Winter Canoe Build 07: Community Shed Raising

October 18, 2020 - Belfast, ME

Today was the first community volunteer day, and what a day it was. Those gathered included Amanda, Gary, Wilder, Amy, Maya, Liz, Ben, Paige (and Scout). We fueled everyone with The Only Doughnut and Downshift Coffee, and worked on raising the walls with high spirits, a perfect autumn day, and lots of fun. You’d think that after two disassemblies and two assemblies of this structure that it would a “piece of cake” - well, it wasn’t too hard, but it didn’t flow as easy as I thought it would. We had different infrastructure (ladders/scaffolding on loan, thanks Tim!), in a new location (uneven forest floor versus level grassy park), with new people (everyone except Amanda was new to the shed-raising). Alas, this did not deter us. Our other in-house documentarian and storyteller is Wilder Nicholson, and he came up from the southern Midcoast of Maine to capture the goings-on.

All in a day’s work: we raised the 20 arched bows (most of which are on their last legs, and likely won’t survive many more takedowns and resurrections). Thanks to all who participated. It was really “all hands on deck” and I am humbled by the team effort.