Journal of First Class at The Clearing in Door County, Wisconsin 1957
October 11, 2015
Back cover info:
Jens Jensen, one of our nation’s foremost landscape architects, built The Clearing at Ellison Bay in 1935. Since his death in 1951 the Wisconsin Farm Bureau has leased and operated The Clearing to perpetuate Jensen’s belief that “Man must know Nature in order to know Man.” The Clearing is for city as well as rural people and combines study with rest and outdoor activity. For a schedule of classes open to the public, May through October, write Wisconsin Farm Bureau, Madison 1.
Published by Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation
This caption under the trillium illustration:
Mrs. Eifert, the editor of Living Museum, the publication of the Illinois State Museum, attended the May 19th class at The Clearing under the direction of Rutherford Plait, New York City, author, botanist and Arctic explorer.
May 2O. Monday
Northern lights flaring across Ursa Major and shimmering from behind a smudge of black clouds on Sunday night presaged a bright and sparkling Monday morning as campers gathered at THE CLEARING. Spring was at its height, the woods full of white trilliums, birds singing, gulls keening, new leaves all sparkling. And that incomparably pleasant feeling of oneness of interest and purpose was among all those who gathered to learn of the woods.
After breakfast we gathered at the beautiful stone building which is school and studio, where Rutherford Platt briefed us on our plans for the week. But an indoors meeting in May must be short — the woods called and this was not a day in which to stay long away from the trees. We set out in two groups to explore the mysteries of Jens Jensen’s heritage of trees, birds, flowers and ideals.
A cold spring had delayed much flowering, so that now it was all here in a burst — yellow adder’s tongues, golden bell-wort, Canada violets, long-spurred violets, dog violets, blue violets, yellow violets, dwarf ginseng, tufts of corydalis and acres of those magnificent, great white trilliums. Wild cherries and shadblow fluttered white blossoms in the wind. Out on the peninsula, the snowy froth of the cherry orchards stretched for miles.