Genre Oral Narrative, Tradition

Language English

Country of Origin United States

Informant Dru Falco

Date Collected February 25, 2018

Collected by Laura Jeliazkov

Informant Data

Dru Falco is a senior at Dartmouth College, originally from Long Island, New York. Dru never hiked before coming to Dartmouth, but her First-Year Trips leader was head of the Cabin and Trail (CnT) sub club of the Dartmouth Outing Club, and encouraged her to join. Now she is chair. Dru likes to run, knit, hike and read interesting novels in her free time. She has never worked explicitly for Lodge Crew, but she has been heavily involved in Dartmouth first-year Trips for the past couple of years all the same. She was a member of the Trips directorate two years ago. She led contradance nights last year. Her favorite thing about hiking is how it makes her feel – good about herself, and good about her community.

Contextual Data 

Dartmouth First-Year Trips culminate at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, at the base of Mount Moosilauke in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. An assembly of upperclassmen – affectionately called the ‘Lodge Croo’ – are there to welcome, and ‘initiate,’ the Trippees back into [Dartmouth] civilization, after their outdoor explorations.

Part of the welcoming ceremony is a three-course dinner in the main dining hall, followed by a scary story. The scary story told is one most infamous. It is one which has been told for nearly all the decades of student gatherings on Mount Moosilauke. It is known – or at least has been heard – by most every Dartmouth undergraduate student. It is also known amongst some of the other outdoor communities of the Moosilauke region – such as youth nature camps, and girl scout / boy scout troops.

The Doc Benton story is a long-winded oral history. It has never been entirely written down, but there does exist a small cheat sheet. The story may only be told by an official designated storyteller – and this cheat sheet is passed down amongst them. There is much room for personal add-ons or variations. The story may last for hours – though in recent years its length has been more conservative.

Item

There is a boy, named Thomas Benton, who is really smart. He goes through all of the education that the village which he lives in has to offer. There is nothing more for him to be taught. And so they send him to a judge, who lives on the other side of the mountain, to continue his education. Then he learns everything which the judge has to offer. And so the village pools together the money for Thomas Benton to be sent to Germany, to study. There, he becomes interested in alchemy, and the study of how to live forever. When he has completed his education there, he returns to the village, and establishes himself as the village doctor. He marries, settles down and has a child. However, he hits some bad fortune, and his wife and child die from smallpox. This drives Thomas Benton mad. He moves to the edge of the woods, and no one sees or hears from him anymore.

One night a woman calls her daughter in for dinner: but the child does not respond. The woman looks out the window to see a dark figure carrying her daughter away into the woods. She assembles the whole village: they take their pitchforks and chase the figure to the edge of a ravine. Here they reach a standoff. They try to stop him, but are unsuccessful, and Thomas Benton throws the girl to her death.

Significance

This story is a piece of knowledge common to the Dartmouth student. It serves to link the Dartmouth folk group together.

http://raunerlibrary.blogspot.com/2010/09/legend-of-doc-benton.html 

Genre Ritual

Language English

Country of Origin United States

Informant Jessie Colin

Date Collected March 7, 2018

Collected by Laura Jeliazkov

Informant Data

Jessie Colin is a senior at Dartmouth College. She grew up in Northern California, and likes to be outside in any capacity – hiking, mountain biking, climbing, and much more. These are ways for her to appreciate her humanness, and existence, in the world. She also enjoys teaching others, both about the outdoors and about design. She is a Human-Centered Design major – a major of her own design. What is most important to her is the ability to unplug and to take a step away from the hub of modern life.

Contextual Data 

Many of the Upper Valley trails are a part of the Appalachian Trail. Hikers of the Appalachian Trail are referred to as thru-hikers. Their presence does quite a lot to influence the overarching culture of the Upper Valley trail for native residents. There is built and enforced a deep love and appreciation for the outdoors and for being a part of – and one with – it. The following is a piece which our informant brought with her from her own family folklore, in the West Coast outdoors – but has since shared with her friends here at Dartmouth – and has also seen, of various similar manifestations, as an element of the hiking traditions endemic to the Upper Valley.

Item

At certain points of a hike, the trail will open up, or there will be a break in the trees, and a grand view will open up. At these points, Jessie will have a ‘namaste moment’, in which she will stop, place her hands in prayer position at the center of the chest, and bow her head. It is a moment, she says, to pause and have some silence. It is a moment to acknowledge that you are part of a greater system: it does not belong to you, but it is a part of you all the same. Most all hikers cognizant and appreciative of their environment will have intentional moments such as these.

Significance 

This is a piece of folklore which is a moment to acknowledge the being of a part of folklore.

Genre Material, Item Folklore

Language English

Country of Origin United States

Informant Jessie Colin

Date Collected March 7, 2018

Collected by Laura Jeliazkov

Informant Data

Jessie Colin is a senior at Dartmouth College. She grew up in Northern California, and likes to be outside in any capacity – hiking, mountain biking, climbing, and much more. These are ways for her to appreciate her humanness, and existence, in the world. She also enjoys teaching others, both about the outdoors and about design. She is a Human-Centered Design major – a major of her own design. What is most important to her is the ability to unplug and to take a step away from the hub of modern life.

Contextual Data 

The bandanna is a very prominent feature in the Upper Valley – and any – hiker’s toolset. It is both worn and carried.

Item

Our informant cited specifically her first discovery of the utility and versatility of this folkloric item as during a month-long hike in Wyoming. Her trip leader hung always the same bandanna on the outside of her pack. Our informant was curious, and when she inquired of its purpose, was told it was a ‘pee rag.’

This bandanna was a means by which to wipe after going in the woods. This certainly serves an essential purpose; but, our informant tells us, this is only one among many of the reasons for hikers to carry their bandannas. Hikers carry their bandannas to serve as a sweat rag; as material for an emergency splint; as a napkin; as a cleaning rag; as a fashion statement; even as marking as a member of a specific folk group (boy scouts, girl scouts, political statements). The scrap of cloth will always be there for them. In the Upper Valley, the wearing or carrying of a bandanna has come to be seen as a mark of someone outdoorsy, or earthy.

The leader recommended that all the others carry one themselves; our informant has done so since. Not as a pee rag, specifically, but as whatever she may need it for.

Significance

Items commonly held among a group of people may signify membership in a similar folk group, without necessarily serving the similar purpose.

https://andrewskurka.com/2013/female-hygiene-guide-tips/

Genre Material, Item Folklore

Language English

Country of Origin United States

Informant Dru Falco

Date Collected February 25, 2018

Collected by Laura Jeliazkov

Informant Data

Dru Falco is a senior at Dartmouth College, originally from Long Island, New York. Dru never hiked before coming to Dartmouth, but her First-Year Trips leader was head of the Cabin and Trail (CnT) sub club of the Dartmouth Outing Club, and encouraged her to join. Now she is chair. Dru likes to run, knit, hike and read interesting novels in her free time. She has never worked explicitly for Lodge Crew, but she has been heavily involved in Dartmouth first-year Trips for the past couple of years all the same. She was a member of the Trips directorate two years ago. She led contradance nights last year. Her favorite thing about hiking is how it makes her feel – good about herself, and good about her community.

Contextual Data 

The Cabin and Trail club is a very close-knit Dartmouth community, who shares much in the way of their love for the outdoors. They have a long history of stories – often humorous – from the trail.

Item

Particularly humorous and salient incidents – often pertaining to specific individuals of the Cabin and Trail club – will be translated into a Cabin and Trail ‘award.’ For example: if at a Woodsmen’s Meet student Ronald B. Shores ’76 did a jig at the announcement of Dartmouth’s win, but made a fool of himself and his dancing skills, there is born the “Ronald B. Shores Golden Feet Award.” These awards are all fashioned out of or carved onto pieces of wood, and decorated with other various color and embellishment. The collection of such awards lines the walls and covers the shelves of the basement of Robinson Hall. The Cabin and Trail club holds their weekly meeting there, for arranging future, and reporting on past, hikes. Humorous incidents from the trail will be shared, and a relevant award selected from the wall and symbolically ‘awarded,’ for the evening, to the subject of the incident.

Significance 

This folklore links the past of the Cabin and Trail folk group to the present. It enforces, also, community amongst the current members themselves.

Genre Joke, Prank; Tradition, Rite of Passage

Language English

Country of Origin United States

Informant Adam Burnett

Date Collected March 7, 2018

Collected by Laura Jeliazkov and Robin Jayaswal

Informant Data

Adam Burnett is a senior at Dartmouth College. He grew up in New Hampshire, and is very pleased to have done so. When indoors, at Dartmouth, he studies physics and takes jazz piano lessons. When outdoors, he is an avid birder and a savant of local plants and wildlife. He is greatly involved in the Cabin and Trail community. He has led a First-Year hiking trip two times. His favorite thing about being outdoors is being in the presence of such an abundance of fine, beautiful detail, at such a wide range of scales.

Contextual Data 

Before coming to Dartmouth, students are encouraged to go on ‘First-Year Trips’ – these are four-day treks into the wildernesses of New Hampshire. Hiking trips carry a strong tradition of prank-playing. The upperclass Trip leaders have a collection of tricks – all traditions – which they will pull on the Trippees along the way.

Item

One of these is entitled, ’Canadian ground fruit.’ Leaders bring along with them a pineapple. At some point along the trip, they will find an opportunity to escape the group, hike ahead, and bury this pineapple somewhere alongside the trail, within sight. When the group eventually passes by this point, the leader will point it out excitedly. “Look, a Canadian ground fruit!” They will proceed to try to convince the Trippees that this is a very rare plant, endemic to the White Mountains. The leader may dig it up, and cut it open, and offer them all a taste. They aim to keep the Trippees unsuspecting for as long as possible.

Our informant has successfully carried out the ‘Canadian ground fruit’ two times. He himself has significant knowledge of true plant lore of the White Mountains, and so was able to properly plant the seeds of deception among the group by use of ethos. The students did believe him.

Significance

This is pure tradition, that makes the culture and lore of First-Year Trips what they are. Sustaining the pranks is a rite of passage for the incoming Dartmouth students.

Genre Slang, Legend

Language English

Country of Origin United States

Informant Onshin

Date Collected March 6, 2018

Collected by Laura Jeliazkov

Informant Data

Onshin – who goes by Boon – is a cashier at the Hanover Co-op on South Park Street. She has lived in the Upper Valley region for 35 years. Before that she and her sister Sandy lived a somewhat nomadic lifestyle, hiking up and down and all over the country. Boon’s hobby is working colonial reenactments; she has worked them at locations all over the country. She takes to a colonial way of life herself: she has lived, now, by candlelight, for three years. She also lives completely plastic-free.

Contextual Data 

Mark Baker was an infamous man of Appalachia: many hikers of the Upper Valley region know of his crusades of the trail. He had a reputation as being a man who, when living on the trail, could sleep anywhere.

Item

When hikers find a suitable place at which to post up for the night, they will shout, “Found a Mark Baker!”

Significance

The carrying on of a memory – a word, phrase, name or concept – which may lose its explicit, original meaning, but which maintains its associations.