[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 199 (Wednesday, December 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7887-S7888]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO REIDUN NUQUIST
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the question would be suitable for the game
show ``Jeopardy:'' Name the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the
United States. Answer: What is the Long Trail?
The 272-mile trail that runs the spine of the Green Mountains in my
home State of Vermont was built over the course of two decades, from
1910 to 1930, and has provided countless hikers with spectacular climbs
and remote camping in the decades that followed. No hiker's pack would
be complete on the journey without a small pocket reference book simply
known as the Long Trail Guide, a bible of sorts for these backwoods
adventurers.
The guide was first published by the Green Mountain Club, the steward
of the Long Trail, in 1917 and has since been revised 27 times. So when
the club recently decided to chronicle 100 years of Long Trail Guide
history to mark the anniversary, they turned to a very experienced
hiker and a dedicated volunteer to take on the job: Reidun Nuquist.
I have had the pleasure of knowing Reidun and her husband, Andrew,
for many years. They reside in my hometown of Montpelier, and like so
many other Vermonters, they share a deep respect and appreciation for
the natural wonders that make Vermont such a special place to live.
They also share a generosity of spirit, dedicating much of their spare
time to preserving our natural habitat and helping maintain the Long
Trail for generations to come.
I was very pleased to read about Reidun's latest effort in a recent
edition of the Vermont publication Seven Days, and I ask unanimous
consent that the article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Reidun Nuquist Navigates a Century of Long Trail Guides
(By James Tabor)
In November 1944, an American soldier fighting in Europe
wrote this in a letter home:
``I keep a worn out 1935 edition of the Guide Book in my
foot locker to always remind me of what I'm fighting for.''
That ``Guide Book'' just happened to be the Long Trail
Guide, and the GI's words hint at how important these little
tomes have been over the years, in so many ways to so many
people. The plural ``tomes'' is appropriate here; while most
people think of the guide as a book, there have been, in
fact, 28 versions, all published by the Green Mountain Club,
beginning with the first in 1917 and culminating in this
year's Centennial Edition.
As that homesick soldier's note suggested, over the decades
these volumes have achieved significance far beyond that of
mere guidebooks, for two good reasons. One is that, as the
number of weekenders who become (or aspire to become) end-to-
enders signifies, the Long Trail is not just a trail. Hiking
it is a coming-of-age accomplishment, a badge of honor, a
bucket-list item, a family bonder and more. The other reason
is that the inspiration, dedication and perspiration of the
guides' editors and contributors have resulted in the kind of
quality that labors of love generally produce.
Such longevity and excellence, the current GMC leadership
realized, shouldn't go unchronicled.
``With the 100th anniversary edition, it became clear that
the history of the guide had not been told and that this was
the perfect opportunity to do so,'' GMC executive director
Mike DeBonis said in a telephone interview.
That decision might have been simple, but finding an author
was another story. Any candidate would have to be an expert
and diligent researcher. ``This would not be an easy book to
research or to write,'' DeBonis explained. ``Because not all
the backstory is written down in one place, it would require
reading all the old guides, as well as finding and digging
through archives and interviewing past editors and
contributors.''
Another consideration: One little book about a lot of other
little books could have significant yawner potential. The
author of this little book would have to be creative.
As it turned out, though, the perfect candidate was near at
hand: Reidun Nuquist, a Norwegian-turned-Vermonter, devoted
outdoorswoman and longtime GMC devotee. And she had long been
a contributor to the Long Trail guides.
Now 77, Nuquist immigrated to the U.S. in 1963 after
marrying Andrew Nuquist, a past GMC president. The couple
moved to Montpelier in 1970, and Reidun enjoyed a career as a
librarian for the Vermont Historical Society and the
University of Vermont's Bailey/Howe Library. She and Andy
have one son, a fiftysomething Bostonian who inherited his
parents' passion for the outdoors in general and hiking in
particular.
Nuquist's own affinity for the Long Trail and the GMC
produced, as DeBonis noted, ``a tremendously strong
connection to club history.'' In addition to being a Long
Trailer herself--one who has hiked the trail end to end--
Nuquist has served as president of the GMC's Montpelier
chapter and spent more weekends than she can remember
volunteering for grinding pick-and-shovel work on trail-
maintenance crews. Frequent contributions to club newsletters
and to the guidebooks--including a chapter in A Century in
the Mountains: Celebrating Vermont's Long Trail--demonstrated
her gift for writing.
And so, in May 2016, the GMC gave Nuquist the job of
tackling the centennial retrospective.
When reached by phone, Nuquist explained how to pronounce
her first name: ``Rye like in bread, dune like in sand.'' If
a voice can twinkle, hers did. A subsequent visit to her
hillside home, with its neat woodpile and mustard-yellow
doors, only reinforced that impression of buoyancy--all the
more surprising given that she's currently battling serious
illness. Ensconced in an easy chair, with a white knit cap
and a shawl around her legs to ward off chill, Nuquist
fielded questions with smiles and stamina for more than an
hour.
Asked how she approached the Long Trail project, Nuquist
admitted, ``I was delighted to be asked to do the book, but I
did wonder how I was going to approach a retrospective of 28
separate guides. I knew this had to be more than a
bibliographic project. It had to be interesting to general
readers.''
She paused and grinned. ``I figured the way to do that was
to write about people.''
So she did--a very good thing for readers of A Century of
Long Trail Guidebooks: A Retrospective, published by the GMC
in October. It's short--just 90 pages--and the table of
contents indicates that it's much more than a ``bibliographic
project.'' For starters, rather than employing a predictable
chronological progression, Nuquist divided the book into
seven chapters that focus on the trail guides' essential
elements: origin, evolution, illustrations, hiker advice,
trail descriptions, maps and editors.
Her writing of these chapters renders a book that could
have been literary Xanax into one that's alive with wit,
irony and insight. Some examples:
The guidebook carried business advertisements through 1940
but just for the Long Trail Lodge and state agencies, before
they ceased altogether--something we may be grateful for.
Some past advice may strike us as quaint or amusing . . .
For fending off mosquitoes, a hiker could follow John Muir's
recipe for a repellent of ``three parts of oil or pine tar,
two parts of castor oil and one part of oil of pennyroyal.''
Attentive readers were never shy about pointing out errors.
The 1932 edition labeled two mountains as Vermont's third
highest, Mount Ellen (4,135 feet) and Camel's Hump (4,093
feet). Theron Dean, having climbed both numerous times, was
called on to referee. He awarded the distinction to Mount
Ellen, intimating that the guidebook editors had been ``in a
slightly muddled condition after partaking of a church supper
in Burlington.''
Like much of her own writing, Nuquist's carefully chosen
excerpts from the guides accomplish two key goals: leavening
the pages with wry humor while delivering interesting, often
fascinating information.
[The] first guidebook was also a yearbook and as such holds
valuable club history. In addition to lists of officers,
trustees, and committee and section members, it included
bylaws and GMC articles of association. The latter stipulated
that the club was to ``make trails and roads in the Vermont
mountains, to erect camps and shelter houses therein, to
publish maps and guide books thereof'' [author's emphasis].
The membership lists of local club sections (chapters) showed
an impressive number of women; of the Brandon Section's
thirty-one members, half were female.
The 2nd (1920) guidebook had detailed advice on what to
carry and how to carry--down to what to put in each pocket:
``Left shirt: handkerchief, postals [postcards], notebook,
pencil. Right shirt: guide-hook, money securely pinned in bag
or envelope. Left trousers: matches in flat tin box,
waterproof. Right trousers: pocket knife, strong twine. Left
hip: toilet paper. Fob pocket: compass on lanyard.'' The only
thing left for the hiker was to select the contents of the
right hip pocket!
Nuquist also quotes other writers--book authors, newsletter
contributors, journal keepers, letter penners--liberally and
to good advantage. Here, for example, is memoirist James
Gordon Hindes describing his experience of overnighting with
companion John Eames at Frank Beane's Hanksville farm one
July.
We slept in the same bed but could hardly see one another--
a soft but prominent ridge of feathers billowed between us.
Gawd, but it was hot!
A bit further on, in a section devoted to hikers' travails
with shelter-gnawing porcupines, Nuquist cites a verse from a
1989 Margaret MacArthur folk song:
They saw a lump of a beast all covered with spikes.
Not what they expected to see on their hike.
``What'll we do?'' ``Get the guide book from the pack.
It says knock him on the nose with the back of the axe.''
Over a century, a few people have been so important to the
Long Trail's evolution that
[[Page S7888]]
Nuquist might have considered a chapter titled ``Titans of
the Trail.'' Instead, she opted for the less obvious and more
graceful approach of weaving their stories throughout her
chapters as their ages and achievements suggest.
To cite a few examples, the aforementioned Dean was
probably the editor of the very first guidebook. Dr. Louis J.
Paris was ``the glue that held the GMC together in the early
years.'' Charles P. Cooper, ``the hardest working executive
the Club has had,'' spent weeks, in all weather, nailing
hand-painted white discs to trees and rail-crossing posts.
``The GMC was his hobby,'' writes Nuquist, but, judging by
his actions, it was much more than that.
The same could easily be said of Nuquist, for whom, over
nearly half a century, the Long Trail has meant work, play,
adventure, friendships, family and joy. All of which makes
reading her new book nearly as much fun as hiking the trail
itself.
____________________