In a digital world, one is often left to ask, Who is it that actually knows how to do stuff? Make things. Build structures. Produce crafts and useful items. Get by when the power goes out. Who does that now?
Enter the Ely Folk School, slated to open on June 6. A story about the Ely Folk School ran in the May 23 edition of the Ely Timberjay.
Modeled after the successful North House Folk School in Grand Marais (site of my next Great Northern Radio Show on June 13), the Ely Folk School will use visiting faculty to teach both locals and those who care to travel about the basics of being a human in the North Woods.
Initial classes include log construction, birch bark canoe building, glassblowing, songwriting, an introduction to sauna culture and design, rosemaling, and harvesting wild rice.