Our Hometown

Berlin

Special | 27m 22sVideo has Closed Captions

Explore how "The City That Trees Built" is reinventing itself.

A hundred years ago this city, New Hampshire's only city north of the notches boasted the largest paper-making complex in the world. Immigrants built Berlin and fueled a booming economy, but in 2008, the paper mills were demolished, ending an era of prosperity. Explore how "The City That Trees Built" is reinventing itself.

01/16/2024

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Our Hometown is a local public television program presented by NHPBS

Our Hometown

Berlin

Special | 27m 22sVideo has Closed Captions

01/16/2024

Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback

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Major support for the production of Our Hometown. Berlin was provided by , with additional support by and by 100 years ago, this city, north of the notches, boasted the largest papermaking complex in the world. Immigrants built this city and fueled a booming economy. They worked in the mills and in the woods. They were paper makers, loggers, shopkeepers, doctors and lawyers, entrepreneurs, you name it. It was a booming spot. The churches, all denominations, even a synagogue, reflected the city's remarkable diversity. In 2008, those mills representing 150 years of papermaking tradition were demolished. The end of an era, the city that trees built had to reinvent itself. The mills are gone, but through rebirth and revival ization, the determination and work ethic remain. Hello, I'm Rebecca Rule and I am thrilled to be here in New Hampshire's northernmost city, Berlin. Berlin is not just a place, it's an identity. In times gone by, when the river drives filled the Androscoggin with logs for the mills, people knew spring had come at last. Northern Forest Heritage Park celebrates those days and those people. Heritage Park was born so to speak, around 1994. It's a replica of an old fashioned logging camp. My husband and I were both teaching. He retired first and started working there and he became the operations manager for the park. He worked harder there, I think, than he's ever worked anywhere because he loved that park. But I really got involved with the park. I became a justice of the peace. My father was one, and I just thought, what a wonderful thing to marry people and ended up actually marrying many of my students, which was a lot of fun. I got this idea one time when I was marrying a couple. It was just going to be the two of them. They had no family up here, and I said to them, How would you like to get married on the boat?

And they thought, why not? So set it up with my husband. And we all met down at the park and got the boat out and he drove it up partway up the Androscoggin to a nice spot, which was very quiet at the time. And I performed the ceremony up there and they just absolutely loved it. It was just so neat. So then I started asking other couples that came to me if they would like to get married on the river. And so I can't even tell you how many weddings I did. But what they did, when you look out at the Androscoggin River, there were boom piers all up and down the river, and they used to be joined together by chains. There were two lumber companies further up north, and they would send their trees down the river. One on one side, one on the other side. So the boom piers were separating the wood, which was really kind of neat. So when River Fire came about, they decided to put piles of wood out on each of the boom piers. And at night on during river fire, they would like them. Dick and I would go out. We had a couple of men with us. They had one of these great big, huge flame throwers. And we'd light each of the boom piers fantastic. And we'd get up by the 12th Street Bridge, which was the last one that we would do. And look back down. And this site was just absolutely stunning. And they've been doing it ever since. Every year. It's amazing ritual. What a ritual. this it's you know, this is the city that trees built. That's its nickname.

And Heritage Park is really a tribute to all of the lumber jacks that grew up here and and worked the river, sending the logs down. And it's just it's an amazing, amazing place. A lot of history there. From the beginning, this was a company town, a close knit community, rich in culture. If you want to understand what unites the people of Berlin while preserving their diverse cultural heritages, you just need to look to the churches. Brown would actually send out agents to different countries to get the kind of skilled people that he needed. The Brown Company would lay out these plots for houses to be in, and then he would include in the plot a space for a church if it wanted to be there, that they wouldn't have to pay for that ground. He would just give them that ground. They certainly valued the churches for providing sort of a moral structure and having some leader to church saying, now, you know, this is the good thing to do. And that is a really sinful thing to do. And to kind of lay down kind of basic morality. And so I'm sure that's why Brown included having this tract for churches in each section of town just so that that could be there. And this is kind of the beginning of where we get all these different churches in different parts of town. So he got people from Russia because they were obviously good at working in the really Northwoods and doing things like logging. And so then you got the Russian church and then he got people from Italy because they were good at building buildings and structures and things like that. And so we got them and they got their own Italian church. Then the Irish, of course, you know, he'd get them over basically to work in the factory. So then there's an Irish Catholic Church. Obviously at that day the masses were in Latin, but everything else was in their language. So certainly the Lutherans came along. They were probably the roughly the next part for a brand new into town. People, and they're up in the part of the area that's Scandinavian. The big whale in the town was all the French Canadians coming down who worked the woods and the lumber mills. And then in the paper business, when that got going, the border was really lax in those days. And so, you know, they just came on down with their priest, and set up business. But that was such an important part of Berlin, because the Catholics built, you know, the hospitals, the high school grade schools, parochial schools, nursing school. They really built the infrastructure for sort of the welfare of the town. I think one of the things in terms of the church is being instrumental in bringing the town together would be to have church dinners where you'd all go and everybody'd go just to get a good meal. And so you'd be meeting with, you know, all your buddies from work or the kids or the other kids in school. But it was in a church setting, so you'd get to see each other's churches and see what their culture is like. And I think that's part of what's knit the city together. Was that kind of easy going back and forth without trying to stake out real territory? Roland Pelchat shared great memories of a fellow named Pokey Paulsen, who lived in a two room cabin in the woods near Kates Hill. He was a friendly soul who loved kids and started a lot of kids off skiing and ski jumping. He organized them to build cross-country trails and ski jumps, Pokey set up competitions. And even though he didn't have much money, he'd buy the ribbons and the trophies. From the time they were in grade school, he instilled a love of the sport slalom giant slalom cross-country, and of course, jumping. Roland recalled. Everyone had a ski jump. The largest one, the Nansen ski jump, fell into disrepair and was abandoned in the 1980s. But guess what? Thanks to the efforts of the Friends of Nansen Ski Jump. It's being rebuilt and readied for a return to its former glory. Berlin loves its sports. Skiing is huge. Ski jumping also huge. And they don't call this place Hockey Town USA for nothing. I grew up playing ice hockey and I started when I was five and it was a little bit unusual because not that many girls played. So I was really the only girl in the youth hockey team and I usually was on the B team, never quite made the A-Team. We had enough kids playing that we had multiple teams per age group. The hockey was just a part of life up here. They had multiple frozen rinks that you play outside in the different parks, and there was a really strong tradition and a lot of pride about hockey. And so I learned to skate and then my brother played, so I figured I would just play as well. But yeah, I continued playing and I played J.V. boys hockey my freshman year of high school, and I had some friends that played girls as well who wanted to play, but we didn't have enough people to field a team. And so. Lindsay Dorval and Lacie Dorval. Friends of mine whose parents and family are pretty were pretty big in hockey around here said, like, let's just try to get a girls team going. So this is like 1998 or something. So we had this energy of the Olympics and especially New Hampshire was really big for so many New Hampshire women played on that first Olympic team. And so we just went out to the athletic directors, some teachers, and we started the process of trying to figure out if we could field a team and if we could fundraise for a team like as an adult. Looking back on, it is really remarkable that everyone supported us. We were able to raise a lot of money. We got 48 girls who were interested and ended up coming out. People volunteer their time to like run a golf tournament and raffles, even if they didn't have girls that played, they saw the value in having a girls team in Hockey Town, USA. We actually fundraised so much that we got really nice uniforms the first year we got them from Canada and we had a really special nice bus because it wasn't officially a school sport and we got this like little charter bus that we got to ride around in. We weren't good, but you know, we were just getting started. But like they sort of believed in the process in a place where a high schoolers can kind of say they want to do something and everyone kind of rallies around them. I feel like that's my sense of this community was like, no one said, why would you want to do that? Or like, girls aren't good at hockey. Like no one no one did that. Like everyone said, Okay, well, the first thing we're going to want to do is do a regular raffle with, you know, then we're going to want to do a Bruins alumni game because that raises a lot of money. And then we get, you know, and they just kind of helped me get it going. I think they could maybe see like this is it's not going to go away. It's only going to there's only going to be more opportunities for girls and women. And so they still have a girls team now. And it's officially a high school sport. And I think they have a kind of tradition of really being in the top three or four teams. So we're just yeah, Lindsay, Lacie, Krista LaPointe, we all kind of got to going back in the nineties. Rachelle Beaudoin also compiled the Berlin Dictionary. How many times do you know with their own dictionary you'll find that story and other Berlin stories online soon at nhpbs.org/hometown. Sometimes when you pick up sticks and move yourself and your family to a new place, opportunity and a supportive community say welcome home. It doesn't hurt to return the favor by making a great burrito. My kids and I moved up here about I would say it's been about ten years now, and they used to love Mexican food. It's always been in my back of my head, you know, after moving here to take a job at the federal prison, that it would be kind of cool to have have a place like, you know, with that same style here in our hometown. The summer before, in 2018, we worked at the farmers market next door in Gorham, New Hampshire. We set up a food booth. The reception was really great, making sure that we not only, you know, serve the burritos and stuff like that, but we also made sure to, you know, have a social media account. And that really helped out. And later on, I didn't know at the time how important that was going to be. It came to the point where I was really interested in looking for a restaurant. And my wife was Kailey was was finally on board. Let's just check it out. So our realtor introduced us to to Sylvia Poulin, who runs Berlin Main Street Group, which is a nonprofit that is just there to do everything they can do to improve our main street. She played a huge catalyst in us being able to afford to open the restaurant instead of selling to us for market value. She gave it to us for the price that she paid, not a penny more at auction, and that that was huge. And there was there was back taxes to it. But we were also told the city is willing to work with worth folks that are interested in improving Main Street. They were willing to help us out. They didn't take all the taxes, but it was enough that really allowed us to put more money into our building and the renovations that we needed to do. And our goal was to have have it open for Cinco de Mayo 2020. We didn't quite make it to Cinco de Mayo, but it was a couple of days after. And we've been open ever since. And it's been because of the folks of Berlin. That's what makes I think Berlin different from other other communities is that they want to help you succeed. It's out of a sense of community and that is is huge, you know. So ever since you know, we've been here, we've always felt welcome. You know, we've also put energy into into embracing the community. And it's and and it led to living a dream of opening a restaurant and and being a part of a community too. At the turn of the 20th century, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie helped fund over 2500 libraries around the world. Berlin has one of them. To qualify, communities had to jump through a few sensible and forward looking hoops. The town had to find a site for it, promised to support and maintain it, and most of all provide free service to everyone. The Berlin Public Library, built in 1903, was designed in the classical revivalist style by local architect A.I. Lawrence. He also designed St Ann's church across the way. Music has been an important part of the culture of Berlin since the days of logging camps. Loggers lived apart from their families for months on end. Music lightens their hearts. For Sean Markey, music runs in the family. My name is Sun Markey, and I'm the grandson of Clarence and Jeanette Goyette. Two musicians who grew up in the rich musical landscape of the North Country. Jeanette and Clarence went on to have 13 children, seven girls and six boys. My mom, being the middle child, Tina and all of them were gifted somewhat musically. They sing beautifully together. And despite my grandfather's family having family reunions for the past 57 years consecutively, it's actually only been a small handful of times that I've been in the room at the same time with all 13. Whenever it happened, it felt like magic at these family reunions. You would get groupings of the family performing music, and some of the brothers and sisters had bands that would perform regionally but never had they all performed as a group. All 13 of them on stage. Fast forward to 2017 and my aunt Susan Goyette, who's the most active member of the family performing as of late, booked a show at Saint Kieran Community Center for the Arts, which is the local performance hall here. A short time after that, the first spouse of the 13 brothers and sisters passed away who happened to be my dad. Around that same time, the eldest boy, Danny, was given a terminal cancer diagnosis. So needless to say, the family was in a very sensitive state at that time. So at that point, Susan began actually reaching out to the different brothers and sisters to see if they might be interested in joining the performance and singing together at St. Kieran’s But there were some obstacles to that. Like there, although everybody was musical in the family, there have been brothers or sisters who had never performed publicly, and the amount of stage fright that they were contending with was pretty significant. So like a gift delivered out of hard times, regional rehearsals began happening with different clusters of the family. And soon enough, the show was re-billed as the first public performance of the 13 Goyette Brothers and Sisters. In response to that, tickets sold out in record time for the hall. They sold out before even posters were printed. The hall had to actually add seating capacity to the room to accommodate everybody who is interested. There was one full group rehearsal the night before the show, and it felt like a miracle that everybody actually made it to the stage and got to enjoy that moment of the audience seeing the full family on stage. So sadly, less than two months after the performance, my uncle Danny passed away. But the family has taken solace in the fact that before he died, he told my mother that the day of the concert was actually the best day of his life, and my grandparents, I know, would be very proud of who these 13 people had become and the gift that they were able to share with the city of Berlin, where you saw Shawn's family perform. St Kieran's was once a Catholic church when it closed in 2000. Those who loved it made sure its doors opened again, this time to the arts. The Diocese of Manchester made the decision to close several churches in town in 1999. In November of 2000, they closed St Kieran Church for use as a Catholic Church, and there was a small committee of people, including Sister Monique Therriault, a local nun, Catholic nun. She got a group together and they said they needed to preserve the building. It wasn't going to go into disrepair on her watch. And so she talked with the pastor at the time, Father Richard Roberge, and they organized the transfer of the mortgage deed over to the Arts Center, and they developed that into a nonprofit.

501c3 in 2000. In November and November 19th of that same year, they held their first concert, a local 18 piece jazz band, Berlin Jazz. The mission hasn't evolved much. It's to foster the growth and development of the arts and humanities in the Androscoggin Valley area while maintaining this historic building. And the historic building is just as beautiful as it was. We've done fundraisers. We do an annual dinner on the bridge in September, on the walking bridge up on Bridge Street. And then we do try to keep our French-Canadian heritage and the Irish heritage involved. So we do a lot of Celtic music. We do in November, a French heritage weekend called FrancoFest. It's just bringing this live arts to the community where otherwise people wouldn't have a chance. It's not just performances. We had arts exhibits on display, local artists that displayed their works and some are for sale, some are just for viewing. And that's that's been ongoing. Also, COVID was a killer for everybody in the arts. You know, the art centers were closing here, there and everywhere, even in New Hampshire. I mean, it was impacted. And fortunately for us, the charitable gaming rental kept us afloat, got us out of the red. And when they move on to bigger and better things, I think the arts center will come out strong. Interestingly enough, the motto of Saint Kieran reads, Bring to life joy for themselves, those they love, and the community where they will live, serve and lead. And though it's not a church anymore, I think we're still doing okay. And I think Saint Kieran would be all right with it. For 150 years ago, W.W. Brown realized Berlin was the perfect place for making paper. Today, another entrepreneur has discovered that Berlin is also perfect for. Well, I'll let him explain. It's currently the largest building ever built in the state of New Hampshire. It's almost completely finished. It will start producing salad greens in the first quarter of next year. And what brought us to Berlin is that Berlin offers all manner of advantages horticulturally to us. Everyone thinks that the worst thing in the world is cold places for greenhouses. And the reality is the best thing in the world is cold places year round. And that gives Berlin enormous advantages horticulturally for us. Our product mix, is dedicated to taking advantage of that factor. A critical thing to us is we have to have the right site because we can't we can't be in sites that either are compromised or we would compromised from an environmental standpoint because we have to be a very special company in terms of the way we interact with the environment, given we grow things that have to be fresh and healthy. We got in touch with the mayor and he asked us to come up and talk about the project and we went out and we studied the site carefully. We did a lot of geological analysis to be sure that the ground conditions were good. And then I realized that it was a wonderful location, as in not only in terms of the climate, but also in terms of the site. We have already hired an operating manager who's a guy who grew up here in Berlin and a propagation manager who's a local person. And now we're going to be start planning the staffing for the whole project because we have the operating team in place. You know, I deal with cities and towns all over the United States, and I would say that one of the surprising things for a town that is supposedly in decline, how good the municipal government is in Berlin, we've had really remarkably effective working relationships with the building department, with the fire department, the water department, with the sewer department. You know, on a day to day basis. Now, what I like about our project here is not only it's a good place for it, but everybody that I meet that wants to come to work for our company is interested in working. And this is a place to work in a nice environment and you cannot be in a happier place anywhere in the world than in a greenhouse in winter, a bright and shiny and happy and full of freshly produced oxygen. So they're really nice places to be. If you remember Berlin as a place where the air smelled kind of funny and foam floated on the river. Well, things have changed. The air is clean and so is the Androscoggin. The mills are, for the most part, gone. Berlin is a city reborn. As you travel up country in New Hampshire, the mountains rise before you keep going through the notches. Keep going? Yes.

The mountains of the presidential range are beautiful from the south. Come visit Berlin Residents say they're even more beautiful from the north. Well, as someone who has visited here many times, I have to agree. I'm Rebecca Rule. See you around town. I've always been proud of the of the city because of what it represents and the people who came here to forge a better life. It's one of the most welcoming places I have ever lived. The ability to not only have nature at your doorstep, but to be able to afford to enjoy it as well. There's a lot of wonderful people here that live here. People are still real here. I'm definitely a paper city patriot and a big fan of the Berlin area. Major support for the production of our hometown, Berlin, was provided by with additional support by and by

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Our Hometown is a local public television program presented by NHPBS