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The only people possibly more excited about this summer’s Chewonki Wilderness Trips than the trippers themselves are the trip leaders. A gang of them arrived this week to begin preparing and their energy’s rocking the Neck.

Most are equally fanatic about backpacking and paddling, but a few just can’t get enough time on the water. Karen Blakelock, Conor Burke, and Eric Nathanson are a part of this elite category. Something about being on the water holds a special allure for them, and they can’t wait to share that passion with their trippers.

Here’s what they had to say on recent afternoon:

Karen Blakelock

Q. Street cred? 
A. Outdoor Classroom staff ‘17-18;  Maine Coast Kayak trip leader ‘17; Boys Camp staff ‘12-’15. Studied in Tanzania during college. Holder of a Junior Master Lunch Lady certificate awarded by Chewonki Kitchen Manager Bill Edgerton.

Q. What’re you doing at Chewonki this summer?
A. I’m leading Maine Coast Kayak in Session I and working in the Wilderness Trips office in Session II. I’ll also help with Boys Camp wilderness trips.

Q. What have you been up to over the past year?
A. I’ve been a Chewonki Outdoor Classroom instructor, leading students from Maine and other parts of New England on outdoor learning adventures.

Q. How did your love affair with water begin?
A. I started rowing crew at Miss Porter’s School when I was growing up in Connecticut and discovered that I loved being on the water. I rowed in college, too, on the St. Lawrence River. After graduation, I worked on the schooner Roseway for six months as part of the World Ocean School.  

Q. Favorite part of paddling trips?
A. On ocean trips, living with the tides is fascinating. It’s cool to have everyone looking at a nautical chart alongside a tide chart, figuring out the best timing for arrivals and departures, having the kids add that little piece to the puzzle of the ecosystem. And I love getting to swim in the ocean, seeing seals and porpoises and eagles…the islands in Maine are truly a world-class experience.

I really like that the kids learn that they can make it through bad weather and hours of paddling and then feel rewarded at the end of the day. Maybe they’re cold and wet, but when we get to our destination, the first thing we do is set up our tents, change into the clothes at the bottom of their dry bags, and get some food. And suddenly they realize they’re sitting on a beautiful shoreline or island with their group and everything is fine.

Conor Burke

Q. Street Cred?
A. Boys Camp ‘07,’08; Wilderness Trips ‘09,’10,’12; Boys Camp staff ‘13-’16; Outdoor Classroom staff ‘17,’18. Redhead. Can dance a mean Irish jig.

Q. What are you doing at Chewonki this summer?
A. Leading the Gaspe Expedition; whitewater kayaking and backpacking trip for counselors-in-training; and the backpacking training trip.

Q. What have you been up to over the past year?
A. I was an instructor for the Chewonki Outdoor Classroom in fall 2017 and this spring. During the winter,  I worked for Maine Huts and Trails.

Q. How did your love affair with water begin?
A. I grew up in Maryland and my dad and I did a lot of sea kayaking on the Chesapeake Bay. Being on the water was very much part of growing up for me; I always feel a little nostalgia when I’m paddling.

Q. Favorite part of paddling trips?
A. I love both kayaking and canoeing, and they’re really quite different. Coastal trips are almost “front country”–as you travel, you’re often seeing other people, sailboats, fishing boats, waterfront houses–the human life that the ocean supports. Canoeing inland on rivers and lakes makes you feel more removed from society. With that sense of remoteness, you feel very close to the wilderness. Whether you’re in a canoe or a kayak, you are moving yourself through the water,  living close to it–but the ocean and inland waters are different worlds.

Eric Nathanson

Q. Street Cred?
A. Maine Coast Semester 45; Maine Coast Kayak leader ‘16,’17; Outdoor Classroom instructor ‘17-’18. Rowed the Mississippi River from source to sea in 2016.

Q. What are you doing at Chewonki this summer?
A. Leading Maine Coast Kayak and Thoreau-Wabanaki Canoe Trail trips, so I’ll go from Penobscot Bay (the ocean) to the Penobscot River.

Q. What have you been up to over the past year?
A. I was an Outdoor Classroom instructor last fall and this spring. In between, I travelled, did some substitute teaching, and taught and took care of young children at a school in Portland.

Q. How did your love affair with water begin?
A. I grew up in coastal Maine between Scarborough Marsh and Pine Point Beach, and I also spent a lot of time near an inland lake. I was always in, on, and around a wide variety of waters, although I didn’t do any technical paddling until high school. While I was at Maine Coast Semester, I did a lot of canoeing and sea kayaking. I love the connectivity of water, the way it flows from mountains through communities to the sea.

Q. Favorite part of paddling trips?
A. On canoe trips, a lot depends on your communication with the other person in your canoe and building a team with them. Sea kayaking is a little different; it’s more about individual effort, although still within a group context.

As far as teaching goes, you can really pepper things in on a paddling trip. You’re moving at a good pace to weave natural history and human history into the experience.

Three Chewonki Outdoor Classroom educators, Conor Burke, Hannah Marshall, and Connor Phillips, sit on the front porch of the Center for Environmental Education, waiting for a group of middle school students from Massachusetts to arrive. They’re chatting and joking; fun moves through the group like electricity. But behind this seemingly relaxed moment lurks anticipation spiced with a bit of terror.

“The first program of the season is always an ice-breaker,” says Marshall. “As soon as I’m with the students, I remember: I know how to do this! And then everything’s fine. If you don’t get excited about the outdoors and kids, this isn’t the job for you.”

A bus will soon appear, and out of it will spring a new group of students, teachers, and chaperones committed to a four-day immersive stay at Chewonki, known as an “encampment.” Some will be eager and excited; others hesitant and shy; and couple, recalcitrant. Burke, Marshall and Phillips are only a few of the 14 educators that make up the Chewonki Outdoor Classroom staff, and over the next few days it will be their responsibility to guide and encourage these students as they put up tents, learn to cook meals over a campfire, dive into ecology lessons, help each other through the challenge course.

The emotional and physical challenges of a four-day encampment are real. Some participants are away from home for the first time, while most have never camped overnight before. Anxiety about unfamiliar food, using a privy, and encountering the Chewonki way of hands-on instruction, all amount to a big shift for those accustomed to classroom lessons.

“Nearly every student faces some kind of personal challenge in our program,” says Burke. “They may see the natural world through a completely different lens than we do.” While he views the mud flats as an ecosystem, “Some local children know them as the place their parents go to work every day [clamming or worming].” Meanwhile, for children from urban schools, a saltwater peninsula can be an unnerving foreign territory, full of unknown plants, animals, and biomes.

Successfully leading a group of students through these initial challenges and teaching them to enjoy the pleasures and rituals of camping requires patience and grit.

“Some students have never had to wash dishes before, much less wash them in a bucket of salt water,” Marshall says. “This is definitely not ‘glamping,’” adds Phillips with a smile.

Thinking back on the high points of his time with Chewonki Outdoor Classroom, Phillips recalls a student with learning differences who said that it had been “the best week of his life.” He also remembers sitting around the campfire with a group on the last night of a recent encampment. The students had just finished playing a game and were in high spirits. He asked them to talk about what they’d learned about themselves at Chewonki.

“Every single student spoke…articulately, genuinely, thoughtfully,” Phillips says. They didn’t dish out cliches; their reflections were very personal, very real. There were so many successful moments.”

 

Learning is not a spectator sport in the outdoors. Everyone gets involved. One student said, “Most of my classmates hadn’t heard me speak” before the group had spend their week at Chewonki. Another declared that she was going to get her family involved in composting when she returned home. These moments are pure gold for Phillips, Marshall, Burke, and the other Chewonki Outdoor Classroom leaders. Moments make their hearts beat a little faster as they wait for the next group of students to arrive.

“We allow them to redefine themselves,” says Marshall. “In this setting, there are new ways to show yourself.” Preconceptions tend to fall away when everyone is wading through a salt marsh, paddling canoes against the wind, or cooking breakfast by an open fire in a rainy morning on the coast of Maine.

About Chewonki Outdoor Classroom

Chewonki Outdoor Classroom provides a life-changing experience in nature for students and school groups, building personal resilience, and giving them tools they need to create and sustain healthy, thriving communities. We do this through a unique combination of outdoor living experiences on the coast of Maine, team-building challenges, ecological study, and an introduction to the concepts behind systems-thinking and sustainability. 

For more information, please visit: https://outdoorclassroom.chewonki.org

Greg Shute’s Must-have Items for Wilderness Adventure Trips

Chewonki Vice President Greg Shute is a Maine Guide, lifelong naturalist, and the veteran leader of too many wilderness trips to count. We rely on him to know what to do in any backcountry situation, and he always comes through.

Looking ahead to the summer season at Chewonki and dozen-plus unique wilderness adventures his staff has planned, we asked Shute what items he considers “indispensable” for any expedition into remote territory.

“I have a little waterproof bag,” says Shute. “It goes with me everywhere. It’s got matches; a spare compass; a space blanket; a couple of granola bars; and an emergency windproof lighter.”

The lighter would often languish untouched in the bottom of Shute’s bag for years. Then last month, as he was leading a group of Maine Coast Semester 60 students out of the Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument on skis, messy, frigid weather blew in. During a brief break in the skiing, one of his co-leaders found that her ski binding was coated in hard ice, making it impossible to snap on.

Shute reached for his bag of tricks. “A windproof lighter is like a tiny blowtorch,” he says. “It melted the ice right away.”

Shute always carries one other item with him in the wild, something even more precious, for personal reasons, than his bag of tricks: a crooked knife. This versatile tool has been a favorite of Maine’s native people for generations.

Alfred Matoush, a Cree guide who co-led two Mistassini Canoe Trips with Shute in the 1980s, and who was an important influence on him, made the traditional knife for Shute using a file he heated and shaped over their campfire. Matoush, who passed away  in 2004, was wise about weather, wildlife, plants, paddles, canoes–and knives. Shute says his crooked knife allows him to shave dry wood from the inside of trees even after a week of rain, to start a fire on a wet night.

How long does it take to earn your cred as a seasoned outdoor veteran? Shute says every mistake is an education. Two of his own stand out in his memory.

As a junior high school student, Shute and a gang of pals decided to climb Mount Katahdin. They camped overnight outside Baxter State Park and got up early the next day to begin the hike. The only liquid they brought along to drink? A 64-ounce bottle of Pepsi to share. (*Editor’s note: Okay, remember this was the 1970s. And you’ve got to admire Shute’s transparency.) “I got so dehydrated,” Shute chuckles ruefully. “I had terrible cramps all the way down.” Lesson: always carry plenty of water.

But the most common lesson of outdoorsmanship in New England–be prepared for the weather to change–occurred on a beautiful 70-degree May day in New Hampshire. Shute and his wife set forth in T-shirts with their new baby, Kyle, strapped to his mother’s back. After summiting Mount Whiteface, they were starting their descent when dark clouds rolled in and pelted them with sleet. Lesson: always tuck a raincoat into your backpack.

“It didn’t seem to bother Kyle at the time,” says Shute, “but he still likes remind us of it now and then.” Lesson learned.

Learn more about Chewonki’s Wilderness Trips

March! A month of dramatic changes at Chewonki! Three back-to-back nor’easters (including today’s wild storm) have dumped fresh snow on the Neck with the promise of more to come:

March is also the season for sheep-shearing:

 

Not only does the annual shearing provide wool for the fiber arts center, it helps to prepare the pregnant ewes for birthing season. We look forward to seeing new baby lambs appear sometime in the next several weeks. You can check in on the status of our lambing season by visiting the live Lamb-Cam in the barn!

 

View the Amazing Chewonki Lamb-Cam!

Those of you who live “from away” (the local phrase used to describe anyone who doesn’t live in Maine), have likely never experienced the mid-winter madness that comes with the month of February. 

The fun and glitz of the winter holidays are long over, the spring thaw is still months away, and everyone is beginning to feel cabin fever. To make matters worse, at this point in the winter we are so badly deprived of sunshine and vitamin D, most conversations begin something like this:

[Setting: Two Chewonki staff members meet in the Wallace Center to get coffee. It is mid-February. A couple of staff with Seasonal Affective Disorder sit at nearby tables morosely thumbing through last year’s L.L. Bean catalogue.]

Moosetrap Thunderbrush: “Muumumh muhmmhu muh!”

Saltbeard McLobsterguy: “What did you say?”

Moosetrap Thunderbrush: (removes hat, scarf, baklava, hood, ski goggles, and unzips parka) “I said, ‘I’m glad we’re finally past the winter solstice!'”

Saltbeard McLobsterguy: (cracks through the ice-layer on the top of his coffee cup and takes a sip) “Why do you say that?”

Moosetrap Thunderbrush: “We got two more minutes of sunlight today!”

Saltbeard McLobsterguy: (nods) “Ahyuh.”

Moosetrap Thunderbrush: (nods) “Ahyuh.”

[end scene]

But no fear! At Chewonki, this is the time of year we dig in, and make a point of celebrating winter. 

On the farm, that means breaking out the harness for Sal the horse and getting back in practice twitching logs:

For the students of Maine Coast Semester, it means science class in a snowy forest…

…and learning to split firewood for their cabins:

It also means breaking into the costume box…

And fun times around a winter campfire:

But it especially means taking advantage of all this beautiful snow to join the Elementary students sliding down the hill behind the Allen Center and onto the lower field!

(Anyone can do it!)

Chewonki Foundation has announced the start of a new 5-part series of “Animal Adventures,” providing hands-on learning for kids and adults of all ages. The monthly program features live animals, fossils, skeletons and a wide collection of touchable natural history exhibits.

“I’m really excited to be offering some of our wildlife presentations here at Chewonki,” says Emma Balazs, program coordinator for Chewonki’s Traveling Natural History program. “One of my favorite aspects of this job is to see the spark of wonder on someone’s face when they see a Great Horned Owl, touch a Milk Snake or hold Spotted Salamander for the first time. It never gets old!”

The one-hour programs change each month, and are open to the public at the Chewonki campus in Wiscasset Maine.

Animal Adventures Program Schedule:

• Sunday February 18th – “Owls of Maine” 1pm – 2pm
• Sunday March 18th – “Scales & Tails” 1pm – 2pm
• Sunday April 15th – “Animal Adaptations” 1pm – 2pm
• Sunday May 20th – “The Bugmobile” 1pm – 2pm
• Sunday June 17th – “Predators” 1pm – 2pm

“This program is a wonderful introduction to science and nature,” says Cullen McGough, director of communications. “Part of our mission at Chewonki is to teach appreciation and stewardship for the natural world – kids have a natural interest in animals, and I can’t think of a better way to engage that passion than to give them the opportunity to see and feel these amazing creatures up close.”

The Animal Adventures program is held in Chewonki’s Center for Environmental Education, noted for the full size finback whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling.

Individuals interested in attending one of these programs are asked to reserve tickets online.

Connecting Chewonki’s Future with Millennia of Land Use

When returning students and campers arrive at Chewonki this year, they may notice a dramatic break in the trees on the east side of the entry road. Last month, we began the first phase of a 3-year project to restore approximately 11 acres of forest back to grassy pasture, following the stone walls and contours of earlier farms.

This project to restore the pasture on the east side of Chewonki Neck is the latest chapter in the historical relationship between human beings and this saltwater peninsula. Farm Manager Megan Phillips says, “This most recent clearing is part of a long history of land use here on Chewonki Neck. I don’t say that to make light of the impacts of transitioning land from one use and predominant vegetation to another but, rather, to celebrate and sit humbly in the recognition that I am–we are–taking part in the story of the stewardship of this land.”

View an Interactive Timeline of Chewonki Neck

Chewonki’s Salt Marsh Farm presently encompasses 14 acres of pasture and 150 acres of woodlot, which we manage with low-impact forestry principles. The reclaimed pasture will allow the farm to provide a larger share of vegetables, meat, and milk to the Chewonki community year-round. Grazing land on the east side of the Neck will give the farmers the opportunity to use more land on the west side of the Neck for vegetable production.

The project will also restore some of the pastoral views that first attracted Chewonki founder Clarence Allen when he visited an old sheep farm for sale on Chewonki Neck in 1917. The open fields and views to tidal waters that compelled him to establish his camp here have largely disappeared over time.

The 11-acre pasture will provide greater resiliency within the farm ecosystem to deal with increasingly unpredictable climate conditions affecting growing cycles. And it will give our farmers new opportunities to educate students about rotational grazing and responsible land management. The sale of timber harvest from this area will largely pay for the cost of the project, which is being overseen by forester Harold Burnett (Maine Reach 3, farm and woodlot manager 1985-87), who has managed Chewonki’s forests for the past 32 years.

By far the largest part of Chewonki land remains forest, but the expanded farm area honors a gardening and farming legacy essential to our ethos. Clarence Allen’s wife Katherine, an avid gardener, maintained a garden for the Boys Camp. When Tim Ellis became head of Chewonki, his wife, Margaret, brought her own enthusiasm for gardening and farming. She established a large organic garden near the Gatehouse and enticed campers to help her with chores. Through the second half of 1970s, Maine Reach students expanded the gardening operation, restoring North Pasture and tending Highland cattle, pigs, and sheep. Ted Bridge-Koenigsberg was hired in 1981 to be the first farmer on Chewonki Neck since the Nasons and the Baileys in the early part of the 20th century. He added horses, cows, chickens, and even, for a short time, goats. He also managed vegetable beds and wood harvesting. Maine Reach students and summer campers participated in many aspects of the farm work.

A number of excellent farmers worked here since then. Mark Albee, who managed the farm from 1991 to 2005, had the greatest influence on the modern-day operation, says current Farm Manager Megan Phillips, who has been tending Salt Marsh Farm since 2009. Phillips, too, has had a profound impact, helping to draft Chewonki’s Food Philosophy in 2014 and integrating farming into every Chewonki program.

“Looking out over this recently opened space,” says Phillips of the clearing, “I feel a heady sense of responsibility and potential. Pasture management, like forest management, is a long-term commitment…I feel buoyed by the sense of what this transition will come to be.” She’s already committed to what the land is becoming in this latest iteration: “rolling hills, patches of trees left for shade. I see the future fence lines and the cows and sheep that will graze there, and I hold an awareness of the increased meat, vegetable, and fiber production that will nourish the Chewonki community in future years.”

Phillips has been following the timber harvesting closely, educating students and staff at every stage. In November and December, trees were removed and sorted according to destination. Roughly 35 percent of the roundwood (not including the tops and branches) will go to sawmills, with the remainder going to a pulp mill. Pine logs are going to two Maine lumber companies and some will be exported to Canada. The spruce and oak logs are being delivered to a buyer in Palermo. Most of the treetops and branches will go to a biomass plant in Livermore Falls.

In February, if things go as planned, a subsoiling machine will grind remaining stumps and branches within the top four inches of the soil to establish a proper field. Next summer, the farmers will amend the soil, based on testing, and then seed it. By summer 2019, there will be cows and sheep grazing in rotation there.

“Daily, I feel the responsibility inherent in stepping into the relationship between human beings and land, and seeking to manage our farming systems ecologically,” says Megan Phillips.”In farming and expanding our farm to include this historical pastureland, we support and are in turn supported by the land itself.”

View an Interactive Timeline of Chewonki Neck

New Partnership with Maine Huts & Trails Brings Benefits to Both Teams

Chewonki is proud to announce a new partnership with Maine Huts & Trails,  a Maine-based nonprofit with four backcountry lodges connected by an 80-mile trail network suitable for hiking, snowshoeing or skiing in Maine’s Western Mountains region. 

Four of our Outdoor Classroom instructors, including Jen Adams, Conor Burke, Emmy Held, and Hannah Marshall will be joining the MH&T staff through the winter months, providing nature-based lessons to hut visitors and participate in trail maintenance, food preparation, and generally keeping skiers and snowshoers happy in three of the huts, which are modeled after Europe’s alpine trail huts but enhanced with creature comforts and state-of-the art, off-the-grid architectural design.

Each member of the Outdoor Classroom crew chose a topic that particularly interests them, developed a lesson around it, and then practiced with Jessica Woodend and other Traveling Natural History Program staff. “They did great!” says Woodend, “They got really excited.” Hannah Marshall’s presentation focuses on snow science. As a Nordic ski-racing stand-out, she has a lifelong passion for snowflakes and speed. Connor Burke, who will work in the Flagstaff Lake hut, developed a presentation about the lake’s history, including the environmental and social impacts of creating it in 1949 by damming the Dead River. Jen Adams, a Registered Maine Guide, created a lesson about the first female Maine Guide, Cornelia “Fly Rod” Crosby, and the evolution of women’s presence in the guides’ ranks. And Emmy Held, who has extensive tracking experience, designed a presentation about how to detect animals and their activities in the wild.

Keith Crowley, Chewonki’s director of educational partnerships, and  Johnson Whippie, the Outdoor Classroom field coordinator, are unabashedly thrilled by the new collaboration with Maine Huts & Trails. Crowley had for years tried to solve the riddle of how to keep great Outdoor Classroom staff when Chewonki needs them only in spring, summer, and fall. He proposed the partnership last winter and was was delighted when the Maine Huts & Trails representatives “didn’t laugh us out of the room,” he says. In fact, adding more know-how to its staff will help the relatively young organization meet its educational goals.

For these four Outdoor Classroom staff members, the wintertime jobs mean “sustainable, full-time employment…with a phenomenal partner organization,” says Whippie. They will return to Chewonki in the spring for the next Outdoor Classroom season with more professional experience to draw from as they start the new season. It seems like a match made in heaven.

We encourage you to visit the Maine Huts & Trails website to learn about all the cool things you can do in the Western Mountains this winter. When you get out there, give Hannah, Emmy, Conor, and Jen a big hello from Chewonki!

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Can You Feel Your Fingers?

Our friends from Maine Huts & Trails have some excellent advice about staying warm while engaging in winter sports:

Dressing for cold temperatures may seem a bit intimidating, but fear not adventurers, with a little preparation, you can make your trip enjoyable (and warm).

The key to keeping warm on the trails is movement and staying as dry as possible. Whatever clothing you choose, layering helps regulate body temperatures and keeps clothing dry. When choosing your base (core) layer, think thin and lightweight (wool/poly). Your next layer could be a lightweight fleece/poly shirt or jacket. Next, add a lightweight vest or jacket. Top everything off with a waterproof or water/wind resistant layer. This system makes it easy to peel and adjust layers as you go.

When getting ready to make your way to the hut, you may feel a bit chilled at the trailhead. Resist starting out wearing too many layers. Start out cold. Once you begin snowshoeing, skiing or biking, your bodies engine will heat you up quick. If you begin to sweat too much, then it is time to peel off another layer. Layering also applies to your hands, face, and feet. Keeping you and your layers as dry as possible is always a top priority.

If adventuring in the cold is new for you, taking time to practice your layering system is valuable. Everyone tolerates temperatures differently. For instance, women tend to have colder fingers and toes. Figuring out what works ahead of time to keep your digits toasty can make all the difference.

Other key ingredients when temps dip low:

Hand or Toe Warmers: These single-use packs activate when exposed to air. They slip into your gloves or boots and last for hours. (gear nerd alert – here is a great article on how these little guys work)

Extra clothes: Having a backup base-layer or mid-layer can help if you get too sweaty. Changing into dry clothes can mean the difference between staying comfortable in the elements or becoming hypothermic.

Cover your face: Face masks, Balaklava or a scarf. If the wind is blowing hard, covering all exposed skin is important. Frost-nip or frostbite can happen when skin is exposed to cold wind. Luckily, an easy remedy is making sure skin stays covered.

Water: Staying hydrated keeps your body warmer – promise. Water freezes, but gear companies have thought of everything. Insulated water bottle holders or Insulated water bladders & hoses will help to keep water from freezing. A cool tip- keep your water bottle turned upside down. This helps keep the cap from freezing so it can still open to take a sip.

Huts are heated: Warm wood stoves, radiant floor heat, gear drying rooms and hot chocolate. Once you arrive at the hut, you are able to quickly warm up and reflect on what you have accomplished.

Enjoy the winter & we will see you on the trails.

For more information on what items you will need at the huts, be sure to check the packing list.

Chewonki has lost a legend: Byron, a barred owl (Strix varia) whose dignity, serenity, and beauty held the attention of approximately 80,000 Traveling Natural History Program participants over the course of her lifetime, died on January 6. A long life for a barred owl in captivity is generally about 23 years; Byron was 27.

In 1990, during her first year, someone, for reasons unknown, shot Byron in the right wing. The story might have ended there but somebody else found the wounded owl and delivered it to Brunswick veterinarian Amy Wood. The wing was irretrievably damaged. Wood knew the bird might not survive amputation and if it did, it would never fly again; but it would almost certainly die without amputation.

Wood took off the wing. After the operation, the owl was delivered to Chewonki to recuperate in an aviary alongside other non-releasable (due to permanent incapacitations of one kind or another) wild animals that the Traveling Natural History Program staff care for and integrate into educational programs. She had already acquired the name Lord Byron from a passing reference someone made to the English Romantic poet who wrote, “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more…” When it became clear the owl was female, Lord was dropped. Byron stuck.

“I remember Byron’s arrival at Chewonki,” former Chewonki naturalist Lynne Flaccus recalls.  “We opened the box and looked down into those dark, beautiful eyes and bright yellow beak and she didn’t make a peep. No bill clapping, no defensive behaviors. She just stepped up onto a glove and looked around. We were all amazed…Tough little nugget she was!”

The owl recovered, then thrived. Staff found her easy to work with and self-possessed in front of crowds. She became a star, accompanying Chewonki educators all over Maine and beyond as they presented natural history lessons in schools, libraries, veterans’ homes, elder housing — wherever there was a request for owl education. Over the past four years, she appeared in front of an average of 153 audiences every year.

“Her personality was majestic, really mellow,” says Emma Balazs, program coordinator. “She was a favorite of all of us because of that extraordinary personality and her tolerance for any situation…She fostered a deep connection.”

Fellow educator Jessica Woodend noticed that connection too. “She had a way of causing an emotional reaction in people who met her,” says Woodend. “I think people responded so well because of her calm and peaceful demeanor…At times of stress, I would go visit Byron in the hope that her calmness was contagious. Knowing her changed me, and while I was teaching others about her, I was learning from her every day.”

“She was one of the sweetest, gentlest animals I’ve ever known,” adds Siobhan Prout, another member of the Chewonki staff. “She spent 27 years as an ambassador for her species and Chewonki and inspired tens of thousands of students and adults to appreciate the beauty, strength, and resilience of the natural world.”

She was the owl of choice for training new Traveling Natural History Program staff, patiently putting up with dozens of young educators slowly learning to work with live animals. Educator Matt Weeks remembers “her tolerance of our slower and more cautious movements as we learned…We try not to anthropomorphize too much, but I always thought of Byron as the kind, patient elder helping to show us the ropes. She helped me become more patient and kind with students learning something new.”

Byron modeled in Maine Coast Semester art teacher Sue West’s drawing classes for many years. Laila Brady, a student in the 5-6 class at the Elementary School at Chewonki, recently made an illustrated book about the owl’s life. Countless Chewonki campers and Outdoor Classroom students got to know her. In short, she was a Chewonki celebrity.

Balazs notes that “After overcoming her difficult beginning, she inspired students of every age to learn about and care for the natural world. It’s an amazing thing.” There are two other barred owls living at Chewonki and they will take Byron’s place in programs, but a generation of Mainers will not forget Byron.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology website describes the barred owl as an “attractive owl with soulful brown eyes and brown-and-white-striped plumage, [that] can…pass completely unnoticed as it flies noiselessly through the dense canopy…” Early on, Byron lost her ability to fly. As a teacher, she soared.

(Editor’s note: Under today’s laws, birds with injuries requiring amputation of a wing at the elbow or above are euthanized.)

As we count down to the last day of the year, here’s 12 of our favorite memories from 2017:

Did you have an amazing Chewonki moment we missed? Let us know! Email alumni@chewonki.org or visit our Facebook page. We might include your tale in next year’s Chronicle!