Episode 524

>> Production support for"Journey Indiana" is provided by WTIU members.

Thank you!

>> ASHLEY: Coming up, discover an "egg-acting" Ukrainian folk art.

Hit the trails on a customizable bike race.

And tour a beach house built and rebuilt one piece at a time.

That's all on this episode of "Journey Indiana"!

♪ >> ASHLEY: Welcome to "Journey Indiana."

I'm Ashley Chilla.

And we're coming to you from the Indiana Dunes State Park in Porter County.

The Indiana Dunes State Park is made up of 2100 acres of prairies, wetlands, and beaches, located right on the shore of Lake Michigan.

The park gets its name from the towering sand dunes lining the shore, which can reach heights of nearly 200 feet.

And we'll learn all about this gorgeous park in just a bit.

But first, producer Todd Gould takes us to Monroe County to meet an artist finding new meaning in the Ukrainian folk art of pysanka writing.

♪ >> The designs are all symbols.

The symbols go back in time immemorial.

♪ >> Most artists prefer working on canvas or stone or even heavy wrought iron.

For Bloomington artist, Natalie Kravchuk, the canvas is much, much smaller and much, much more delicate.

>> There were symbols for plant life, for animal life, a symbolism to the colors that were used.

>> Natalie specializes in creating a type of Ukrainian folk art known as pysanka writing.

Neatly crafted and deeply symbolic images written on a fragile, everyday egg.

It's an art that has been practiced for thousands of years in Ukraine and other Eastern European countries.

An art Natalie first learned at the age of 4, sitting next to her Grandpa Nick.

♪ >> The pysanka writing tradition goes back probably 2500 years, when they imbued the eggshell with different symbols and designs, they would empower the egg even more.

The women would gather and write them, you know, in the wee hours of the morning, late at night.

They believed that the more of them they could write, the more powerful those eggs would become.

♪ >> Instead of simply painting on to an eggshell canvas, Ukrainian pysanka artists like Natalie are actually writing, using a wax resistance method to apply rich colors and cultural symbols to each egg.

She uses heat from a small candle flame and a pen-like object known as a Kistka stick, which is loaded with melted beeswax.

When melted and applied, the wax flows like ink.

>> With the advent of Christianity, the symbols then evolved to have Christian meanings, and that is how they become associated with the Easter season.

♪ >> Natalie carefully crafts each design element with wax outlines, then dips the egg into a specific colored dye.

The color does not appear on the areas where she applies the wax.

After soaking the egg in one colored dye, she pulls the egg back out, dabs it off and writes more wax symbols and designs.

She then dips it into another colored dye.

Natalie continues this process until all of the colors and wax designs have been written.

Finally, she melts away all the wax, revealing a treasure of colorful designs underneath.

>> You write with -- with intention.

You may not know who that pysanka will end up going to, but you want to be in a peaceful frame of mind.

You want to pass to the pysanka, a spirit of calm and hope, and good intentions.

[ Explosions and sirens ] >> There's a legend that the more people that wrote pysanka, the more -- the more we would keep evil from permeating the planet.

There's also a legend that there's a monster or kind of a creature chained to a cliff, and the more pysanka are brought out among the people in that region, the tighter the chains stay -- contract and hold back that monster from taking over their world.

Young people need to understand that -- that there -- you know, that there are nations here who are constantly struggling to keep their identity.

People need to understand that identity is tied to folk arts; folk arts are tied to identity.

And the reason I -- the reason I keep explaining this and teaching it is to bring attention to the fact that Ukraine is an independent nation.

It's an independent culture, that will not be obliterated.

♪ >> It does give me a sense of pride.

I mean, I -- I enjoy the pysanka art, and I continue to do it because I do enjoy it.

But I also continue to do it because it -- it must be continued.

This really is the only way that this art form, this folk art, is to be preserved, is to pass it on from generation to generation.

And I'm really happy to share it with others also.

♪ >> ASHLEY: It's incredible the amount of detail work that has to go in that, and the fact that it's been such a long tradition in her family is absolutely amazing!

Want to learn more?

Head to the address on your screen.

Earlier, we caught up with some of the folks that help maintain this beautiful park to learn all about everything it has to offer.

♪ >> Indiana Dunes State Park is a collaboration of multiple ecosystems and recreational opportunities that was established in 1925 as a gift to Hoosiers, and basically anyone else that wants to come out and visit and learn more about the environment.

Indiana Dunes State Park is located northwest Indiana, right on the shoreline of Lake Michigan.

The park itself has three miles of continuous shoreline of Lake Michigan.

>> We also have the Indiana Dunes National Park as our neighboring border, and we have a variety of natural landscapes here at the Indiana Dunes State Park.

I love to tell visitors that every habitat is represented here, except for the arctic tundra.

But we have everything from our beach landscape, moving into our foredunes, moving into our oak savannas and our forest.

And then we have a mixture of different bogs, fens, marshes, and swamps that are all different types of wetlands.

When you look at it as a whole, that's ten different habitats represented right here in our park.

>> Indiana Dunes State Park is approximately 2100 acres.

Majority of that is actually classified as nature preserve, about 1800 acres of nature preserve within the park.

We hire crews every year to help us manage invasive species, to manage our trail systems, and to keep things safe with trees and things of that nature.

We hire approximately 60 seasonal employees every summer, and that is to keep the park clean and manageable and safe for the public in general.

We have wonderful hiking and nature watching.

We have plenty of beachfront for folks to come out and enjoy, just laying on the sand or swimming activities in the season when we allow swimming, which is when we have guards on duty.

We also have a beautiful nature center that provides a significant number of naturalist programming throughout the year.

We also have a lot of different ecological research projects that go on here within the park to monitor different wildlife, different plant species.

So it's a very vast property that takes on a lot of different animals all at one time.

♪ >> Dunes are actually the story over time.

It takes them a while to be formed.

And so you will see kids maybe piling up sand on the beach, thinking they've created a dune, but that dune actually happens once we start to get those plant species that come in and stabilize that dune, like marram grass that are able to have their seeds take root.

And those roots can shoot out 6, 8, 12 feet, and then that stabilizes the dune.

And you see these rolling gentle hills then of marram grass vegetation that then offer community for other plants to start to take seed and grow.

We're lucky to have the Indiana Dunes State Park today.

Back in the early 1900s, there were several organizations like the Prairie Club who were trying to get state legislators' attention to protect this park.

The Prairie Club organized different pageants and plays, where thousands of people would come out, and they would use the dune blowout formation as kind of like their amphitheater.

And they would charge people a ticket to attend, and all of those proceeds would go then to preserve the dune that everyone is enjoying those pageants in.

♪ Everybody should come visit the Indiana Dunes State Park because you are not only connecting with a treasure that's in our backyard here in Indiana, but you are also connecting to the story over time of passionate people seeing the beauty, seeing the diversity and wanting to save and protect it for years to come.

>> The dunes are always shifting, and we're always upgrading things.

So it's just an amazing place from a cultural, historical and ecological standpoint.

>> ASHLEY: And on a personal note, I have such fond memories of coming to the dunes.

I grew up right around here.

My parents still live here.

You know, I can really -- I have very strong memories of going to the beach as we used to call it, you know, going to the lake.

And it's great to be back here because it really is such a beautiful place to visit.

Want to learn more?

Just head to the address on your screen.

Up next, producer Adam Carroll takes us to the Hoosier National Forest to take part in a bike race with a unique spin, the Death March.

♪ >> The Death March is a gravel and road race in Story, Indiana, in which teams of two traverse the Hoosier National Forest in search of predetermined stops, which happen to be the many cemeteries that dot this rolling landscape.

The competition was started in the '90s as a small get together for mountain cyclists, but this trek has developed into one of the most exciting races in Indiana.

♪ >> There's no other race like it.

It's very strategic.

You know, it's one of the few races where there is no course ahead of time.

You have to figure out your own course.

It makes -- you know, that makes all the difference.

♪ >> Death March is an adventure race when you boil down to it, and it's a race that is called the Death March because there's checkpoints that are cemeteries, and you basically win the race by having the lowest possible time.

Kind of figure out how they connect -- you know, how can you best connect all of these things to hit the maximum possible.

You try to find the circular pattern that has the least amount of, like, outliers possible that may not be worth going to.

You just go out and ride.

How long does it take me to get here?

How much is the time bonus?

Is it worth it?

♪ >> The Death March is not a typical time trial.

Each cemetery stop is assigned a different point value.

Teams design their own routes to maximize their scores; however, on the day of the event, the race committee throws a wrench in those plans, by selecting at random which cemeteries will be mandatory stops and which will be dead, meaning no time bonuses will be given for those locations.

>> Of any race I've ever seen, if you think you have it all figured out, what you want to do, and you think you've got it dialed in, the race starts and everybody goes ten different directions.

And people you know who are very good and fast are going a different direction than you are, it makes you second guess yourself immediately.

And then you just hope that you have the right route plan, which is kind of a cool thing that you never get in any other race.

>> Having the route plan is the beginning of this journey.

This event is rain or shine.

No weather keeps them from racing.

So cyclists start training as early as possible not only on the bike, but at the computer to map out the possibilities.

>> So the training really ramps up for me probably two months before the race is when I start having a head towards doing it.

And, you know, I train with -- I ride with a purpose, rather than just going riding and having fun.

So I try to ride with a purpose at that point, which usually includes in the weekend, at least one day in the weekend, one long ride out here in this area.

And we'll go do all different variations of directions of things, just to get a feel for how the roads are.

Because one thing that's a big variable is in the spring is also when the county tends to lay down fresh gravel on all the gravel roads.

So you also have to know, has this road got 3 inches of fresh gravel on it, or is it just hard packed down?

And those all factor into whether or not you do a cemetery or not.

Because every year, it's totally different.

Like, for example, this year, there was torrential rains a couple days before the race.

Frankly, I couldn't get to a lot of places because of the flooding on Saturday before this year's race.

So I knew that there was possibilities that I might have to alter the course.

I might run into roads that were underwater, and so I just had to think through things like that.

And I guess you learn how to adapt, and also as much as I ride out here, learn, okay, in my head if I -- if this road is closed, what's the possible detour to get around where I need to go?

♪ >> Well, the partner I had this year in the race, he's an engineer.

So he had everything put on a spreadsheet, okay, and all the mileages, times, and he analyzed this data from all the training rides and said, okay.

And he laid out, okay, if this one is mandatory, we do this.

If this one is mandatory, we do this.

So we had it kind of -- we just sat down, and actually, the Thursday before we got on a phone call with each other, and said, okay, we are both at our computer screens.

You know, let's go through it again just so we kind of know.

We generally start with a general route.

If we have our choice of what we want to do, this is the course we're going to take.

Just plan for those eventualities.

>> This year's race featured everything from wedding proposals to teams not finishing to one team accident.

Everyone who rides experiences something different.

There is nothing else like the Death March.

♪ >> Just getting out, it's an escape from all of life's pressures and stresses.

You know, I get out here, and I'm in the woods.

A lot of times you have to be so singularly focused on what you are doing that you kind of forget about all the problems you had when you drove out there.

♪ >> ASHLEY: The thing about this race that really intrigues me is the fact that you can plan and plan and plan, but until the day of, you don't actually know if any of the plans that you have made are going to work out or help you.

And I think for that piece of it alone, I might want to try something like this.

Want to learn more?

Head to dinoseries.com/death-march.

Up next, producer Jason Pear takes us just up the road to Beverly Shores to learn how a house from a bygone era got a new lease on life.

♪ >> A little more than a decade ago, Steve and Laurie Snell saw something in the newspaper that got their attention.

>> We saw a little ad in the want ads of a free home.

Steve actually saw the ad.

It was just two lines.

And talked to a buddy at work, and they said, oh, I don't know.

That's -- that's not -- that's a scam.

>> It wasn't a scam, but it wasn't exactly free either.

It was a lease, part of the Historic Landmarks Leasing Program managed by the National Park Service and Indiana Landmarks, and it required moving this house from Kemil Beach to a new spot, just east of Beverly Shores.

Not a simple prospect, but for the Snells, it was a perfect fit!

>> We looked at a home here in Beverly Shores, and regretted that we didn't choose that as our first home.

So when this opportunity came again, I said, I couldn't pass something up twice.

>> Well, maybe we're the first ones silly enough to take the project on.

That's what we like to say.

[ Chuckles ] >> But this home wasn't just any home.

It was a Lustron, unique from top to bottom.

Designed as an ultra efficient, affordable response to the post-war housing shortage.

Lustrons were made of porcelain-enameled steel panels.

>> From the roof to the walls to the framing, and the marketing was it was a home that never needed really any maintenance.

>> They were manufactured in a converted airplane factory in Columbus, Ohio.

The homes were sold as-is on one truck with about 3500 pieces, with a 3- to 4-man crew that came in and completed the construction in about three to four days.

>> The Snells didn't get a trained crew with their Lustron, and they didn't get to use any heavy machinery either.

>> There was another Lustron in the park that was moved by a crane, and it did some damage.

And so they knew that they didn't want to lift it and then move it as a whole piece.

>> No.

They would need to do this job piece by piece, almost entirely by hand.

>> It actually got clarified for us once we saw the construction manual, but that's how to put the house up.

It didn't teach you how to take it down.

So you had to reverse engineer from page 162 to page 1.

You have to go in a very specific, very methodical order, and we did that and it worked well.

>> My biggest concern was losing a piece or not getting the piece in the right place.

So we were pretty meticulous about labeling each piece.

We had a labeling system that when we were deconstructing, putting both label on the piece, and then also on the prints so that each piece went into its original place.

>> For two years, Laurie, Steve, and their three then college-aged kids worked on the family project, disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling thousands of pieces.

>> And if you were getting frustrated and something wasn't fitting right, you had to slow down because you were doing something wrong.

The Lustron was so well designed, it was telling you, this piece doesn't belong here or you don't have it fit right, and that's -- once we -- once we realized that, I think we were okay with the project.

>> We had the big advantage of if something was going wrong, we could take a short walk and here we were in the national park.

>> Yeah, you can go down for a quick swim.

>> And regroup and rethink.

>> Yep.

It's always more relaxing.

Always more relaxing out here.

>> Not surprisingly, there were, from the beginning, some naysayers.

>> We got a lot of, we think you're nuts, yes, I would say.

>> Yeah, we did.

>> But, I guess Steve has done a lot of crazy projects over the years.

So this is just the icing on the cake of his multiple projects he's been involved in.

>> Yeah.

>> Those naysayers are singing a different tune now.

>> Once we got done with it and we could enjoy it and more extended family could come and enjoy it, they're like, geez, we didn't think it was going to be that nice, you know?

So I think we did the right thing.

♪ >> We kind of want this place to be a respite for the stress of everyday life.

So we don't really have a WiFi.

We do use our cell phones occasionally, but no TV here.

It's just read and watch nature, take walks, and enjoy life.

>> And enjoy their membership in a rather exclusive club.

>> We didn't realize 'til once we got into the project, that there are a lot of people that have a following of Lustrons.

>> There's like a Lustron groupy crowd, yeah.

>> I guess we are officially now part of the Lustron groupy crowd.

♪ >> ASHLEY: I had never heard of Lustron home, and when I moved to Bloomington, there are actually -- there's one or maybe two, I think, Lustron homes in Bloomington themselves.

And I remember the first week that I was there walking around, and I saw this home, and I thought, well, that's an interesting looking place.

And then I learned about it from "Journey Indiana" about the history of the Lustron home.

And I just think it's so cool how they're big puzzles, basically.

Want to learn more?

Head to the address on your screen.

And as always, we'd like to encourage you to stay connected with us.

Just head over to JourneyIndiana.org.

There you can see full episodes, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, and suggest stories from your neck of the woods.

We also have a map feature that allows you to see where we've been, and to plan your own Indiana adventures.

Well, I think I'm going to go take a walk down memory lane, maybe go see some of my old high school haunts, but we'll see you next time on "Journey Indiana."

♪ >> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by WTIU members.

Thank you!