North House Folk School

Central to North House educational efforts to "enrich lives and build community through the teaching of traditional northern crafts" are its year-round offerings of courses. In a typical year, over 400 classes featuring the leadership of 160+ regional artisans bring alive the stories and skills connected to traditions ranging from moose-hide mukluk making to timber frame sauna building, intro to blacksmithing to cedar-strip canoe building, green-wood bowl carving to wood-fired bread baking. Classes range in length from 4 hours to ten days, with small groups of students learning in collaboration with a highly skilled artisan instructor.

North House is fortunate to work with a key funding partner as part of its community of craft initiative which actively ofers professional development opportunities for the tradtional craft artisans who teach or collaborate with the School. These efforts include: an annual instructor retreat featuring courses, seminars, peer engagement and planning sessions; a ten- month traditional craft program internship designed to engage post-college participants interested in education and nonprofit administration; a two- year artisan development program to advance the potential of emerging artisans; and professional staff leadership for both our year-round curriculum and instructor partnerships. North House works annually with 200+ artisans at all levels of development.

Building community is also central to North House's year-round efforts, and these efforts include three key seasonal community events (wooden boat show in june, unplugged & the Folk artisan marketplace in september, winterer's gathering & arctic film festival in november), frequent public speakers at key events and aligned with key thematic program weeks, mini-workshops for first time visitors to campus, and an instructor-in-residence program. As a public service, these efforts are largely offered free of charge or at reduced rates as part of strengthening North House's connection to its local community. These community efforts engage 10,000+ individually in a typical year.