Front Page News
October 19, 2011
Leopold Bench Workshop
On Saturday, October 1st, 18 hardy souls gathered in
the drizzling rain at the NALMC (Northwood Area Land Management
Collaborative) kiosk at Harmony Hill Farm to build benches. Though
the weather was dreary, the coffee was hot, the homemade pastries
were delicious and there was a vibrant, barn-raising atmosphere. At
the end of the day, all that was left of the 3 hemlock trees that
were donated from the NALMC neighborhood was a small pile of
sawdust, a few scraps of sawn wood, a few remaining slabs and 22
beautiful Leopold benches.
This workshop was inspired by the simple, yet
elegant four-board bench design that came to Aldo Leopold, a pioneer
of ecosystem land management, in the. 1930s at his farm in Baraboo,
Wisconsin. As demonstrated in the film ‘Green Fire’ (a documentary
about Leopold’s Land Ethic), Leopold’s distinctive slant-back bench
design is extremely efficient and results in very little wasted
materials
In order to transform trees into building materials,
Jesse and Tony Matras brought their portable band saw to saw the
logs into 2x8’s and 2x10’s. What was not sawed into boards was left
as bark-covered slabs for the backs of the benches so that all parts
of the logs could be utilized with little waste. Local woodworker,
Steve Winchester, then used the template he created to teach the
group how to assemble the benches.
As the group worked to assemble benches, no one
talked about Leopold directly, but the event was a living example of
the ideals of his Land Ethic. "There are two things that interest
me," Leopold said, "the relation of people to each other and the
relation of people to land." On that Saturday morning, friends and
neighbors worked together to build benches from trees in the NALMC
neighborhood, in order to give them to others to share and enjoy.
It is the hope of the NALMC neighbors that these
benches, placed in inviting locations, will give people a chance to
sit in rustic comfort to observe and reflect on the land, the
people, and their delicate connection that was central to Leopold’s
legacy. In his opinion, everything comes down to people in the end -
cooperating to achieve shared goals, educating each other about
different possibilities, and working together to bring ecological
dreams into reality. In the same spirit as NALMC’s refrain, "Working
Together Across Our Stone Walls," this hands-on workshop illustrated
how deeply connected the goals and values of NALMC are with those of
Leopold’s Land Ethic. Among the workshop attendees were members of
The Friends of NMSP, the Northwood Crankpullers, the Fairpoint
Pioneers, State of NH DRED , Northwood Conservation Commission, and
many private landowners from the NALMC neighborhood.
The benches will be placed at the Northwood Town
Hall, the Chelsey Memorial Library, Northwood Meadows State Park,
and along the 5-mile NALMC hiking trail that starts at Harmony Hill
Farm. It is the hope of the NALMC neighbors that the good will and
fellowship that created these benches – plus Leopold’s original
inspiration for their shape and strength – will inspire all those
who take rest.
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