FALL LODGING PACKAGES – NEW ENGLAND HISTORY WORKSHOPS

Join us this fall for our annual Hawk Mountain Lodge History Workshops exploring topics of regional human and natural history. These fascinating workshops are led by local experts and include lectures and local site visits to points of interest in the northern Berkshire area of Western Massachusetts.

Our popular half-day workshops are based at Hawk Mountain Lodge, a small New England guest house located in Charlemont, and leave time for exploring other New England hotspots.

Stay in our comfortable accommodations at Hawk Mountain Lodge and enjoy a restful stay at the end of the day’s activities. Workshop lodging packages provide breakfast and lunch on the Saturday and Sunday of each workshop.

2007 FALL WORKSHOPS

Black Bears in the Rugged Hills of Charlemont – September 22-23

Local tracker Alan Emond will lead us on a trek through bear country. Come learn where bears live, what they eat, what signs they leave behind. This weekend will teach you the basics of tracking for bears and other animals in their natural environment. Learn to be a detective with wilderness eyes. This workshop is hands on and includes a field trip.

Classroom session: Saturday 3:00pm to 7:00pm

Field trip: Sunday 9:00am to 12:00pm

Workshop Pricing

Local Gravestone Lore - October 20-21

Join us as we linger among the headstones and monuments of Charlemont's past. We will go back in time when Charlemont was a frontier town. We will glimpse brief testimonials of the history and the people that once lived and made their homes along the Deerfield River valley. Early families such as Captain Moses Rice and his wife Sarah King. As we journey into their past the tools we take with us will help us explore cemeteries in our own local area. Robert Drinkwater of the Association for Gravestone Studies in Greenfield will teach us Gravestone Lore and take us on an adventure to some of Charlemont's cemeteries.

Classroom session: Saturday 10:00am to 1:00pm

Field trip: Sunday 10:00am to 1:00pm

Workshop Pricing

The Underground Railroad in Western Massachusetts – November 9-10

Local Historians and Librarians Bambi Miller and Mary Boehmer will take us on a trip following the Dorsey family and their journey to freedomin the mid-1800s. This weekend promises to be a thought-provoking step back in time using Charlemont’s history as a way to understand this fascinating subject. Exploring the area we will learn more about the journey the Dorsey family embarked on from Liberty, Maryland to the Leavitt Homestead in Charlemont, Massachusetts to find their freedom and pave the way for others who came after them.

The weekend will include site visits to the two National Park Service-designated "Network to Freedom" Leavitt homestead as well as a tour of East Charlemont's Little Red Schoolhouse where the antislavery production of "Dred" was performed.  In addition, we will see the Leavitt and Pine Street cemeteries and travel to Florence, Mass, where Bassil Dorsey later resided and spoke with Sojourner Truth.

On Friday evening join us for a visit with Cousin Mary Leavitt and Elizabeth Field as they reminisce about their family's abolitionist activities in Charlemont during the 1800s.  The evening promises to be a thought-provoking step back in time, revealing the courage and principles guiding the people of western Massachusetts.

Remembrance of our Past: Friday 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Field Trip: Saturday 10:00am to 5:00pm

Workshop Pricing

Trains, Trolleys and the Hoosac Tunnel – October 27-28

Looking at a variety of sources we will examine the impact that the arrival of mass transit had on the valley. Sam Bartlett of the Shelburne Falls Trolley Museum will present “Then and Now,” – slides, photo’s and old post cards of Shelburne / Conway area. Followed by a trolley ride in an 1896 trolley car. After lunch we will take a one- to two-hour hike to old railway lines and artifacts in Conway. Sunday morning we will take a drive with Alden Dreyer, a local expert on the Hoosac Tunnel. On this drive we will visit the Eastern Portal and the Western Gateway Heritage State Park. After lunch we will visit the North Adams Historical Society’s Science and History Museum.

Field Trip: Saturday 10:00am to 4:00pm

Field trip: Sunday 9:00am to 3:00pm

Workshop Pricing

Rates by Lodge Room:	FALL WORKSHOP LODGING PACKAGES
Deerfield	1 person - $300.00	2 people - $175.00	3 people - $133.33	4 people - $112.50
Housatonic	1 person - $190.00	2 people - $120.00
Concord	1 person - $160.00	2 people - $105.00
West	1 person - $160.00	2 people - $105.00
Miller	1 person - $180.00	2 people - $115.00
Prices are per person and include 2 nights lodging, 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and the workshop program. 9.7% Mass rooms tax is not included in costs shown below.