 10,000 BCE – First Peoples Arrive: 20,000-10,000 BCE 1600s AD The Ice Age: 2.5 million-8,000 BCE Glaciers retreat. Migratory people flow into coastal The Eastern Abenaki occupy The English Arrive: 1605 Glaciers as much as a mile thick cover Maine. areas of the Northeast. much of midcoast Maine. George Weymouth explores the coast. Camp Chewonki Established: 1918 Allen buys the land. The place name has morphed from Jewankee to Chewonki. Clarence Allen Goes Snowshoeing: 1917 Salt Marsh Farm Revived: Establishing a Garden Legacy: Young educator Clarence Allen, on 1975-early 1980s 1940s onward snowshoes, tours the former Nason Maine Reach students help restore the Gardening becomes part of Chewonki sheep farm, which is for sale. Looking North Pasture and expand vegetable life. From the 1960s-1991, Margaret Ellis for a place to settle his camp, he gardens. In 1981, Ted Bridge-Koenigsberg champions cultivation, involving campers enjoys open views down the becomes full-time farmer. and students. peninsula to Montsweag Bay. Aerial View of Chewonki: about 1941 Earliest known aerial view of Chewonki. Harold Burnett and Food Philosophy Established: 2014 Woodlot Management: Chewonki farm staff, led by Megan Phillips, and kitchen 1985 staff, led by Bill Edgerton, draft a food philosophy to Harold Burnett (Maine Reach 3) guide farming, cooking, and program curriculum. becomes farm and woodlot manager, drafting first forest management plan in 1988. (He still manages our forest.) Sustainable Farm and Forest Grow Benefits: 2017 Salt Marsh Farm Mark Albee Outlines produces eggs, the Future: 1991 Farm manager Mark Albee vegetables, meat, milk, makes a detailed plan for hay, manure, compost, Salt Marsh Farm’s future and wool, and firewood. Eastside Pasture Restoration Project: Late 2017-2019 Chewonki restores an 11-acre area of former Bailey farm pasture to allow deepens student Students work on the more production and educational opportunities, and a more sustainable engagement. farm, in the kitchen, and in the woodlot. community food system. 2 / Chewonki Chronicle The Great Dying: 1616 – 1619 Diseases introduced by Europeans kill 70- 90% of native people in the region. The Wabanaki Confederacy: 1680s Five Wabanaki tribes create an alliance with Reverend common interests. Toppan and the George Davie Briefly Brickmaking and Mills: Second English Stakes a Claim: 1662 The Dominion of Late 1700s Settlement: An English sailor buys land New England: Entrepreneurs mine clay from 1734 including “Jewankee Neck” 1686 Pumphouse Ravine for brickmaking Christopher Toppan but abandons it when conflict England’s King James II and cut trees to fuel kilns on of Massachusetts breaks out among the native consolidates colonies Jewankee Neck. Seven sawmills and buys land including people, English, and French. into a single political grist mills line Montsweag Brook. Jewankee Neck. Eighty years of fighting follow. entity. Clearing and Farming: 1800s Smelting: Settlers clear most of the peninsula. The Baileys 1903 Shell Middens Uncovered: 1880s Coastal farmers uncover shell middens, and Nasons raise sheep, pigs, hens, cows, wheat, Bailey records the including some on our shores, confirming the oats, and apples and trap smelts. sale of $44.44 presence of pre-colonial people. worth of smelts caught in the Pownalborough, “Jewankee Weir.” Making Hay Inc.: 1760 While the Sun The Town of Shines: 1902 Pownalborough is One August day, incorporated, including farmer Clint Bailey lands that will become takes 34 ox-loads of Parceled Out: 1868 Wiscasset. hay from his fields. At least 13 separate parcels of land on the Neck are marked on town map. Selective Cutting: December 2017 A local logger removes trees, leaving some for shade and buffers. Harvested wood goes in many directions (sawmills, a pulp mill, a Maine buyer, a Maine biomass plant). Subsoiling: Spring 2018 Subsoiling machine grinds stumps and brush with top layer of soil. Grazing Begins: Spring 2019 Everybody Eats! New Growth: Spring Cows and sheep begin grazing on the We look forward to studying, and Summer 2018 Eastside Pasture. Farmers convert cultivating, and stewarding the new New pasture is amended after some pasture on the farm’s west side (old) pasture, a link to the past and soil tests and then seeded. to gardens. an opportunity for future learning Lying Fallow: Winter 2018 Farmers establish fencing. and healthy, delicious meals. Cleared ground settles under the snow. 3 The Eastside Pasture Expanding the farm and our stewardship ethic hen returning students and round. Grazing land on the east side of the Katherine, an avid gardener, maintained a campers arrive at Chewonki Neck will give the farmers an opportunity garden for the Boys Camp (some speculate Wthis summer, they will notice a to use more land on the west side of the that weeding was a camper’s penance). dramatic break in the trees on the east side Neck for vegetable production. When Tim Ellis became head of Chewonki, of the Chewonki Neck Road. During the The project will also restore some of the his wife, Margaret, brought her very winter, we began the first phase of a three- pastoral views that first attracted Chewonki English enthusiasm for gardening and year project to restore approximately 11 founder Clarence Allen when he visited an farming. She established a large organic acres of forest back to grassy pasture, old sheep farm for sale on Chewonki Neck garden near the Gatehouse and enticed following the stone walls and contours in 1917.