My name is Melanie. Three years ago I chanced upon Bill Coperthwaite's book,
A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity, while visiting The Good Life Center in Harborside, Maine. At the time I didn't know what a yurt was and I certainly didn't imagine ever living in one. After pecking away at this book for the next several months and having Bill's teachings resonate so strongly, my husband and I started thinking about dramatically changing our life path. We wrote Bill Coperthwaite a letter, bought his wooden tapered
, went to visit him, and started talking about setting up a workshop with him to build our own wooden yurt.
We found land on the Blue Hill peninsula in Maine, cleared a spot for a home, and put up a 24' White Mountain yurt to live in while my husband milled the wood we had cleared based on the materials list Bill wrote up for us. Boards started stacking up and we kept making regular treks out to Bill's home, helping with his projects and moving ever closer to our workshops.
As many of you know, Bill passed away in a car accident last November. Perhaps more than ever, we were intent on carrying this project through. Thankfully Michael Iacona was willing to take on leading our yurt workshops. He had traveled the world apprenticing under Bill at other workshops, and had even stepped in to lead parts.
As we all carry this forward, I remember back to when we were first starting down this path, wishing we could take part in a wooden yurt building workshop (more than the little bit we had while helping Bill and Mike re-roof the small Good Life Center yurt). We might have a few openings in our upcoming workshops before we max out, and I want to invite those of you interested to take part.
The workshop dates are:
Week 1: August 18-23 (break day on 24th) - this week is almost at max capacity
Week 2: August 25-30
Week 3: October 6-11 (break day on 12th)
Week 4: October 13-18
The work time runs about 9am-5pm each day. Ideally helpers are there for several day stretches to get into a rhythm together. There is space to set up tents on site and there will be a communal fire most nights. Meals/snacks will be provided. Children are also welcome (Bill refused to lead a workshop where they were excluded).
We will be building a three-tier wooden tapered yurt that Bill designed and Mike helped finalize. The workshops will offer insight into the Yurt Foundation's tapered
that are still being offered through Mike.
If you are interested in the workshops, please send a note to circle.in.maine at gmail specifying which dates, a bit about who you are, what your interest is, etc. Likewise, a bit more about us here:
circlein.wordpress.com
Best,
Melanie
Wooden Tapered Yurt Building Workshops
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