Pioneer Press article spotlights Marine Mills Folk School

“Create. Not for the money. Not for the fame. Not for the recognition. But for the pure joy of creating something and sharing it.” ― Ernest Barbaric

The classrooms at Wilder Forest in northern Washington County were a hive of hands-on learning on a recent Saturday morning.

Upstairs, the smell of fresh ginger, maple sugar and juniper berries wafted from the kitchen as cookbook author Beth Dooley taught 15 apron-clad women to make small-batch preserves.

Downstairs, the steady punching of holes could be heard as Dan Horan helped a dozen adults create iPad covers, wallets, belts, keychains and other items out of leather.

Eight miles away, in the back yard of a house in Marine on St. Croix, men were building a Quincy skiff in a boat-building class led by Mike Tibbetts and Kevin Nyenhuis.

Welcome to the Marine Mills Folk School, a new nonprofit experiential-learning center that offers traditional arts and crafts classes in and around Marine on St. Croix.

The school, which opened in October, is the brainchild of longtime Marine on St. Croix resident and former city council member Robin Brooksbank.

Brooksbank, chairwoman of Marine Mills, modeled the school after the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minn., where hundreds go each year to learn traditional northern crafts from area artists.

“There’s a real hunger for getting away from screens and for understanding and enjoying how things are made,” Brooksbank said.

Brooksbank figured others from the metro area were in the same position she was: interested in taking classes from North House but “unable to devote a weekend, or perhaps longer, to take a class” in Grand Marais.

There are 95 folk schools in more than 25 states around the country; Minnesota has 15 and Wisconsin has 12, said Dawn Jackman Murphy of the Folk Education Association of America. Many teach courses such as blacksmithing, knitting, beekeeping, soap making, timber framing and wood carving.

Vicky Eiben, associate professor of education at Viterbo University in La Crosse, Wis., said the number of folk schools in the U.S. has exploded since 2005, when she helped found the Driftless Folk School in La Farge, Wis. The schools’ roots reach back to Denmark in the 1800s, she said.

“We have a really high-tech, low-touch culture,” Eiben said, “and there seems to be this longing for traditional art and craft. It’s also a place of community connection.”

Another bonus: intergenerational learning.

“As a society, we have so segregated people by ages,” Eiben said. “These schools provide opportunities for people to come together, across age boundaries.”

 

MAKING PICKLES

Intergenerational learning was evident at Marine Mills Folk School as Betty Walquist, 98, of Marine learned how to make honey-pickled cucumbers.

“We need the cucumbers sliced up,” said Dooley, pointing to a stack of English cucumbers, which she explained have few seeds and are sometimes called hothouse cucumbers.

“They have very thin skins, so they’re kind of the cheater’s cucumber,” she said. “You just slice them thin, and they make a beautiful pickle. They stay nice and crisp, and they retain their color.”

Walquist, who attended the class with her daughter, Mary, admired the long, thin cucumbers.

“Don’t they look beautiful?” she said. “I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned that there’s a sherry vinegar, which I didn’t even know there was, and I like all the different tips that she’s been giving us. It sure is fun to be with this woman. She just can keep it all bouncing around in the air.”

Dooley somehow oversaw groups making sweet-hot-pepper pickles, strawberry-cranberry-ginger-orange jam and sweet-chili-balsamic-apple-onion chutney all at the same time.

“Did everyone hear that?” she asked at one point. “When making fresh-fruit jams, put the sugar and the fruit in a pot the night before because the sugar draws out the juices from the fruit. It almost starts the cooking process.”

Another tip: cranberries, apples and pears have pectin. “If you combine those kinds of fruits when you’re making jams, you don’t need to add pectin,” Dooley said. “They will begin to seize up a little bit on their own. A trick if you’re making strawberry jam, for instance, is to add a couple of apple slices or even a little apple peel to that mixture, and you’ll get a firmer product.”

To test if the jam is ready, Dooley recommends putting a “dollop” on a cold plate.

“Put the plate back into the freezer, let it sit for about a minute, pull it back out and then run your finger through it,” she said. “We call it ‘the Red Sea test.’ If the mixture stays parted, you know that it’s ready to go.”

Erin Dimopoulos of Woodbury and the other students each took home a collection of recipes and samples.

“All the people who would have cooked and canned in my family are dead, including my mom,” Dimopoulos said. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

WE DON’T LIVE WITH GRANDMA ANYMORE

Emily Anderson, Marine Mills’ program director, said the school teaches skills that used to be passed down through the generations.

“You don’t live with your mom and your grandma and your great-grandma,” she said. “Most people live across the country from their parents.”

Anderson, who owns the HWY North gift shop in Marine, said a lot of skills are being lost. “People are realizing, ‘Oh my gosh, I have to go to the grocery store to buy preserves, but my grandma used to make preserves all the time. How do I do that?’ ”

Anderson likened the growing popularity of folk schools to the resurgence of interest in knitting a few years ago.

“It was like women were taking back these forgotten skills that used to be just daily knowledge,” she said. “Everybody made their own clothes. Everybody made their own barns. Everybody made their own boats. Nobody does that anymore.”

MAKING A SIMPLE BELT

But Andrea Darling of Renville, Minn., now knows how to make her own belts.

“I was looking for a leather class, so I Googled it and ended up at Marine,” said Darling, as she punched holes in a light-brown belt with a silver buckle. “I got sick of paying high-dollar for a simple little belt. I figured it would give me something to do in the winter.”

Horan offered 22 pre-cut leather patterns, including those for cellphone cases, sunglass cases and cross-body purses. Patterns for a laptop case and tote bag also were available, but Horan recommended that the students start small. “You’re going to be a lot happier once you’ve sewn something smaller first … because your stitches get better,” he told them.

Everybody in his class got to make at least two items. If they finished early, they could make more.

Bil MacLeslie of Stillwater Township said he took Horan’s class because he needed a new wallet. “To get a leather product has been really difficult,” he said. “You go to the store, and it’s either crazy expensive or it’s polyurethane.”

At the next table over, Kip Hathaway said he was trying “to single-handedly bring back the fanny pack.”

Or, as he liked to call it, “le pac du fanny.”

Horan didn’t have a pattern for a fanny pack “so we worked together to patent a new one,” said Hathaway, who works at Nordstrom and attended the class with his mother, Anne Brataas.

“Fanny packs are in,” he said. “That’s going around the halls at Nordstrom. Everyone’s saying it: ‘They’re back. They’re back, baby.’ ”

BUILDING A BOAT

At the boat-building class near downtown Marine, teacher Tibbetts was quoting 19th-century Prussian military commander Helmuth von Moltke: “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

“We’re just going to leave that like that, and we’re just going to live with it,” said Tibbetts, as he helped five students fasten strips of wood with clamps.

Chris Johnson of Scandia said he was thrilled to learn how to make a solo craft.

“I love canoeing, and I love the river, so this is going to be awesome to try out,” said Johnson, who works as an IT systems analyst. “A wooden boat no less, you know? You don’t see those often. They’re usually aluminum, fiberglass or Kevlar or graphite.”

Johnson said he is looking forward to taking other classes.

People want to have a “connection with the things that we use in our lives,” he said. “Sitting on a bench that I’ve made myself out of a tree that I’ve had growing on my property … that really gives you a connection to the land and to the place that you live in.”

Dooley, who also teaches at North House Folk School, said people want finely crafted items that have integrity and soul. “There’s just something about receiving something that has been made by somebody’s hands. I think we are all hungry for that kind of thing.

“We all feel like our lives are so out of control right now, but this is all about getting back to basics,” she said. “Look at this community: Everybody is just so lovely, and they’re all here because they want to get together and make something, which is way more fun than just getting together and having coffee, right?”

Read the article on the Pioneer Press website.