Title: The Trail Provides

General Information about Item:

• Verbal Lore, proverb
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Scott R. Bohn
• Date Collected: 10-29-17

Informant Data:

• Scott Bohn is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2018, from Minnetonka, Minnesota. Scott was born in Mexico, but raised in Minnesota. At Dartmouth, he studies Computer Science and History, and plays club hockey. When he is older, his dream is to live in a cabin in the woods in Minnesota, next to a lake, with a dog. In his freshman summer, he participated in trail crew, a group of trail maintenance people based out of a cabin next to the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. As a result, he went on many week-long backpacking trips in the outdoors to help repair trails for the Dartmouth Outing Club.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: On long-distance hiking trails, hikers often spend days without having access to civilization or stores. As a result, when they are in need or want of something, they often need to wait days before they can somehow obtain goods from off-trail. However, trails often have hiker boxes, where people can leave goods for other people, in addition to natural resources to provide for hikers.
• Social Context: This saying would be used in situations where a backpacker has their needs fulfilled by the trail. When a hiker finds something they want or need on the trail, they would use this saying as appreciation for when good things happen on the trail.

Item:

• “The Trail Provides” is a proverb, or saying, used by backpackers to represent the way that the hiking trail often provides for the hikers in odd ways and fulfills their needs and wants. However, it’s not always in the way that they would expect, or necessarily want.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Relevant portion: [8:20 – 8:50]

Transcript of Associated file:

• “So you know, it’s just this kind of idea that if you’re kind of desperately looking for something or desperately in need of something, somehow, someway, that will come to you in some form. Maybe not in exactly the form that you were thinking, maybe it’s like your feet really hurt and so you want new shoes but instead you find a real nice stick that’s great for leaning on.”

Collector’s Comments:

• This proverb is a great representation of how nature can often provide for hikers in seemingly surprising ways.

Collector’s Name: Kyu Kim

Tags/Keywords: verbal, proverb, trail

Title: Hummus Cabot Pita

General Information about Item:

• Material Lore, food recipe
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Scott R. Bohn
• Date Collected: 10-29-17

Informant Data:

• Scott Bohn is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2018, from Minnetonka, Minnesota. Scott was born in Mexico, but raised in Minnesota. At Dartmouth, he studies Computer Science and History, and plays club hockey. When he is older, his dream is to live in a cabin in the woods in Minnesota, next to a lake, with a dog. In his freshman summer, he participated in trail crew, a group of trail maintenance people based out of a cabin next to the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. As a result, he went on many week-long backpacking trips in the outdoors to help repair trails for the Dartmouth Outing Club.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Backpackers must get creative with their food recipes as food options are relatively limited, and often the same types of food. They must carry foods that are non-perishable, which leads to a lack of variety, and a lack of fresh foods in general. Hummus and hard cheeses are popular options that add variety to meals and keep relatively in a variety of temperatures.
• Social Context: This specific recipe was mentioned when the interviewee was asked for food recipes. Backpackers and groups often share food recipes with each other to increase variety in the woods.

Item:

• The Hummus Cabot Pita is a special hiking food recipe that would not be consumed in reasonable circumstances. It is a pita bread with hummus, cabot, and sesame sticks added for texture. Due to the limitations of backpacking food, this recipe, and many other eccentric ones, are eaten by backpackers to add variety and experiment with combinations of flavors and textures.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Relevant portion: [7:15 – 7:55]

Transcript of Associated file:

• “Luckily for us, we went a week at a time so if the food could last, we could get it and bring it to our campsite and keep it there. So we didn’t have to be as light as a thru-hiker might necessarily need to be. So strangely enough, hummus tends to last about a week, week and a half so one thing that I remember pretty clearly on is pita, hummus, cabot, and that’s it. And maybe some of that, what’s that, it’s like sesame sticks, right? Whatever crack is called. Sesame sticks, maybe that thrown on for texture but I ate that maybe everyday for three months and I don’t think I ever want it again.”

Collector’s Comments:

• The creativity in food recipes stems mostly from lack of variety in backpacking, or camping foods that are lightweight and calorie-dense.

Collector’s Name: Kyu Kim

Tags/Keywords: Material, food recipe, hummus, pita, cabot

Title: Song Sharing

General Information about Item:

• Genre: Verbal/Customary Lore
  • Subgenre: Ritual, Tradition
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Scott R. Bohn
• Date Collected: 10-29-17

Informant Data:

• Scott Bohn is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2018, from Minnetonka, Minnesota. Scott was born in Mexico, but raised in Minnesota. At Dartmouth, he studies Computer Science and History, and plays club hockey. When he is older, his dream is to live in a cabin in the woods in Minnesota, next to a lake, with a dog. In his freshman summer, he participated in trail crew, a group of trail maintenance people based out of a cabin next to the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. As a result, he went on many week-long backpacking trips in the outdoors to help repair trails for the Dartmouth Outing Club.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Backpackers spend a lot of forced time together doing the same thing, which is great motivation for coming up with things to do together, and activities to pass the time, get to know each other, and have fun.
• Social Context: This tradition, or ritual, would be performed during hiking as backpackers move from site to site. It’s used to pass the time and hopefully distract themselves from the pain of hiking with a heavy pack. It also allows people to share parts of their childhood and is meant to be a fun sharing activity.

Item:

• Backpackers and hikers share songs from their childhood. Each person has songs from their childhood that they share to increase group unity and also share aspects of their childhood. Individuals share songs and teach them to the group, and the group sings them to pass the time and distract themselves from the discomfort of lugging heavy equipment up and down the mountain.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Relevant portion: [6:15 – 6:45]

Transcript of Associated file:

• “In terms of what we did along the trail, while we were walking from site to site, usually the big thing I remember is teaching each other songs. And so for me, campfire songs from camp back in the days, those were the ones I would teach. And then other people would teach different songs from their childhood that we would sing and round along the way to pass the time as we have to carry 50 to a 100-odd pounds of tools up the mountain.”

Collector’s Comments:

• This is very similar to games and activities that people play while hiking, such as Contact. I think the main motivation comes from trying to pass the time while doing a monotonous, and painful (at times) activity.

Collector’s Name: Kyu Kim

Tags/Keywords: Customary, Verbal, ritual, songs, music, childhood

Title: Leave No Trees

General Information about Item:

• Genre: Verbal Lore
  • Subgenre: Joke
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Scott R. Bohn
• Date Collected: 10-29-17

Informant Data:

• Scott Bohn is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2018, from Minnetonka, Minnesota. Scott was born in Mexico, but raised in Minnesota. At Dartmouth, he studies Computer Science and History, and plays club hockey. When he is older, his dream is to live in a cabin in the woods in Minnesota, next to a lake, with a dog. In his freshman summer, he participated in trail crew, a group of trail maintenance people based out of a cabin next to the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. As a result, he went on many week-long backpacking trips in the outdoors to help repair trails for the Dartmouth Outing Club.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: In the outdoors, there is a strict policy of “Leave No Trace”, which is a principle used to leave the natural outdoors the way you found it without altering it so that others can enjoy it as well. Hikers and backpackers in nature are supposed to carry in everything they carry out, and try not to disturb what occurs in nature without human interference.
• Social Context: When trail crew was performing trail maintenance and cutting down trees, they would say this joke. Often, trail crews try to preserve the natural beauty surrounding the trail but they may make mistakes sometimes, in which this joke would be said as it is sometimes inevitable.

Item:

• “Leave No Trees” was a joke told among the trail crew for when they cut down trees to repair and maintain the trail. It is derivative of another motto, or saying, in the outdoors, “Leave No Trace”, which is a nature conservation policy. It is a pun, as the two sayings sound very similar, and also has the same abbreviation of LNT.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Relevant portion: [5:45 – 6:15]

Transcript of Associated file:

• “I can start with a joke. One of our jokes was kind of a derivative of the Leave No trace policy of outdoorsmen. Um, where, for the benefit of the interview, where you’re not supposed to leave any evidence that you were there, you’re supposed to leave it as it were. But as trail crew, we are kind of a natural disaster as we go through and repair stuff so it turned into Leave No Trees for us. Still the same acronym, but a different connotation.”

Collector’s Comments:

• I found this joke hilarious because the Leave No Trace policy is taken very seriously in the outdoors and they creatively edited it to fit their trail crew well.

Collector’s Name: Kyu Kim

Tags/Keywords: Rule, Verbal, Joke, Nature, Preservation

Title: Drippy Rock

General Information about Item:

• Genre: Verbal Lore
  • Subgenre: Legend
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Scott R. Bohn
• Date Collected: 10-29-17

Informant Data:

• Scott Bohn is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2018, from Minnetonka, Minnesota. Scott was born in Mexico, but raised in Minnesota. At Dartmouth, he studies Computer Science and History, and plays club hockey. When he is older, his dream is to live in a cabin in the woods in Minnesota, next to a lake, with a dog. In his freshman summer, he participated in trail crew, a group of trail maintenance people based out of a cabin next to the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. As a result, he went on many week-long backpacking trips in the outdoors to help repair trails for the Dartmouth Outing Club.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: This story was shared frequently between the trail maintenance crew and mentioned frequently during hikes up Mt. Moosilauke. This rock, which had water dripping from it, was used as a milestone on the hike up in addition to providing water for the crew.
• Cultural Context: The legend of Drippy Rock was told when the informant was asked about any specific stories that he had from backpacking. Generally, water is collected from any stream or brook that can be found while hiking, and treated or filtered in some way to make it potable. Hikers also use landmarks to gauge how far they’ve come up the trail.

Item:

• Drippy Rock served as a landmark and water source for hikers going up Mt. Moosilauke. It provided especially delicious water, according to the trail crew, and provided a special morale boost. Thus, the trail crew named the rock and eventually developed a strong affection for an item that served two purposes at once.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Relevant portion: [4:38 – 5:03]

Transcript of Associated File:

• “So there was a particular rock on Ridge Trail in Moosilauke that we came to know as Drippy Rock and we came to love Drippy Rock because not only did it signify a milestone along the way towards the top of the mountain but it had very delicious water coming off of it that we refused to treat in any way because at that point.. Who cares? So Drippy Rock is a good friend of mine.”

Collector’s Comments:

• I think this rock was a good morale boost due to the delicious water. It’s interesting how something as mundane as a rock with water can become a piece of folklore if the entire group shares enthusiasm about it.

Collector’s Name: Kyu Kim

Tags/Keywords:

• Legend, Story, Verbal, water source, landmark