From reporter Dan Kraker:
Inside a cheery, red building on the shore of Lake Superior, a couple dozen students are learning the centuries-old art of timber framing.
Without power saws they work the old-fashioned way, with hand tools. They hammer away at chisels, shaping mortise and tenon joinery at the ends of enormous white pine logs.
“It’s very satisfying to work with something this massive,” said Brian Belanger of Edina, Minn.
Berlanger, who recently lost his job as an electrical engineer, is in his fifth class at the North House Folk School, one of the oldest of a growing number of folk schools in the Upper Midwest. It marks its 15th anniversary this year.
People from around the country travel to the tip of the Arrowhead to learn traditional Northern crafts — everything from Scandinavian boat building to birch bark weaving to blacksmithing. In the age of iPads and Twitter, the center of low-tech handcraft has never been more popular.
(Photos by Derek Montgomery)
