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chance encounters in the american southwest

2/13/2021

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This autumn was a quiet one, and with our doors mostly shuttered, the goings on at 225 N 4th St bore little resemblance to the bustling hive of activity of days past. We spent lots of time with each other, harvesting the last crop of the season, carving pumpkins, getting the rocket mass heater up and running, and hosting fam dinner theme nights (our latest and greatest, Goth Night, was a smashing success). Yet for as much as we’ve grown together, we’ve felt apart from the community and everyone in Marquette with who we shared our home, bouldering cave, and greenhouse. After nine years of friends, climbers, family, and weary travelers tramping through the door, the MCC misses good company.

Most of our current occupants moved in after the onset of the pandemic and can only imagine our home as a hub of companionship and community. December, however, brought a reunion and a reminder of the nature and function of the MCC.

As soon as classes let out for winter break, two current coopians struck out for the sandstone cliffs and canyons of the southwest. Brandon, our current president, met with a couple of high school pals to take a road trip that would land them in Red Rock Canyon while I (Fischer) joined climbers Micah, Will, and Zoe and set out for the same crags. We left with vague notions of meeting up with Ian Girard, MCC founder and patron saint, but we had no concrete plans. All we knew was that we’d be spending lots of time breathing in desert air and forming calluses under our fingers.

Through chance and good fortune, four different MCC presidents had united in Red Rock within a week of our arrival. These four were Ian, now living in Salt Lake City, Ivan Swart, who currently lives in St. George, Utah working in wilderness therapy, Bryce DeMers, the most recent former prez who just moved to Moscow, Idaho, and Brandon Caltrider, our current captain and commander. Bryce I first saw as a dark outline on the horizon—Micah recognized him as he approached through a field of boulders at Kraft, having just driven down from Oregon with a car full of climbing gear and two dozen squash. Ian and Ivan pulled into camp a few days later, Ian taking a nearby site while Ivan laid out his sleeping bag on the cracked ground beside his car.

During two weeks I spent in the desert, our paths wandered and intersected. Ivan and Ian would tackle Solar Slab while I went along with Brandon to boulder and Bryce and Micah explored Joshua Tree. All of us went to jam hands and feet into cracks at Yin and Yang while rock exacted it’s revenge on joints and skin. In the evenings some of us would share a fire and exchange stories, providing a window into past iterations of the MCC.

In those few days living alongside people who had helped to build the greenhouse I ate from, construct the bouldering cave I climb in, and grow the community that I was surrounded by, I began to appreciate the impact that almost of a decade of cooperative living has had. Ian, Ivan, Bryce and Brandon are all teachers and guides, taking time to help and encourage others and foster in them the same love of climbing and the outdoors.

Even though it’s a little more difficult for us to do that at the moment, it’s encouraging to think of all of those who have passed through the MCC and those that will in the years to come, operating as a self-sustainable living and learning environment that serves as a model for a conscientious community.

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April showers bring bread so sour

4/1/2020

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Hello MCC friends!

We at the Climbers’ Co-op hope to find you safe, healthy, and well during this unprecedentedly strange time for humanity. We’ve been working to do our part in protecting community health. We strive to promote community, and recently this has meant limiting who comes in and out of the house. As strange as it is having an empty house, we remain positive knowing it’s in the best interest for our greater community!

For our spring applicant round, we had exclusively virtual interviews for the first time in Co-op history. House members adapted to make the cyber format fun and functional. Most of us at the Co-op have dispersed to our respective home towns, leaving our president to haunt the house. He’s been baking sourdough friends to replace members who flew the coop. It’s a bit of a Wilson/Cast Away situation.

We want to send our love to our local, greater, and global community. If you’re feeling lonely, give us a ring at (906) 273-0315! Send an email to Marquetteclimberscoop@gmail.com! Send some brainwaves via telepathy to 225 N 4th Street!

Peace, Love, & Composting!

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We’re on the up-and-up!

With a lot of appreciated presidential facilitation (thanks Bryce!) we are moving closer to our goal of being recognized as an Intentional Living Community by the city of Marquette. What this will mean for the Co-op is an increased legal occupancy- legally we can only have four residents until this transition.

We will be suitin’ up and attending the board meeting 3/17/2020 at 6 pm to represent ourselves in a positive light. Hopefully this will be our final step!
Before this, we are hosting a week long clothing swap in the meditation room from March 8th through March 15th. Bring some threads and get swappy!

Also prepare for the most exciting evening of your entire life on Friday March 13th from 7-9 pm: we’re throwin’ a Beer & Boulder/Bryce’s belated birthday collaboration bash.
Sunday March 15th we will be wrapping up our clothing swap and hosting a big fat pot luck. All of our friends, family, and neighbors are invited! This potluck is an opportunity for anyone curious about MCC to meet us and ask any questions regarding our agenda, goals, house, or favorite color.

Oh, but that’s not all! With our Summer/Fall housing application deadline closing in on March 14th, we’re hosting an Open House on Tuesday, March 10th from 7-9 pm. Tell all of your housing-seeking friends!

With all of the grindin’ happening, we’re tapping into an energy of love. We’re fueled by our collective passion for the Co-op and have lots of warm-fuzzy-feelings for our big green house and the community it beacons.

An update since this post was drafted. We want to be considerate of community health and maintain responsibility in preventing the spread of COVID-19. At this time (3/16/2020) we are still open to community members who want to boulder and hang out, but we ask any friends swinging by to wash their hands before and after climbing. Also please stay home and rest if you may be sick! Thank you, thank you.

Peace, Love, & Composting!
Marquette Climbers’ Co-op**

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Big ch-ch-changes happenin’ at the Coop!
With a new term, we’re feeling reinvigorated through mid-winter blues with fresh roles. Bryce is keeping his Presidential throne warm after being reelected for another term. He is also serving as Accountant/spreadsheet master. Over NMU’s winter break Bryce tweaked our accounting spreadsheet (his baby during his first round at the coop) and is excited to test drive it this semester, ensuring a level of user friendliness.
Rox is taking another swing at Spring term Secretary and dabbling at Blog Dawg. Sarah will be maintaining her momentum with the role of Grounds and has an exciting series of greenhouse workshops brewin’ with Transitions Marquette. Sarah is also acting as Treasurer and Workshop Elf.
Steph has retired from her Community Outreach streak and was elected Vice President. This term the house voted to restructure the Vice Presidential role to include the responsibilities of the former title Project Manager. Steph is excited to see what this will look like and iron out any transitional wrinkles.
Tay is enthused to utilize her social media savviness while serving as Community Outreach this term. She will also be grappling the role of Maintenance.
Other happenings from our break from school included a house show with three head liners: The Rumpus Room, Hand Foot Mouth, and Moonrunners. Bryce spearheaded a successful reset for the bouldering cave; he and Will Otte scrubbed every hold sparkly, and many community members joined for route setting (thank you to all who participated!).
Four out of five house members flew the coop to New Orleans for a few days of sunshine, alligators, and tasteful jazz. While this was happening Bryce hosted two wonderful couch surfers hailing from our northern sister land, Canada.
Events in January will included Stephanie Tschech’s band Auralai hosting a show on Friday the 17th. Steph is a close friend of the house and a phenomenal musician. Our collaborative workshop series with Transitions Marquette will begin in January as well, with Sarah leading the first on Saturday the 25th.

Peace, Love, and Composting!

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Here’s the latest update from the Coop!

We recently revamped our Code of Living. We voted out Hakuna Matata and brought in the following new codes: Care for Community, Foster a Spirit of Play, and Communication is Key. We hope these new codes, in addition to the old, will provide a wholesome view of our living expectations.

Our work on the legalization of the Coop within the City is progressing. We are currently in search of additional parking spaces in order to boost our legal housing capacity. Fingers crossed the mass emailing will prove fruitful soon.

Our Halloween Extravaganza/Beer and Boulder was a smashing success!!! If you keep your eyes peeled, you can find remnants of our homemade decorations around the house. If you happen to have your pumpkins still, feel free to bring them over to the Coop to be composted!

For those Marquette-ers that are staying here for Thanksgiving, please join us at the Coop on Monday, November 25th at 2 pm for a Friends Giving. We ask that you bring a dish to pass! The lovely Roxanne & Bryce will be hosting on behalf of the Coop.

Our Boulder Babes event is picking up steam! We had 8 Babes join us on Wednesday evening for ladies only bouldering. There were many fresh faces and some regulars! We host Boulder Babes the third Wednesday of the month, with the next coming up on Wednesday, December 18th at 6 pm.

We’re hosting a house show on Friday, December 13th headlined by the Rumpus Room. They rocked out at our Halloween Extravaganza and are ready to go round 2. We are working on securing some opening acts. So if you’re interested in warming up the crowd, reach out to us on social media or shoot us an email. We’d love to have you.

The Fam is working on putting together a legendary holiday card. If you’d like to receive this e-card, shoot us an email and we’ll be sure to put you on our mailing list.

Finally, we have teamed up with Transition Marquette to create a sustainable gardening series that will kick off in the New Year. We have a four-month-long workshop series planned to cover the basics of garden planning, seed starts, soil composition, care of your garden, harvest, and winterization. The official PR campaign will be revealed soon. We hope all can attend this free and informative workshop series.

Warm wishes and have a safe holiday!

Sarah Head, VP & The MCC Family

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A lot has been happening at the Coop since the last blog post… in 2017.

This summer, we hosted the first-ever Family Reunion. Our fearless leaders, Ian & Ashley, were able to join us for four days of family bonding. Beloved former coop-ians Melissa, Mikah, Andrew, Heather and Bryce were able to make it too. There was so much love, light, and knowledge shared between past generations and the current. We had guest appearances from Ian’s parents, Kara, Leah, and her baby Emma. Although Emma was not the first Coop baby, she might be the cutest. The jury is still out. Keep your eyes peeled for the official invite to the Family Reunion on July 30 – August 2, 2020! After the 2020 reunion, we will be transitioning to biannual Family Reunions.

The latest projects we are working on include finishing the in-ground insulation of the greenhouse, roof repairs, shower repairs, a kitchen face-lift, front yard beautification, and general functionality of the house.

One of the most exciting things in the works has been the legalization of the Coop as an intentional community within the City of Marquette. This task was initially taken on by then-President Scott, worked on by the interim President Sarah (me) and is now headed up by current President Bryce. This process required a site plan of the property, a parking management plan, layout of the house, completed application and a hefty fee. We have been working with City officials throughout this process and are on track to be the first legal intentional community in Marquette!

We have recently reinvigorated our focus on the community we aim to foster at the Coop. We host monthly Beer and Boulders the first Friday of every month from 7 – 9 pm. On the third Wednesday of the month, we host Boulder Babes; an annual time chunk blocked off to create a ladies-only bouldering space for women. We host monthly potlucks the fourth Sunday of the month. All are welcome! For an updated calendar of events, check out our Facebook page or swing by the house to check out the calendar on our blackboard.

In order to foster community, we are working to establish and maintain our connection to past generations of coop-ians. We created a closed group for past coop-ians to weigh in on current dealings on the Coop and to offer advice. This group is known as the Council of Elders. Three members of the Council of Elders will be eligible to hold the Community Member positions on our Board of Directors (with voting power). Those three members will be self-selected by the group. Nominations for the Community Member seats will be accepted at the beginning of each Term when the House Members select their roles and establish this Board. If you’re interested in this group, please shoot us an email or message and we’ll be sure to add you in. You can expect monthly updates about the house!

We hope this update finds you well!

Sarah Head, VP & The MCC Family

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A Personal Statement from Ian Girard: A Founding Member

6/26/2017

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When I first hatched the idea, what would later become the Marquette Climbers’ Co-op, I did not sleep for three days. I was too excited. My mind just would not let it go. In class, distracted, I sketched out crude schematics for a boulder wall, a small indoor climbing gym on which dedicated climbers could train. At night, I pictured a blooming urban homestead, its orchards and gardens pollinated by buzzing bees from a rooftop apiary. Nonstop, I fantasized about a collective of student climbers coming together to take on the responsibilities of sustainable homeownership. I pondered lessons from social psychology, pit theories of community against diffusion of responsibility. I thought too about how this idea might affect my future. Previously, I had planned to move west after graduation to follow through with my interest in wilderness therapy. I was frazzled and more than a little conflicted, but obviously inspired. On the fourth day I admitted defeat, resolved to act, and fell at last into an exhausted slumber.

Even to me, even today (almost five years later), the idea seems odd and far-fetched: a housing cooperative for rock climbers, who would come up with such a thing? Who would bother?

At times, I’ve tried since to work it out logically. It was perfectly logical, for instance, to move the student boulder wall to a permanent location. Over the years, more energy had been spent moving the wall from rental to rental (as leases expired and students graduated) than had been spent actually training on it. A home owned by sustainability-minded climbers, for the health and wellbeing of those members, was a logical solution. Afterall, though new to Marquette, housing cooperatives had been established in many college towns. A successful Climbers’ Co-op might even pave the way for other cooperative efforts in the community. Moreover, the timing could not have been better. In such a depressed market, normal rental dues would easily cover the mortgage and other expenses. It was a perfectly sensible investment.

Logic had its place certainly, but it was not logic that sustained me, months later, through the countless hours I spent redoing electrical, plumbing, plaster and roofing, or pouring over finances and zoning code. Nor was it logic that inspired my peers to join me. Our shared hopes and vision came from a place much deeper and created a culture that superseded that which was merely logical. It was not an easy thing necessarily; faith, inspiration, connection, love, these things exist sometimes as little more than a nagging hunch.

Today, the Marquette Climbers’ Co-op, is over four years old. In that time we transformed an abandoned, ramshackled house into an affordable and integrated home for dozens of young adults. We built an indoor climbing wall, for personal and community use, and a large greenhouse. We planted fruit trees and vegetable gardens, replaced old windows and invested significantly in insulation and energy efficient appliances. The house runs with a healthy surplus, and extra money is routinely reinvested according to well defined goals and objectives. But these are merely the quantifiables. Less tangible, but no less real is the value added to the larger community by challenging the status quo and challenging young people to get involved. Two years removed from living in the house myself, I check in often (but not too often) and am always reaffirmed.

Why did I bother? Why did I devote so many hours to something akin to romantic fantasy, a nagging hunch? The short answer is that young people need a place to experiment, a place to be tested, a place to learn and grow in order to reach their highest selves. A young man myself, I needed the same.

For the past several years, my inspiration in this project has guided my growth as a person and citizen; and in truth, it still does. Recent struggles with an as-of-yet unaccommodating zoning code threaten the future of the the Marquette Climbers’ Co-op. Though smaller in scale, it is a struggle not too dissimilar to that experienced by many environmental and cooperative efforts. It is a challenge thus, moving forward, to be accepted with gusto.

To that end, once again, I am forced to acknowledge my ignorance and submit myself to the next test. For the house, for cooperative and environmental efforts everywhere, I want to learn the language of law. I want to learn how that language can be used to protect our natural world and bring people together in a spirit of cooperation.

Why bother?
Call it a hunch.

- Ian Girard

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Why March? Citizens' Influence on Environmental Regulation

5/1/2017

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For many, April 22nd is a day filled with the joyful reminiscence of younger years. A day spent going outside accompanied by elementary classmates and teachers to dig holes and transplant adolescent trees, is forever marked with the positive feelings of helping the earth, working together, and appreciating nature. Little to our knowledge was the full gravity and societal significance of Earth Day. Now, history looks back on this day as a hallmark of grassroots activism where people congregate annually to promote positive changes in the world around them. The most recent Earth Day celebration is no exception, being coordinated with a nation-wide march for science.

A march for science? Why would people need to march in protest for something they already have access to? While on the surface this may seem puzzling, this march and other protests like it are a fundamental and necessary part of our political process and can have far-reaching implications. Primarily, this march was protesting that there is a societal responsibility to have a certain level of trust and respect for scientific methods and discoveries.

Now, more than ever, there is a massive disconnect between the scientific community and the rest of the public due to several important factors. First, and frankly, most people do not have the time or baseline knowledge to have a reasonable level of scientific and mathematical literacy. It is much easier for someone to develop a binary response to complicated and intricate issues, which they may not understand. Furthermore, this disconnect is fueled by what is known as “The Issue Attention Cycle.” In short, this is the idea that issues go in-and-out of mainstream attention in a revolving and predictable way. Mainstream and social media evermore accentuate this cycle and with new issues consistently gaining the immediate focus of society; it is difficult for scientific research and studies to uncover emergent truths about an issue in a time-sensitive way. In addition, it is easy for individuals to have little interest in an issue that will not have a substantial or immediate effect on them. This sort of cognitive dissonance contributes to an overall inaccurately informed public and together, these several factors all create to a widespread distrust and misunderstanding of science.

This broken public perception of science produces several outcomes. The first is that the scientists who have an expert level of understanding particular public health risks (i.e. nuclear power, chemical exposure, etc.) vastly assess the risks differently than the public. More often than not, the risks that the public deem the most important and detrimental to society are those that the media focuses on, not what the experts say. This leaves open the opportunity for the media and politicians to capitalize on public misunderstanding of risks by politicizing them into partisan issues.

Inherently, this creates massive challenges for governmental agencies to create regulations and manage potential risks as well for representatives to enact effective legislation. Administrative agencies have the responsibility to create regulations and manage risks regarding their particular field, based on scientific expert’s findings. Agencies determine what the most effective strategy for regulation is so that it will fix problems that confront them in a cost-effective way. However, due to the aforementioned issues with public understanding of science, governmental agencies have taken increasing pressure and scrutiny as entities who are simply limiting economic development. Similarly, in the legislative process, representatives objectively (in an ideal representative democracy) draft and support legislation based on their constituent’s wants and needs. Therefore, if constituents are wildly misinformed, it is only a matter of time before public policy reflects the same ignorance.

In the past, when there was a greater level of trust and respect for science, scientific findings had great impacts on public policy. For example, after Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring highlighted the health effects of DDT, the spur of environmentalism that followed led to banning the harmful toxin. However, more recently in 2015, President Obama committed the US to combating climate change in the Paris Climate Talks. This is a unique example of the federal government choosing to listen to climate scientists rather than to their citizens, who are more than 95% agreed that climate change is human induced compared to less than 50% respectively.

The results from widespread public policy have immediate and substantial effects on our overall society. Whether it is a ban on a toxic chemical, regulation of a specific pollutant, or mandating informational labels to inform the public, policies and regulations are imperative to fixing issues that our society has created. However, oftentimes waiting for elected representatives to make necessary changes in policy and regulation can take too long before an issue becomes worse, which is where the voice of the people comes in. Public outrage feeds the need for regulation and policy. In history, events like the Cuyahoga River fire and the Santa Barbara oil spill spawned outrage and concern about water quality among the public. Similarly, people became incredibly concerned about the danger of air pollutants after dozens were killed and thousands were injured after an air inversion trapped smog in the town of Denora, Pennsylvania. These events led to the public demanding standards for air and water quality, thus causing representatives to enact two of the most effective environmental acts to date; the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Clean Air Act of 1970.

This is the crux of why the protest for science was necessary. Protesters were not only trying to make an argument that the scientific method is something that needs to be trusted and respected, but it was more a way of showing representatives and governmental agencies that our society needs to enact policies and regulations in coordination with scientific findings. If not, there is the potential for serious health, environmental, and societal catastrophe. It is not a topic of liberals vs. conservatives or environmentalists vs. the working class, but one that is in the best interest of all citizens to support.

Scott Culbert is studying environmental science at Northern Michigan University. He spent the last semester in an environmental policy and regulation class. This blog post and the information within it are a result of what he has learned throughout his course.

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