Lasting connections
College of the Atlantic and North Woods Ways
North Woods Ways co-founder Alexandra Conover Bennett ’77, center, with yellow gloves, helps a group of COA outdoor leadership students prepare for a winter trek; photo credit Morgane Saint-Cyr ’22.
By Jeremy Powers ’24
It’s the cold that wakes you up, and it’s the achy pinch of the wood plank floor that keeps you from going back to sleep. The room is silent, save for the occasional rustle, and it seems that even the birch bark canoes, hanging on the wall, slumber still in the glow of the early-morning sun. You sit up, disentangle yourself from your sleeping bag, and quietly shuffle your way through a minefield of sleeping forms and slumbering shapes. The door to the lodge squeaks a little, so you open it ever so slowly, and for a moment you stand on the porch and marvel at the glory of winter in the far north—wind-carved snowdrifts sparkling in the sun, icy arctic fingers pinching your nose and your ears, the bone-deep silence blanketing everything in a curious, intangible feeling. Your chattering teeth remind you to go back inside, and the woodstove greets you warmly as you enter, inviting you to pick out a book from the pine-clad wall on the right. You oblige, and throw your eyes across titles that tell tales of grueling expeditions north, others that describe the land and who was here before us, and at least one that tells you how to build a sauna.
For decades, Alexandra Conover Bennett ’77 and Garrett Conover ’78 used this lodge as a base for their Registered Maine Guide business, North Woods Ways. Here, they taught and practiced traditional skills in the North Woods of Maine, and provided long distance backcountry expeditions to people from all across the world. For at least 25 years, College of the Atlantic classes have been visiting and using the property for coursework, recreation, and outdoor leadership training and adventure. Now, as Conover and Conover Bennett prepare to retire, ownership of North Woods Ways is transferring to College of the Atlantic, under whose supervision it will continue as a premier resource for experiential learning in the outdoors.
“We had an approach and a uniqueness and a way of doing things, but we are not interested in cloning that in whoever comes next,” Conover says of the property, and their way of life there. “We want people to accept things that are useful, modify what’s different now, keep it flexible and evolving and growing, for the needs of whoever is currently keeping those flames. I think there is a tendency for some places to preserve the exactness of something, and I don’t think that’s necessarily good or smart.”
Conover and Conover Bennett founded North Woods Ways together in 1980, and over their 27-year career they made a lasting name for themselves with their traditional approach to traveling through untrammeled wild places. They specialize in using wood-canvas canoes and handmade wooden paddles for summer travel, and they have mastered the use of traditional ash/rawhide snowshoes, handmade toboggans, and wood-heated canvas tents for the winter. Often traveling hundreds of miles in the span of a few weeks, their expeditions attracted people from all around the world, and their techniques garnered widespread attention.
“We just kind of followed our passion and we became known for using traditional classic skills to travel in the North Woods… and we just suddenly realized that everybody else wasn’t that way, so all the journalists came flocking to us,” Conover Bennett laughs. “We didn’t ask for the attention.”
The purchase of the property was made possible by a generous donation from the Cornelia Cogswell Rossi Foundation, an organization dedicated to community needs such as healthcare, education, and environmental conservation. The main structure at the property will be renamed the Rossi Lodge in honor of the gift.
Anne Green, a Rossi Foundation board member, said she was inspired by the potential that the property has for COA and others. “We loved the concept of a winter academic basecamp, and the year-round educational component and platform for engaging surrounding schools,” Green says. “The collection of wilderness equipment, tools, and books represent a rich cultural history of the North Woods that will provide additional knowledge and learning opportunities for students.”
COA began using North Woods Ways decades ago for field trips for courses like Winter Ecology and as a training ground for the outdoor leadership program. The relationship evolved organically over the years and COA students have long been welcome guests on the property, Conover Bennett says.
“We maintained this connection with the college, just naturally, we didn’t go out of our way, it wasn’t any plan; it’s just that these were human beings that we were really fond of,” she says.
One of the most remarkable things about this moment, as the property transfers into the college’s hands, is how reciprocal the relationship has been and continues to be, Conover says.
“The college thinks we’re the legacy people, and treats us as such, but we’re saying, No, no, no… COA is the legacy. And we each think the other is the better entity of the bunch,” he says. “To me, that just speaks well of all of us.”
As part of the property transfer, Conover and Conover Bennett are donating a considerable amount of outdoor gear, including tents, axes, skis, toboggans, canoes, and other assorted camping gear.
“We’ve had so many completely generous mentors and donors and friends who’ve contributed to our venture here in all sorts of ways, and it’s just the fabric of the tradition that we are happy to contribute to,” Conover says.
Aside from being world-renowned wilderness experts and travelers, Conover and Conover Bennett both enjoy getting creative in their free time, something that has helped fill the long, dark, cold winter nights in the north country.
“Music is probably my strongest passion. I think for a few decades now, I’ve been playing at this Finnish Farmer’s Club, playing this traditional 1920’s Finnish dance music,” Conover Bennett says. “And I would say the other thing is picking walks in the woods at my own pace, not being distracted by guiding, and getting to look at stuff, study stuff, discovering freshwater jellyfish, and do some natural studies on my own.”
Conover, for his part, continues to write and hone his photography skills. “It’s all related, it all circles back to northern cultures and skill groupings and stuff that’s always fueled me, but it’s fun to be in a place now where the pace isn’t so dependent on making a living from it. In some ways it’s more fun, I can just do exactly what the primary obsessions are, the goals and interests,” he says.
Both say that welcoming so many COA community members to North Woods Ways over the years has been an inspirational, rewarding, and essential part of their adventure, and knowing that the property will continue to grow and evolve under COA’s leadership is reassuring.
“Working with COA students means so much to me,” Conover Bennett says. “Having students pitch in and help with little things here and there, eating together and hanging out, listening to them, what they talk about, think about, wonder about… their questions are just remarkable, and that just means an enormity to me.”
Conover nods in agreement. “It’s the fire that’s important,” he adds. “The fuel can change a little bit, but the fire has to keep going.”
Photos: Registered Maine Guides Alexandra Conover Bennett ’77 and Garrett Conover ’78 are the founders of North Woods Ways; COA students enjoy the warmth of the Rossi Lodge at North Woods Ways, photo credit Aliyah Zweig ’22; Alexandra Conover Bennett ’77 encounters a moose while paddling a traditional birch bark canoe in the waters of northern Maine.
