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Welcome to New Hampshire Public Television's uncorked.

Join us as we showcase the program from our archives as it originally aired.

Because here in northern New England, sharing our past will enrich the future for all of us.

Hi, I'm John Clayton, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music Let’s get those hands up front.

John, hands up front!

Oh, goodness!

Today we're at Loon Mountain at the Kinderbear Program to find out how children learn to savor the sport of skiing.

Also in tonight's program, we're going to meet a gentleman named Bob Taylor from Halstead, who's managed to meld his love of welding and art We’re on the way to the transfer station, which is just down the road.

People come in here before they go there because a lot of them have seen and enjoyed our work, and they feel that there will be some thing that we would be able to turn into a piece of art.

Then we'll travel to Center Conway to visit the Loki Clan Wolf Refuge.

(howling) But first, it's time for a little more skiing.

All right, guys, so all you’re gonna do is you’re gonna put your toe - Can you guys all see my ski here?

See the ski?

Put your toe right in here.

In the little lip.

And then you straighten it out in the back and push down on the back and boop.

That's going to pop up.

And that's going to hold the ski on your foot.

Okay?

Music There you are, lift that ski, slide right there on the hill Whoa!

Look out!

We try to combine fun, safety, and learning and pretty much those, you know, degrees starts off with fun.

If the kid doesn't have a good time, then he's never going to come back skiing again.

So we want to keep them coming back.

Carol Dahlke is from Lyme, Connecticut, and she has a junior Olympian, I would say, on the slopes.

Who are you watching, Carol?

I'm watching my daughter Addie.

And how’s she doing?

So far, so good.

She's gone down once with two skis on, and she's still smiling.

Of course, safety is very important.

And then we try to get them to, you know, learn to get up on the hill so they can see a little bit more of the mountain.

You mentioned getting up on the hill.

One vehicle is the magic carpet, so-called, that the kids are using to ride up the mountain.

Is that to get them used to the technology of the lift?

Or is it just to save you the trouble of having to carry them up the hill?

A little bit of both.

You know, it's relatively new.

We got this last year and it's just been a great help.

Before that, we started them off on the rope tow, and it's a little difficult to ride for the little kids.

Yeah.

Imagine.

That must have been a spectacle, because even here, with the magic carpet, we get the equivalent of a nine car pileup at the top of the hill.

Yeah, it's a little hectic sometimes, but as you see, as the kids get used to the skis and used to riding the magic carpet, over about an hour's period of time, they can ride it pretty well without falling down.

Good job, John!

(inaudible) Keep going!

This is probably the most tiring job that we have in the children's center, is working on this, cause it requires constant attention, you know, constantly helping kids up, helping them down the hill.

But it's fun.

Samantha, you want to go back up?

You sure?

You wanna take my hand?

Oh, oh.

Let's go.

Here we go.

Oh my God, you're doing so good.

And you're going with two skis again, right?

We'll get you up there.

Oh, wait your turn.

Now, how about you?

Is this something where you want your daughter to learn how to ski?

Or is this something that gives you the opportunity to ski unfettered?

Oh, a little of both.

Yeah.

I wanted to introduce her at a young age.

I guess they don't have as far to fall when they're that small.

And then we get a chance to ski, too.

Music While Devon and Ryan and I enjoy our magic carpet ride up the slope here, we're taking you on a magic carpet to Alstead, New Hampshire.

That's where welder Bob Taylor has managed to weld his two loves, art and sculpture, into one.

This is Holly the Holstein And she belongs to Mr.

and Mrs.

Monahan.

Mrs.

Monahan said before she moved to this area, she drove around through Cheshire County.

And, upon seeing the sculptures on the roadside here in Alstead, felt that it was an artistically friendly community and chose to live here for that one particular reason.

Music This would be a general welding shop that serves the community.

So we would repair your snow plow in the winter.

Fix your hay rake in the summer.

We would build a railing for your grandmother so that she could get in and out with her walker.

That's what goes on at Taylor Welding during the day.

But often on nights and weekends, you'll find a different kind of welding going on here.

Bob Taylor and his crew, along with his brother Ray, will be busy turning scrap metal into the sculptures that now populate the roadsides all around Alstead.

It's become quite a phenomenon.

They even show their work at festivals and art shows and in the schools.

And now some of their pieces have even become landmarks.

Well, this one has a number of farm implements in it.

We have a manure fork up on top of its head.

The body is made out of the, a snow plow.

And there's some other cultivator parts that are incorporated in here, along with some water pipes.

It's in a great location here.

We're at the junction of Hill Road and Alstead Center Road, and the girls at the post office use it to guide people.

They'll tell somebody, well, go to the praying mantis and make a right and then continue on down the road there for about a quarter of a mile.

So the praying mantises, in fact, in Alstead become a, a landmark.

I would say that the artwork probably represents about 5% of the business.

Locally, we give away as much as we sell.

This is a fact.

If we have some person that we want to honor in some way, we will give the piece away.

And if there's a spot that we think is the perfect spot for a sculpture, we will give it to that individual if they'll display it in that spot.

Music We had originally made the sculpture for Francis, and we had made a farmer with a pitchfork, and somebody backed into it, knocked it down.

And at that point in time, when we went to repair it, Francis had this lovely woman that, named Velma.

It's a pretty poor representative (inaudible) of Velma, though, I’m telling you that.

Well, it looks like - But she’s a good girl, though.

Yeah, she was.

(laughter) Francis has reminded me that I need to get out here and repaint her buttons and a few things.

What we're looking at here is a large polar bear.

It's in excess of ten feet in height and probably represents about 500 individual blades off of automobile fans.

Johnny Eslinger drove into our driveway, and, being a man of few words, he he dropped his tailgate and lofted a 200 gallon air compressor tank on the ground and said, let's see what you can do with this.

So when we got the request, we know exactly what we were going to do with it.

Now, the tank was a little bit too long, so we cut the back end of it off, and then we cut that in half to make the, get the compound curve that we were looking for, for the rear quarter here.

And then our friend Jim Johnson has been collecting tractor seats for us.

So we we were in luck, and he he had brought us one not too long before, that we were able to put on the hind end, and Andy had grabbed a hold of one of our chipping handle hammers, and we had the working tail.

This is a largemouth bass that's been made from some snowmobile parts.

You might recognize them on the mouth.

These are, some flowers that we made from automobile fan blades.

This is, a rabbit that we made and presented to our friend Robert Brown, who's an elementary school teacher in Walpole.

And the rabbit is ten feet tall, and we painted him brown, and we've made a little sign in front of it to identify him, which says Robert Brown.

Music We call that The Jazzman, and his main portion of his body is part of a spring support on a truck.

This might become a pair of legs for a bird.

This is a u bolt that holds the springs on a truck, and I can show you where, if we were to cut this off, that this could become a pair of legs, and then we could set a body on top of that and just go from there.

(welding sounds) Well, originally, it was supposed to be a snake.

What happened was that it got a little top heavy on me, and I ended up putting support here.

And when I did, I, I automatically visualized the leg.

And so what I did, I put one on the other side, and the next thing you know, it ended up to be a Chinese dragon.

I, I've always dreamed of doing a, a full struttin’ turkey.

Now, that makes more sense if you know that Mike is a New England champion turkey caller.

(turkey calling sounds) Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

All right.

Almost anything out of anything.

And the other thing that we added, this is a newer model.

So I just wanted to add this in so you folks would know that lot of folks have been having their gargoyles missing, especially all these little babies.

And what we've done now we've created this chain and we'll come with a, with a stake, so you can put it in your garden and he won’t run away.

And it's wrapped around his leg there, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And it doesn't hurt him down here because that's just steel.

Yeah.

So.

All right.

(laughter) When he gets done, we put ears on it.

We have these ears that stand about this tall yeah right about there.

And people love them.

They go they really do go crazy over them.

So right now you were cutting out the feathers.

Yeah.

Yes.

How many feathers do you have on an owl?

I think I estimated it to about a hundred feathers to an owl, depending on how bulky you want to go with the owl or how sleek.

Music (welding sounds) I think that in my old age, rather than maybe making birdhouses, I've often thought that I could make birds.

Our thought is, if everybody in town had a piece of our art, it certainly would be acceptable.

And we've been working toward that goal.

I think that it might take us another 20 years, but we're not in any rush on what we're trying to accomplish here.

Music Woo!

Whoa, bananas!

Music Good job, Delaney.

Nice.

Samantha, don't eat that snow.

Yuck!

We're going to go in very soon, okay?

Okay.

Okay.

Are we gonna have some more hot cocoa?

Okay?

Okay.

All right.

I like to fall down.

You like to fall down?

Is that the best part of skiing?

Falling down?

Because you can rest?

Uh oh.

What's this?

Hot chocolate.

Is that what we’re - (inaudible) It's probably very hot.

Ooh, does that smell good.

So, Danielle, who are you skiing with today?

My brother.

What's your brother's name?

Ryan.

And how are you doing as a skier?

You're doing pretty good?

Yeah.

What do you like about it?

Going on the magic carpet!

Good, Danielle.

Good.

Is your favorite part the magic carpet ride or the hot chocolate?

The hot chocolate.

I kind of like the hot chocolate best so far.

How about you, Ryan?

What do you think?

I like the hot chocolate.

Yeah?

Now, did anybody fall down yet?

Well, a lot of people, but not us.

Oh, don't cross your feet.

Uh oh.

Music While our little clan takes refuge from the cold here, we're going to go over to Center Conway.

That's where a gentleman named Fred Keating runs the Loki Clan Wolf Refuge, a home for 24 varieties of hybrid wolves.

(wolves howling) Okay!

(whistles) (inaudible) Stop.

Stop!

What I do is I'm running a nonprofit corporation to give these animals a place to live out their lives without the threat of being killed.

All the shelters in New England have been told by the Humane society and therefore by the state to kill these animals whenever they come in, not to adopt them out, because they’re problem animals and they're dangerous.

And it's, Music and it's basically due to ignorance.

These animals are not dangerous, as you can see.

They're very curious they’re very fun loving.

And it's just people buy them for the wrong reasons and then don't know what to do with them.

So most of them end up dead.

And I just can't see the sense of killing an animal just because you don't understand it.

Music (wolves whining, barking) Now what's this alpha male’s name?

He is Bahkey.

B-A-H-K-E-Y.

Hi Bahkey.

He growls like that.

He’s one of the - This is his personality.

He's a growler.

Yeah, he just growls to talk.

He likes to be petted, so he’s just growling cause he’s happy.

Debbie Lenon is a wolf owner and volunteer at the Loki Clan Wolf Refuge.

Just me.

Oh, I know.

He's gonna get right in there.

So you have two, two wolves as pets, right?

Yeah, I have them as companions.

We try to, like, maintain that wolves don't make a good pet.

They're more of a companion animal.

An animal that, you know, if you've got the time to raise like a child, that you'll have the time for it.

This is Job.

He's the alpha male, and he's very, very friendly.

He wants to be in your face.

He wants to kiss you.

I don't want to kiss you, Joe.

All right, all right.

Yeah.

And should he be just a little bit too much of a problem?

Yeah.

You discipline them like you would discipline a wolf.

And it's basically there's a spot right here on the end of the saddle.

Yeah.

Where you grab them.

Yeah.

Push them down, roll them over.

And then.

And then they bite you.

No, no.

You touch the genitals and tell him it's okay.

Yeah.

Everything's fine.

And that’s the end of the discipline.

They don't hold a grudge.

So do you play with them often, Deb?

Yeah.

Debbie?

Yeah.

All right.

You're going down.

No, no, no.

All of our dogs descended from the wolf?

Right.

From the Saint Bernard down to the Chihuahua.

With the jaw pressure that he has, he could crush my hand easily.

He's playing.

He's playing?

Yeah.

Every pack has to have an alpha leader.

A male and a female.

And the one I was just playing with, Job, is the alpha male.

The alpha female, if you wanna to take a picture of her, his girl right there.

She's the boss of the female side.

But it's not just the females.

She also controls the other males that are under the, the alpha pair.

But she is the boss on the female side.

And Job's over there getting lunch.

Then you have a second- in-command pair, which is called the beta pair.

You have a beta male and a beta female, and they are - They’re just sort of like backup?

In case one of them get gets injured or hurt or?

It's sort of a pecking order society.

In other words, you have the most important and then it works on down.

And the one at the bottom is called the omega.

And everybody from the omega on up through the beta have to show deference to the alpha pair.

And sometimes you'll see them walking around, the male will walk through and everybody is rolling over in front of them or trying to kiss him on his muzzle.

Their very mouth- oriented, like humans are.

Yeah.

Their society is second only to ours in its complexity.

The American Indians lived much the same way that the wolves did, and that's why they (inaudible).

(wolves barking, howling) All right, enough.

Enough.

They're also very intelligent.

You speak to them like you were speaking to a child.

Their intelligence level is somewhere around, 11 or 12 human.

11 or 12 year old human?

Yes.

Whereas a dog, if you wanted to put it in perspective, would be a three month old wolf cub forever.

I treat him as I was a wolf, but I am superior to him so he has to pay attention to what I want him to do.

Most of the time.

Most of the time!

Can you do a howl for me?

You want to howl?

You want me to do a howl.

I don't know.

Let's start a howl.

Usually it's done when they're happy.

(Howls) (howling) See?

Hey, we're right here.

There we go.

(howling) The plans for the refuge is to expand, to buy a bigger piece of land so that we could expand.

Yeah.

Hopefully, you know, get 100 acres so that we can have bigger pens, make it more natural surroundings for them, and to take in more animals.

Music (wolves howling, barking) Music Here we go!

If you think Samantha has energy, wait’ll you meet a four legged friend of ours named Spanky.

Music Here, we're going to - Down, down.

Stay.

There.

You stay right there.

C’mon, Spanks, bring it back!

Come on.

So she has had obedience training.

So.

Oh, boy, Spanks.

Music (dogs barking) Be good, Spanks.

You be good.

Come on.

Oh, here we go.

Spanky!

C’mon.

Music While Lindsay and I enjoy one last ride on the magic carpet, we want to thank you for joining us for tonight's edition of New Hampshire Crossroads.

And until next week, I'm John Clayton.

Hey, hey.

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