Bikers and Bison

After driving through three states of GMO corn and soybeans, made even more toxic by the ever-present crop dusting airplanes, we were relieved to enter the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, our gateway to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We boon-docked several nights, first at Burke Lake, a pond built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and then near Hot Springs at lovely Cold Brook, a lake and campground built by the Army Corps of Engineers. Liz was the only human swimmer in the lake at about 8pm.

Lakota and Catholic Chapel

Pine Ridge Reservation continues to be one of the most poverty-struck areas of America, but bold statements of cultural pride flourish among the graffiti tags. An area chamber of commerce has attempted to insert some vitality into the economy, and if other travelers are headed that way, we suggest picking up their publication. We stopped at the Red Cloud Heritage Center located in the building of an 1888 school founded by Jesuits and Franciscan nuns and now part of Red Cloud Indian School. Enthusiastic young alumni (one currently attending Stanford, the other the University of New Mexico) showed off the campus and chapel and gave us a history of the school. In the 1970’s the school ceased being a boarding school and began incorporating Lakota language and culture into the curriculum. Their development director told us his team raises $13 million dollars a year to support 600 kindergarten-high school students each year. There is no tuition and the school is proud of their 90% graduation rate. In the past few years there have been 58 Gates Millennial Scholars among the graduates (of which there are 35 on average annually.) All students take Lakota language and culture classes, and there is a sweat lodge on campus. A few exchange students reside with families on the reservation. 

Natural entrance to Wind Cave, a sacred place

From there we threaded our way up past Hot Springs, South Dakota to Wind Cave National Park. This intriguing site includes one of the longest caves in the world and was the first cave designated as a US National Park. The visitors’ center was full of families and young adults nervously awaiting their tour of the cave. Having not quite recovered from our underground encounter with the Cumberland Mine in Nova Scotia we decided to limit our visit to the exhibits above ground and a walk up to the original natural entrance to the cave. We enjoyed the bison, prong horn antelope and extensive prairie dog populations in the park and happily proceeded on to the adjacent Custer State Park. 

Every small town was lined with bikes

By that time we were aware that there were an extraordinary number of motorcyclists in the road with us. We had seen quite a number in Hot Springs, but we thought they were there in conjunction with an effort to save the local VA hospital (a parade had happened earlier in the day and the bikers were all parked outside the Legion Hall). Then it slowly dawned on us: they are going to Sturgis. We knew about Sturgis because niece Sue was headed to the motorcycle rally at Sturgis (despite her mother’s concerns.) Sturgis is a tiny Black Hills town of 650 people that for the past 74 years has invited motorcycles to come visit in the first few weeks of August. In the old days there were lots of rough and tumble interactions, but now the state stations about 1,200 law enforcement officers in the area. Any interpersonal violence tends to be between rival groups known to one another (locals call this “culling the herd”.)  Nowadays the concert, bike competition and hospitality venues report an excess of 400,000 attendees over a three week period and the local economy claims $800 million dollars in revenue associated with the rally. To fill their time between concerts, barbeques and sleeping off indulgences, attendees ride their bikes in the nearby hills. 

So there were many bikers with us on the drive around the Custer State Park Wildlife Loop and only the youngest animals and oldest tourists seemed bothered by the noise. At one point we were engulfed by a herd of about 200 bison determined to cross the road, weaving through parked cars and rumbling bikes. Some of the riders looked more perturbed than the animals. Others, like us, shut off their engines and enjoyed the show for the next 40 or so minutes. 

Famous faces

Our final stop in the Black Hills was a visit to Mt Rushmore. Somehow both of us have managed to avoid this shrine of American democracy and it was actually some progressive friends that persuaded us to stop. The defacement of a beautiful mountain and association of the primary artist with the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia had always made it seem unattractive. But it is truly spectacular and a very interesting site rich in American history. We enjoyed the movie about the workmen and design of the statues and the information about how it was funded.  The scene was suitably surreal due to the huge numbers of motorcyclists sporting colorful garb and body parts, but there were also a lot of families from all over the world. The parking was easy and the venue was beautiful and well designed to handle the millions of people who come through. 

We skirted Sturgis, and were lucky to find room in a campground near Deadwood where the bikers roared out at 5:30 am.  We roared out a few hours later, headed to Wyoming.

Sisters Singing in Illinois

Peggy Safford, Bread and Roses Director, sang next to Janna

It’s hard to convey the incredible feeling of good fortune that has been with us the last ten months as we travel from place to place finding treasures and unexpected delights at each new venue. The Sister Singers Network Choral Festival, on our calendar since January, was another such pleasure. We were two of over five hundred women who spent four days participating in choral music performance, both as singers and audience members. The event was held at the beautiful Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne. These feminist singers were truly our sisters: women who loved to sing, who love music that expresses deeply-held social, political and philosophical beliefs, and who cheerfully embrace you because you are there and a sister singer. All of that plus they know all the songs we know! 

The performances included choral presentations from seventeen feminist choruses from around the country with repertoire and music crafted by many of the women present. Each of the choruses performed several songs and all of the attendees also sang in one of two “mass choirs.” As part of our assigned “Prairie Choir,” we learned and performed five pieces, each conducted by a different, highly talented, woman director. We loved the rehearsals where everyone knew the music and cheerfully responded to the changes and nuances called out by the conductor. Thanks to her activist mother, Liz has been belting out social justice songs for over 60 years and both of us sang with the Anchorage W

Can you find us in the front row of the Prairie Choir? Janna (L) Liz (R)

omen’s Chorus twenty years ago. That and our more recent experience at San Juan Singers, plus Janna’s singing lessons last year, all contributed to our being able to participate at a reasonably sophisticated level. (Jokes from festival: How many choral directors does it take to change a light bulb? Answer:  No one knows, they weren’t watching. How many altos? Two; one to change it and one to tell her she can’t reach that high. How many sopranos? One; she doesn’t want any other sopranos in the room with her.)

With emma's revolution in front of you, it's hard to keep
 your eyes on the conductor

For us the topping on the cake, and perhaps the tipping point to justify the expense of the weekend, was the opportunity to be up close and personal with Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow who comprise the group:  “emma’s revolution”. We’ve been fans of Pat’s music since 1987 when Karen Carlisle taught us her great organizing song, “Keep on Moving Forward” in response to the Anchorage City Council failing to ratify protections for gay and lesbian workers. We renewed our membership in the fan club when Rhea Miller taught us “Swimming to the Other Side” just a few years ago. Pat and Sandy led off the weekend with a free concert, then a musical keynote the next morning, weaving in stories of social justice activism, mass music theory, and wonderful songs in true sing-along spirit. Pat, incidentally, learned at the knee of master song-leader Pete Seeger when she worked several summers on the Clearwater (Pete’s schooner that sailed the Hudson River urging environmental reforms.) She was one of those gathered at his hospital bed last January and helped sing him into his next existence. Many of us were moved to tears by her story of him and the song she wrote commemorating his work. Pat is truly a gifted songwriter. Check out their website.

In addition to the entertainment and the mass chorus rehearsals, we also attended some great workshops. We loved “Rhythm for Singers”  led by Sue Ford. Anyone who has stumbled onto the famous Friday Night Drumming Circle in Asheville North Carolina’s Perry Park will know of Sue's work which has been happening there for over a decade.  (Unfortunately when in Asheville a few months ago, we were there on the wrong day and were sad to have missed this tremendous cultural tradition.) 

In Urbana we also both attended “Teaching and Singing in the Oral Tradition”, led by Becky Graber, conductor of the Brattleboro Women’s Chorus (Vermont.) Since its inception in 1996 this chorus has learned all its music by rote and hence uses no written music. We found that by listening and echoing, then layering voices together, we are able to hear all of the different parts. This brings a shared experience to the music that is lost when one is focused on only her own part or struggling to read notes from a page.

“Feel the Music with Folk Dance” led by Heather Russell, a music education professor from Cleveland State University was another wonderful workshop. Besides teaching basic folk dance vocabulary, she illustrated how singing words we all know can be the catalyst for coordination for newly taught dance steps.

We didn’t let the huge storm where we were trapped in the parking garage get us down; in fact it added to the fun. The college cafeteria food just made us appreciate our usual organic diet. Other highlights included a songwriting workshop, a workshop learning about Hildegard of Bingen, meeting new friends (Kim and Beth we do hope to see you again) and so much more.  Off to Iowa now. We are truly blessed.

All Things American

Phoenix rises from Sarton's grave

Our travels homeward from Canada led us back to our friends in Maine to weather out storm Arthur (three inches of rain in 18 hours!); then through beautiful New Hampshire where we visited the grave of May Sarton in Nelson; then into Vermont where we stopped to pay our respects at the Robert Frost Stone House Museum near Bennington. We pushed on to New York where we biked around Saratoga Spa State Park, a beautiful park with springs, swimming pools, geysers, tennis courts, golf courses, hotels, restaurants, historical buildings and  much more. (Put it on the must-see list and allow more than the three hours that we gave it.) After that we met up in Ithaca with our Florida friends Donna and Fran, on their way to the Maritime Provinces in their 26-foot motor home plus tow car. Piling into their little vehicle, we circled Lake Cayuga and paid our respects to the ladies (and gentlemen) of Seneca Falls at the Women's Rights National Historical Park which commemorates the first Women’s Rights Convention of 1848. We also enjoyed a rainy afternoon on the Cornell University campus, taking in the Johnson Art Gallery and the Sapsucker Woods Ornithology Laboratory where we amused ourselves in the bird and animal sounds lab. And of course the four of us went out to a fabulous last-night dinner at the famous Moosewood Restaurant.

Organic U-pick blueberries in New York

Heading west, we stopped at the Corning Museum of Glass where we learned a great deal about glass: how it’s made, how it breaks, safety glass, fiber optics, glass blowing and the history of glass. It’s a fabulous museum and also includes a stunning collection of glass art. Then it was off to immerse ourselves in the phenomena known as Chautauqua, an historic resort community by Chautauqua Lake, New York. Founded in 1874 as a summer school for Methodist Sunday school teachers, Chautauqua became associated with a concept of adult education and summer entertainment that includes lectures, performing arts, religious study and recreation.  In the early twentieth century the Chautauqua concept was so popular that traveling versions evolved and radiated across America. Today the nonprofit Chautauqua Institute convenes every summer to host lectures, performances, and art exhibits for the 8000 residents that come each week and stay in the hotels or their own cottages. Intrigued by the concept, we purchased $5 bus tour tickets and were shown much of the grounds by an enthusiastic middle aged docent who had grown up summering at the resort. We jumped ship at the bookstore and took ourselves on a little stroll through the grounds as well. But to appreciate Chautauqua, one might need to become immersed in the program. It’s a place geared toward the exploration of ideas and the appreciation of arts; but our impression from the bus tour was of a privileged and exclusive summer resort.

We are always looking for roads that have authentic experiences and local meaning attached to them. With that in mind we headed for the Ohio River Scenic Byway, a lush river valley splendid with summer greenery. The 960-mile highway travels through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and one can frequently look across the Ohio River at West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. We started at the northeastern most point and followed it for 150 miles or so before turning off for our next rendezvous. As we followed this highway, we alternated between marveling at the natural beauty and feeling appalled by the countless factories, nuclear power plants, coal plants, and barges transporting coal and gravel up and down the river. But the farms and little towns were beautiful, including Steubenville Ohio that featured historic murals, an idea that was brought all the way to Steubenville by someone who was inspired by the murals in Chemainus, BC.  We then headed to Tar Hollow State Park near Chillicothe Ohio to meet up with our Kentucky daughter and son-in-law, for a fun and peaceful, albeit wet, weekend in the woods. 

Wow! We are amazed to find ourselves moving right along into the mid-west. Yesterday we drove across Indiana on the National Road, US Route 40. This was the first federal highway across America and was authorized during Jefferson’s administration in 1808 to connect the Potomac and Ohio rivers. The Indiana section was completed in 1834 and remained the state’s major east-west road until Interstate 70 was built in the 1960’s. Today it links little historic towns that are aging in various ways, and goes through the middle of Indianapolis. In between the towns are fields of soybeans and corn and little springs supporting native plants. Tomorrow: Illinois. We are moving west and seeing America.

Music and More in the Maritimes

We enjoyed "Tea with Eleanor"

We are finally headed back to the USA after nearly seven weeks in the Maritimes. Tonight we are on Campobello Island, famous summer retreat for Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, a truly lovely spot for our last night in Canada. The Maritimes were more than we ever imagined and we are sad to leave, especially, as we have discovered, now that the tourist season has just started. We now know that there are many major public events and festivals that don’t start until the official season kicks off on Canada Day, July 1^st.  We were somewhat disappointed not to have found more music, but did find a few venues that gave us a taste of what the islands have to offer.

Our favorite has to be the Celtic Music Interpretation Centre in the tiny village of Judique, Cape Breton. This area is home to Natalie McMaster whom Friday Harbor music lovers will remember from her sellout concert on our island about a decade ago. We were so impressed with her ability to dance, sing and play the fiddle all at the same time. We didn’t get to see her here, as she is again touring in the US and Canada (this time with her fiddler husband and five young children!) But at the Centre we learned about her musical family, and had a great time learning to hear the differences in fiddle tunes that make up sets for dancing: reels, jigs, strathspeys and more.  We tried our hands at playing a fiddle and our feet at Scottish dancing (which resulted in a lot of laughing at ourselves.) And we enjoyed local seafood for lunch at the Centre while two musicians performed Celtic tunes. Judique is one of several coastal villages that continue a unique musical tradition that came from Scotland over 300 years ago and singing and dancing are a big part of life here on the shores of Cape Breton.

Lilypad down on the Shepherds Farm, PEI

A couple of days later we were in bustling Charlottetown, capital of the Province of Prince Edward Island. There on a warm summer’s evening we found a street band set up to entertain the customers of a half-dozen restaurants and we had a delicious meal while enjoying  young people playing jazz. Charlottetown is the home of “North America’s longest running musical”, the story of Anne of Green Gables but, as noted above, our travels were ahead of the tourist season and we were there just a few days too early to catch the opening show of the season. What we did enjoy, however, was an overnight at a Harvest Host site, The Shepherds Farm near Mt. Stewart. Our host Stephen Cousins gave us a tour of the farm and supplied us with organic new potatoes and asparagus for supper (as well as internet and a full hook-up, all at no cost.)

Summerside Baywalk has exercise stations, too!

From there we drove through spectacular agricultural lands, new green crops in iron-rich red soil complemented by roadside lupines in full glory. We accidentally stumbled onto a “Gathering of the Clans,” at the College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts in the town of Summerside. In spite of the warm temperature (30 degrees Celsius) we enjoyed the bag pipe and drum marching bands from the Halifax Citadel and Moncton, NB. We left early because of the heat, figuring ourselves to be fairly wimpish given that most of the performers were playing, marching about in the full sun AND wearing wool. But we went on to discover Summerside’s “Credit Union Place” that houses an Olympic size pool, waterslides, hockey rink and harness race track. It was fun to cool off in the pool and watch the horses trot by on the adjacent track. That night we boondocked at the terminus of the Baywalk, a 7 kilometer walking and biking trail that goes along the waterfront and features sites interpreting local natural and historical features. 

Our next destination was the northwestern tip of PEI. We landed in Tignish in time for the annual Irish Moss Festival Parade, an event that lined the streets and featured most every antique tractor from all of PEI. We learned that Irish Moss, a sea vegetable containing high amounts of carrageenan, is still commercially harvested with horses here at North Cape. It’s a fishery that starts up as soon as the spring lobster season ends so folks shift gears and head back to the sea for a living once again. The North Cape of PEI also has hosted a major wind turbine research center since 1981 and sports an interesting visitor center and a four star restaurant overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence. Coming back down the island the next day (after boondocking outside of and touring the Potato Museum) we meandered over to the Acadian Cultural Center at Abram Village where we enjoyed an Acadian lunch and a great concert by six people singing, dancing and playing a total of at least 14 instruments. 

We love Canada where everyone seems less fearful and more relaxed about most everything.  But will be back in the US tomorrow. No Nancy, we aren’t becoming Canadians. Well not on this trip anyway.