Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: In Wisconsin #916

Air Date: February 24, 2011

Patty Loew:

Welcome to “In Wisconsin.” I’m Patty Loew. This week, we head North where this newly renovated building is a museum so unique, it’s attracting visitors from around the world.

Jill Dean:

I’ve just been astounded at what has happened in Spooner.

Patty Loew:

We tip our hat to a Wisconsin invention.

Man:

Thats really the hat that we have today is a baseball hat with ear flaps.

Patty Loew:

The Stormy Kromer is Northwood chique.

Man

I cant imagine that this hat will ever go out of style.

Patty Loew:

And you might see those hats this weekend at North Americas largest cross country ski race.

Our quest environmental reporting project shows you how climate change could threaten the Birkebeiner.

Those reports next on “In Wisconsin.”

Announcer:

Major funding for In Wisconsin is provided by the people of Alliant Energy.

Who bring safe, reliable, and environmentally friendly energy, to keep homes, neighborhoods and life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy, were on for you. And Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee, Oshkosh, and Minneapolis. A veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals.

Patty Loew:

Youve probably heard the line from the move, Field of Dreams — If you build it, he will come. Its often misquoted as, if you build it, they will come. Which is actually a better way to introduce our first report. Some enthusiastic volunteers set out to create a place so unique, visitors would be drawn to a tiny Northern town. In Wisconsin reporter Liz Koerner shows how they floated that idea in Spooner.

Liz Koerner:

Jamie Dunn dreamed of coming in from the cold.

Jamie Dunn:

All of us have done it in our garages in freezing cold weather.

Liz Koerner:

What theyve been doing is teaching.

Man:

You heat it up?

Man:

You can. You can warm it up.

Jamie Dunn:

This gave us a lot better venue to do that in.

Liz Koerner:

Dunn and other volunteers like Mike Johnson wanted a larger, warmer space to teach canoe building. So they spent two dirty, dusty years renovating this building.

Man:

This was a feed mill and it had been abandoned and pretty much infested with the kind of critters that hang out in abandoned feed mills. We gutted this place. We basically tore all of the walls and insulation out.

Jamie Dunn:

We had a number of volunteers that showed up once and realized how bad it was and didn’t show up until we were putting it all back together. But that’s all good.

Liz Kroener:

The city of Spooner, lead by a local businessman Mort Dahl, made it possible by buying this abandoned building and supplying materials and some skilled labor for the renovation. The city invested a total of $200,000 in this project, but got much more than just a workshop. The volunteers also created the Wisconsin Canoe Heritage Museum. Which boasts a small collection of antique and contemporary wooden canoes. Allen Craig is the curator.

Allen Craig:

One of the really unique things about the collection was that it was a museum ready to go. I mean, it spanned, the entire time line, it spanned all the regional building traditions.

Liz Kroener:

Most of the boats came from Jeff and Jill Dean, a Madison couple who had accumulated an astonishing 27 canoes.

Jill Dean:

A lot of different things lead to how I acquired a total of 27 at one time.

Liz Kroener:

One of them was their lifelong love of canoeing.

Jill Dean:

Wooden canoes are just silent in the water.

Jeff Dean:

It’s just a pleasure to be on the water in a wooden canoe.

Jill Dean:

And the grain of the wood, the patina it gets with time, its just a beautiful material.

Liz Kroener:

The Deans started their canoe collecting odyssey in the late seventys when they documented the construction of a birch bark canoe for Wisconsin Trails Magazine. The canoe was made by Madisonian Tom MacKenzie.

Jill Dean:

And we followed the process with him starting in the spring in northern Minnesota when he was gathering the spruce roots from these swamps. By the end of the summer, he had completed this canoe.

Liz Kroener:

They continued to buy wooden canoes in part to support struggling craftsman like those at Wisconsin’s Freedom Boat Works. But also to collect examples of historically significant work, boats made by well-known builders like Vaillancourt, Garis and Morris.

Jill Dean:

So if we found one of those canoes, we — I in particular, I just wanted to have it. I think they are beautiful.

:

One of the most famous and possibly the most valuable boat in this collection was made by Rushton.

Allen Craig:

Rushtons often referred to as the stradivarius of canoe builders. So what were looking at it here is a Rushton Nessmuk model canoe that was built some time between 1906 and 1916, early 1917, when Rushton went out of business. This is wood on wood which makes it extremely difficult to build, but also extremely light and extremely beautiful.

Liz Kroener:

A canoe made in the 1980’s has an addition that might surprise you. A sail. The first sailing canoes were designed for an activity that was popular around the turn of the twentieth century.

Allen Craig:

They called them poor man’s yachts. Families would actually hire sailors to sail their boats and sit and watch the races much like horse racing.

Liz Kroener:

The museum also displays a few canoes not donated by the Deans, including a pair of Brule river boats used by fishing guides. The guide used a long pole instead of a paddle and paying customers, including President Calvin Coolidge, cast their lines in comfort.

Allen Craig:

They are perfectly, perfectly suitable for what they do.

Liz Kroener

But it was the Dean’s offer of their collection that spurred the city of Spooner to support this museum. The timing was right for the Deans too. They no longer used most of the canoes and wanted to share their beauty and history with others.

Jill Dream

What I was dreaming of was to find a museum that would take them all. And they could stay together. I didn’t want to break up my little family around the countryside.

Liz Kroener

The Deans supplied so many canoes to the new museum that they are already over capacity, using the rafters for additional display. The hope is to add more space and more canoes over time. And even though the museum is only open in the warmer months, theyve made a good start in returning the citys investment, attracting more than 1,000 visitors in their first short season. And with canoe building classes adding to their bottom line, the Wisconsin Heritage Canoe Museum is a testament to a community willing to work hard to make a dream come true.

Jill Dean:

I’ve just been astounded at what has happened in Spooner.

Patty Loew:

Every season, they will change the display. Next year features Sigurd Olson. In August, they plan to raffle that canoe they were constructing. For more information about the museum and its canoe building classes, check out our web site at wpt.org. And then scroll down and click on In Wisconsin. Our next report centers around a Northwoods fashion statement. Call it up North chique. It’s the Stormy Kromer hat. You know, the one with the flaps you can pull down over your ears. It’s been keeping heads warm and turning heads for more than 100 years. In Wisconsin reporter Jo Garrett ventures North where this unique invention has not only thrived but survived brutal winters in Hurley.

Jo Garrett:

Yeah, it’s cold.

Man:

It must be around zero with a wind chill of about 20 below.

Jo Garrett:

The north woods hub of Hurley, Wisconsin and its sister city of Ironwood, Michigan. It’s the kind a place where snowmobilers gas up on Main Street.

Man:

And I can feel the wind howling up in my earflaps here.

Jo Garrett:

The kind of place that knows for cold. And hows the kromer doing?

Man:

Just fine, just fine.

Jo Garrett:

The Kromer. The bulwark against the blizzard of the winter. It is the hat of the North, known by many names.

Man:

We used to call it the Yooper Cap.

Man:

It was a railroad hat.

Jo Garrett:

It is also known in certain parts as the Kromer Domer. The official name is the Stormy Kromer blizzard cap. Seen in stores and on heads across the North.

Man:

You want a red one? Maybe some day we will get you one.

Jo Garrett:

The self-described biggest fan of the Kromer is this man, Bob Jacquart of Ironwood.

Bob Jacquart:

I absolutely love this hat. I love the hat. I wore one all my life. This is the Kromer. Of course you want to buy it! I mean, you want to buy it because it’s a great hat. And of course youve wornit for 20 years just like Ive had mine for 20 years.

Jo Garrett:

People hang on to their Kromers.

Man:

This is the original kromer. I bought it from Milberts, John Milberts store in Ironwood.

Man:

Probably 15, 20 years Ive had them.

Jo Garrett:

Kromers are part of the family.

Bob Jacquart:

This is my gramps that I never knew. And well this is uncle king. The fun part is they went rabbit hunting with white shirts and ties on and chrome — kromers. The dress of choice.

Jo Garrett:

Kromers are part of their history.

Bob Jacquart:

This is the Erspamer family. This is Teddy whos now, I believe, 72. Theyre all wearing Kromers.

Jo Garrett:

Ted Erspam, 62 years later, still stuck on kromers.

Ted Erspam:

We all kind of grew up with them. I had them as a young kid. Went hunting, I had my kromer. Something my dad gave me so Ive kind of it for years and years.

Bob Jacquart:

Hell tell you that this is his family —

Jo Garrett:

The Kromer is an old hat. A 100-year-old hat invented in 1903 by Kaukana native, Stormy Kromer. His story is celebrated in a children’s Golden book.

Bob Jacquart:

But right here, this says, Mr. Puffer Bill is really George Stormy Kromer who worked for the Chicago Northwestern Railroad in Wisconsin.

Jo Garrett:

Stormy was a railroad man who loved baseball. Add the bitter winds of the Wisconsin winter and the combination lead to this classic creation.

Bob Jacquart:

So he had an idea to put some earflaps on the baseball hat basically. And thats basically what we have today: a baseball hat with earflaps.

Jo Garrett:

And that elegant design has lasted for over 100 years. Clearly, the Kromer has staying power.

Bob Jacquart:

Grandpa put it on in early fall and took it off in late spring. You know, up here, it’s a nine-month hat.

Jo Garrett:

It’s a patented, cool-down, ear band system thats the secret to the supreme comfort of this warm companion. For 100 years sails were steady. A company in Milwaukee churned out Kromers and all was well until year 2002 Jackel calls the fateful day.

Bob Jacquart:

I was sitting in a coffee shop and the local dealer, Mark, from the Hobby Wheel in Ironwood, said to me, can you believe they quit making Kromers?

Jo Garrett:

No more Kromers?

Bob Jacquart:

I dont know why. My immediate reaction was, can you get me the phone number?

Jo Garrett:

Now, this wasnt just any old phone call because Bob Jacquart isnt your average Kromer fan. He’s also the owner of Jacquart Fabrics, a business in Ironwood that employs over 170 people and has a 30-year history of making all kinds of objects, from awnings to dog beds out of fabric. These people know their way around the sewing machine. Who better to create Kromers.

Bob Jacquart:

This thing belongs here. It’s almost like it came home.

Jo Garrett:

Jacquart bought the rights to make the Stormy Kromer blizzard cap. The Yooper Hat is now manufactured in the U.P. but marketed nationwide, with great results. Orders are pouring in. The Kromer has been picked up by countless catalogs.

Bob Jacquart:

Id like to see one out of 10 people in the united states know what a Kromer is. I would love that.

Jo Garrett:

And in one year, sales have tripled. They plan a few changes, new colors for example. But they feel it’s essential to keep the Kromer owner in mind. They call him toyble.

Bob Jacquart:

We call this person the old hat wearer, a toyble. So we always say, whats toyble going to think? What will toyble think? And we were worried about toyble.

Man:

This one was my birthday present. I got this one, maybe ten years ago. And this one, I got last summer. I got enough for as long as I live now.

Jo Garrett:

Some objects are tied to memories, to places, to people, to share times. Jacquart shares a story.

Bob Jacquart:

She said, when my husband died in 1983, his fishing buddies came by the house three days after the funeral and asked for his red Kromer and took it out on Isle Royal and buried it in his memory. And because that was his favorite place to fish. I have dear memories of Uncle King and I can remember the hat hanging on the pig. I can remember it being there and the old black ones in the warehouses hanging with the sawdust on them. I see this another 100 years unless somehow modern medicine changes the shape of the person’s head, I can’t imagine that this hat will ever go out of style.

Patty Loew:

The Story Kromer has been around almost as long as the World Champion Green Bay Packers. And there is, appropriately enough, a green and gold title town Stormy Kromer to keep Packer fans warm. This is it. So far, no reports of the players sporting the Stormy Kromer. There will be a few of those hats at North Americas largest cross country ski race this weekend. The legendary American Birkebeiner covers fifty kilometers. Since the first race in 1973, the Birky it’s been shortened six times and canceled once due to poor conditions. This week, as part of our Quest Environmental Reporting Project, Finn Ryan, with the Educational Communications Board introduces you to a founding member of the Birky and shows you the impact climate change is having on this beloved ski race in Hayward.

Man:

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go!

John Kotar:

Guns go off. Off you go. My name is John Kotar. I am one of the founders of the American Birkebeiner. And I am welcoming you to our race. Birky is now a very different thing even than it was in the early days. The growth of this race is almost impossible to comprehend. The first year, there were 35 starters. And this year, we are crossing 8,000. It’s happening. It’s an event. Far bigger than simply ski event from here to there. I will tell you the electricity you will feel connected with others. Everybody is coming in with great excitement, anticipation, optimism about everything. You can’t help but being swept in this. You will see people ahead of you continuously, like a wall. You look back and unbelievable, this mass, this long snake is going as far as the eye can see. And yeah, I know, the clock is running. I don’t loaf. So feed stations, of course, you always anticipating grabbing a cup, ski poles still on. Its very clumsy. Mostly, you will spill everything.

Man:

It’s a hot one. Its free.

Man:

You got some fifteen there?

Man:

Ive got blue and Ive got whites. But they say the blue has been working best on the track.

Man:

Okay.

Man:

Good luck, guys.

John Kotar:

Now, you aiming at those big hills and youre working hard. And I think it’s up and down emotionally. You may have to slow down. You may have to stop. You are so fried, but you can barely move and yet, you can. You find something else. Now, you are going down. You are descending in one beautiful hill after another. Main Street is pulling you in. You slug through that sugar. It’s packed with people.

Announcer:

James Daggit of Minneapolis. John Kotar of Eau Claire.

Announcer:

Not John Kotar. Hey you guys, 9004, is wearing one of those magic outfits. John is only one of three people to finish every single Birkebeiner.

John Kotar:

Theres always something connected to the Birky. It is a way of life. Right now it’s almost unthinkable. But, if we did lose this in a couple of decades, the loss would be horrendous. Cynical people might say, oh, come on it’s just a sport. Big deal. There is something else. But it isn’t just that. It would affect the region, the way they see this neck of the woods up here. So, I try not to think about it all that much. We can have the race with 3 or 4 inches with the right temperature. When the two combine, higher temperature and little snow, then you really can’t do it.

Patty Loew:

The regional economic impact of the Birkebeiner could suffer as a result of climate change. In 2010, the Birky drew approximately 8,000 skiers, 2,000 volunteers and more than 15,000 spectators. The race will generate $4 million for Sawyer County this weekend. Wisconsin Public Television along with our partners have developed a website called QuestWisconsin.org for a multimedia approach to environmental recording. We invite you to check it out for additional reports and research, that’s QuestWisconsin.org. For some, warmer weather can’t arrive soon enough. Especially if you burn your own wood. It’s that time of the year when the days are getting longer. And as the calendar pages turn, you stop and stare to calculate if that shrinking wood pile is going to last. Farmer turned author, Michael Perry, is doing just that. He’s back this week with another humorous essay from Eau Claire county.

Michael Perry:

How are you doing? Welcome to the family woodshed. The reason I call it the family woodshed, is because my dad help me put in the foundation and the wood walls, my brother, Mills, helped me put on the siding and lets see, our friend, Carissa, helped paint it and my neighbor, Jeremy, helped me put the tin on the roof and my wife and two daughters helped put the wood in the woodshed. I have to work on my shot. Most of all, I’m just grateful we had a roof over our firewood this year. This is the first year on the farm that I didn’t have to dig it out of the snow. And we had a lot of snow this year. Its pretty much finished, although as you can see, we are missing the door there. And there’s no door over here either. Although, Ive got the lovely Farm and Fleet tarp hard at work. It keeps the snow out. Ill get those doors on maybe next year. What happened is I ran out of friends and relatives. I think we are in pretty good shape this year. That stuff over there. That was from the county. The county trimmed back the road here and me and the Zeke Brothers got out the old buzz saw and we buzzed that stuff off. That was fun. When I grew up, buzz saws were common and there are all these old timers and they have buzz saw stories. And pretty much the punch line to any buzz saw story was something like this. Over here, Ive got a piece of white pine. We don’t burn a lot of white pine. It’s fun to watch burn but it goes real fast. Its kind of like burning firecrackers. It’s a quick deal. I had a couple of years where the calendar and the wood pile were meeting at rather abrupt intersection. We are at that time of year where a guy comes out and you do this 3-d calculus where you lay an imaginary calendar over the stack of the wood and decide if you have enough cubic cellulose to make it through. I think we will be fine.

Patty Loew:

Michael Perry is a regular contributor for “In Wisconsin” and has done video essays on his chicken shacks, snow tunnels and even the family dump to name a few. If youd like to see more of his work, just go to our website, wpt.org and click on “In Wisconsin.” Now, here is a look at our reporters are working on for the next edition of In Wisconsin. It’s a phenomenon known as black ice on Lake Mendota in Madison.

Man:

At this time of the year, we will get a lot of inquiries. Like I saw this under the ice, whats wrong?

Patty Loew:

What causes this ice to be so crystal clear, you can see fish swimming below the surface?

Liz Koerner

This is In Wisconsin reporter, Liz Koerner. Losing your voice could mean losing your job.

Woman:

I was really concerned that I wasn’t going to be able to teach anymore.

Liz Koerner:

Therapists at the UWs Voice and Swallow Clinic hold out hope for anyone who struggles to be heard.

Liz Koerner:

And you will feel the heat as we take you inside a raging fire. It’s the stage firefighters fear most. And well show you how firefighters are trained in the heat of battle. And a preview of our new “In Wisconsin” special called Our Birds.

Woman:

If we can save the bird here, we can save the bird there.

Patty Loew

Join us for those In Wisconsin reports next Thursday at 7:30, right here on Wisconsin Public Television. If you are online this week, we invite you to take a look at our interactive blog called the Producers Journal. It’s updated each day by the people who work in front of the camera and behind the scenes. You will find out in advance about special projects and the places we have been. It’s all in the Producer’s Journal at wpt.org. Just click on “In Wisconsin” and look for this picture. Finally this week, a trip to Blue Mound State Park. Did you know it sits on top of the tallest hill in Wisconsin measuring in at 1,716 feet? The park is about 25 miles West of Madison. And features a pair of observation towers giving you views of the Wisconsin River Valley and the Baraboo Range. It’s a great place to find peace and solitude in any season right here in Wisconsin. Captions produced by riverside captioning company www.closed-captioning.com