Orion March / April 2014

WORD CAME at the end of January that singer and songwriter Pete Seeger had died. Pete resided in Beacon, New York, not far from Orion’s headquarters in western Massachusetts, and for decades Orion staff members encountered Pete at musical events, festivals, gatherings, and rallies. Pete played often in the area’s coffeehouses and clubs, often in the company of another local musician, Arlo Guthrie, the son of Pete’s old friend Woody. The Clearwater, the “floating classroom” for environmental education founded by Pete, sails the nearby Hudson River. Everyone around here seems to have a story about him, and more than once we’ve seen people at local Halloween parties dressed as Pete Seeger. Pete was an Orion fan who contributed an essay to Orion’s book Thirty-Year Plan, and a few years ago…

Paula Bohince is the author of The Children and Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods. She lives in Pennsylvania. Allen Crawford designed and illustrated Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself, a hand-drawn edition of Walt Whitman’s iconic American poem. It will be published by Tin House Books this spring. Michael Raudzis Dinkel’s recent work includes The Shortened History of Alaska, a mail-art discussion of mining near salmon streams. He lives in Anchorage. Cai Guo-Qiang is from Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China, and trained in stage design at the Shanghai Theater Academy. His work, which includes drawings, installations, and performances, has been displayed around the world. Janice N. Harrington teaches creative writing at the University of Illinois. Her latest book of poetry is The Hands of Strangers: Poems from the Nursing…

Rowan Jacobsen’s report from Vermont’s Mad River Food Hub, “From Farm to Table” (November/December 2013), did an excellent job of describing the opportunities and constraints facing local food systems. One overarching challenge, it seems, is that many of these systems suffer a bit of a split personality: on the one hand, they want to provide sustainably produced food for consumers; on the other hand, they start down the slippery slope of scaling up and adding middlemen in an effort to give consumers convenience. Trying to find a balance is a challenge for any farmer or local food enthusiast. TODD ULIZIO Whitefish, Montana Lately, there has been a lot of talk in the environmental sustainability movement about community resilience, but the Mad River Food Hub’s products are pretty costly — some…

Apply now to the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers’ Conference, happening June 9–15, 2014, at the Bread Loaf campus of Middlebury College in Vermont. The 2014 faculty are Rick Bass, Jane Brox, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Camille Dungy, Maurice Manning, and Alan Weisman. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until April 1; to apply visit www.orionmagazine.org/breadloaf. Thank you for the great response to Lay of the Land, our new department featuring a variety of Orion contributors. On page 11, check out the latest reports from Sy Montgomery and others. In January, Orion sponsored the Wild & Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, California. Managing Director Madeline Cantwell helped jury the film competition and moderated a talk with author Joe Donnelly about his Orion essay “Lone Wolf” (September / October…

1. Shovel early, shovel often. Early winter. So exciting! Before the powder turns to ice, before your brain settles into stale-air mush, head out to gawk at fresh small-mammal tracks and silent still-white limbs, and make your paths. Remember to lift with your legs and pace yourself. This is only the beginning. 2. Go for a run. Jog gingerly in the icy tire tracks of pickups or the unplowed skiff on the road shoulder while flakes pile on your ballcap brim and nineteen trumpeter swans glide across the nearby lake. Wave at the neighbors and schoolkids as you pass. You’re all in this together. 3. Schedule no-whining days. Make a pact with friends. Once a week, you’ll spend the day outdoors walking, skiing, swan-watching, hauling firewood — anything, anything at…

Kelly Ramsey Fishers Island, New York IN THE LAST BITTER DAYS of March, a coyote is found dead. Poisoned is the speculation whispered outside the post office, and the Horn brothers named as likely culprits. It’s said they killed two others with meat-baited grappling hooks, and Bobby Evans’s dog treed two fisher cats near the old fort, where at dusk the fire department burns the fields, smoke gathering over the waters of the sound. On spring’s first warm night, we go out in the rain to catch the spotted salamander migration. They’re like slugs with arms, crawling glacially, and their white spots glow in the beam of our headlights. One Sunday afternoon we drive east to Money Pond, where we find a great horned owl who has appropriated an osprey…