TEMPLE — Ashley Hardy said ever since she learned to make a wooden spoon at a Koviashuvik Living School class, she’s been eager to learn more about natural living.

Over the past year, ever since her first class at the school, she’s replaced her paper towels with cloth, learned to can food and built a composting toilet.

“Once you start, you crave more, and you realize this is what life is,” she said.

Chris and Ashirah Knapp, who live deep in backwoods Temple on a nearly self-sustaining homestead, have recently accepted Hardy, 24, as the latest apprentice at the school.

After years of living off the land in backwoods Temple, the Knapp family decided to teach the next generation of nature lovers to make use of their environment through an immersive apprenticeship program at their school.

Four years and 20 apprentices later, the program has evolved to include a diverse curriculum, a formal application process with a two-day trial period, and a newly built hut to house the apprentices.

Advertisement

Hardy lives with her husband, Andrew Hardy, who is an officer in the Wilton Police Department, in Farmington, where she works on a dairy farm next door. She said it wasn’t until she started taking classes that she truly started to appreciate sustainable living off the surrounding land.

On the second day of her apprenticeship, before climbing up onto the roof of a under-construction outhouse to attach shingles, Hardy said there is something meditative about working with the land.

“Even though you’re working hard, you’re able to feel peace and give thanks for the gifts you get from the earth,” she said.

Chris Knapp said he and his wife, Ashirah, were trained to provide for themselves from the land around them by apprenticing in their late teenage years and into their early twenties with Ray Reitze, master Maine guide at Earthways School of Wilderness Living in Canaan.

He said the apprenticeship program is not for training the next North Pond hermit or for promoting isolationism.

Chris and Ashirah said while they live in a cellphone dead zone with no electricity, they are not trying to escape other people or the modern world. Rather, they said they are trying adopt a self-sustaining life and make of use of the earth.

Advertisement

Ashirah said they don’t expect most people who come for a class or even as an apprentice to adopt a life on their far end of the self-sustaining spectrum.

“There are pieces of what we do that they might bring back and incorporate into their life,” she said.

Apprentices can learn any of a broad spectrum of life skills, which, while depending on the season, include how to make a stove from a bucket, build a composting toilet, grow a garden, preserve food and weave baskets.

Apprentices such as Hardy don’t get paid or pay a fee for the educational opportunity. They sustain themselves by helping out around the farm.

Hardy said she is not adhering to the typical apprenticeship schedule, because she is only at the school three days a week for her two-month training, while more typical apprentices live there full time.

Hardy said the school is an inviting place to learn new skills. She said people come in unfamiliar with their lifestyle but the Knapps are patient teachers.

Advertisement

“I don’t know everything. But they’re so patient with you and understand that you don’t know what they’ve been doing for 20 years and they’re willing to meet anyone with where they’re at,” she said.

Hardy, while wearing a cross necklace, said one of her favorite aspects of the apprenticeship is learning to appreciate the environment as a gift from God.

“I feel for me that this is where he has put me and I feel closer to him,” she said.

Chris Knapp said the apprenticeship program has gradually grown into a formal process.

To get accepted into the program, prospective interns need to first visit Koviashuvik and work with the Knapps for two nights and three days. After that, they need to provide two written recommendations and write a short essay explaining whey they would be a good fit at the living school.

Apprentices work on Koviashuvik projects six days a week and there is an eight-week minimum stay.

Advertisement

Apprentices live in a dwelling adapted from the traditional Cree earth-lodge. The lodge is insulated with sod, has windows and a skylight, and a small stove for heating and cooking.

During Hardy’s two-month fall internship, she said she’ll be learning to harvest acorns and apples, preserve and harvest food, build projects such the outhouse and other crafts.

Hardy said she doesn’t have plans to pass on her skills to another apprentice, but she hopes to pass on the skills to the next generation of her family.

“I definitely want to be able to teach my kids some of these things. I think its vital to get kids involved in this type of stuff,” she said.

Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252
kschroeder@mainetoday.com


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.