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Trenton ReynoldsIt is Friday, June 3rd, 2016. This is Room in the Trees, a podcast about fort building. and Filipino lashings. We are all about living and thinking creatively. That is what we're here to talk about. There are too few people in this world who are as interesting and easy to talk to as our guest on today's podcast. Chaz is most importantly Sabrina's only uncle. Secondarily, he is a lifelong boy scout and master fort builder. To top it off, so to speak, his profession requires that he wear a white wig. This is a multifaceted human being. The following was recorded on May 25th, 2016. This is episode number seven, Only Uncle Chaz. Room in the Trees is hosted by Sabrina Ward Harrison and me, Trent Reynolds. If you like what we do here, you can support us by becoming our patron at patreon.com backslash room. Just in case our most recent subscribers feel mistreated by being mentioned on last week's short message, let me say a heartfelt thank you to Tierney Milholland, Michelle Johnston, and Kristen Boatger, our three most recent Patreon subscribers. You are the best. A quick note about Patreon. We will be doing our first drawing this week. A drawing to find out who will be the first Room in the Trees patron to receive some original artwork from us. We will be sending someone one of the handwritten quotes or titles from one of the podcast episodes. And I am going to throw in a bonus interpretive drawing in response to Sabrina's line art. To be entered in the drawing, you must be a $5 a month subscriber. We will draw a name this coming Friday, so go subscribe on Patreon if you want your name to be in the drawing. We appreciate any amount you can offer in support of this podcast, and we will be bringing special patron-only content for all patrons. very soon. Keep listening after today's episode for more information about becoming an intern for Room in the Trees. Also remember that rating us on iTunes is very, very helpful in bringing this podcast to the attention of new listeners. We appreciate you just being here listening. And now our conversation with Chaz McClain-Koshond. only uncle of Sabrina, master fort builder, and a wonderful human being, here to talk to us about making forts.
What's the best place to start?
Uncle ChasWell, now that we live rurally, I mean, when we were in London, it was a question of just buying heavy beams, lashing them together. But now, you just see a tree. And you know that the branches will take the weight and maybe the space to take a couple of beams, lash them to the living branches so you don't destroy anything. And you wrap the branches before you use the rope on them and then put your structure on it.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonCan you break that down for us a little bit?
Uncle ChasOh, sure.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonCan you give an example of like a…
Uncle ChasYeah, well here at Brook Farm in the New Forest, we have probably 150 mature oaks, all of which have been pollarded.
What does that mean?
Uncle ChasWell, that means that they've been harvested for firewood in the past. So as the oak grew up, someone's come along and probably cut off all the branches around the top to form a crown. And then they grow back in, and in five years, you come and cut off more branches for firewood. So the distinctive shape of the oak trees in this part of the country. as a result of pollarding, so you get an amazing spread of branches. So it's nothing up to about 15, 20 feet, no branches or anything. And then this huge sort of bouquet of branches. And once you've got that, I usually use garden tempers that are treated and six-foot lengths of heavy rope. Then I will wrap the branch to protect it, to protect the bark, and then I'll put my beam on it, and then I'll use what we call a Filipino lashing, or a cross lashing, or a square lashing, and lash that beam to the living branch on one end, and then on the other end until I've got something I can put a platform on.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd that lashing, is that something that is fairly easy to pick up? It's really easy to pick up.
Uncle ChasIf you've got two pieces of wood and six foot of rope, I mean, it's something as soon as you see it, often on bamboo furniture, there's something like the Filipino lashing holding the various pieces of bamboo together. Right. But it was very big in scouting when I was a boy. It's mostly a lost art. But when we went on the Sweden Jamboree, the Swedes built huge structures using just basic Filipino lashings and round lashings. And at the end of the Jamboree, they just undid all the knots and stacked all the timber.
It was extraordinary.
Trenton ReynoldsThe first fort you built for Sabrina back when she was eight, you said you just used hammer and nails. Why wouldn't you want to do that and use the lashing instead?
Uncle ChasWell, Sabrina was one of the fort then. We had hammer and nails. We may have lashed.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI think you did lash it a bit.
Uncle ChasI just wanted to trap door.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI wanted to trap door into the lake. That was my... I think that's all I want.
Uncle ChasI think the roof is probably lashed on.
Yeah.
Uncle ChasBut I think the access may have been strips of wood nailed to the tree. I just can't remember. It's difficult to describe. If you take your rope, find the midpoint, and you wrap it around the beam, and then around the tree branch, cross behind it, and then come over the opposing sides... and then back around the tree, what you're effectively doing is binding the two pieces of wood together. And then when you've got them bound, you then do what are called frapping turns, which tightens the whole thing up, and finish with either a clove hitch or a reef knot. And it gives you an immensely strong, solid platform.
Trenton ReynoldsOnce you have the platform, then it's kind of game on, right? Anything else, like you could build anything on top of the platform. Exactly.
Uncle ChasAs long as your platform's secure and reasonably flat, then once that's in, once your beams are in, then you just floor it and build whatever you want with it, sir. a sleeping platform, or we were going to put the same Wendy house I built for the boys. We flat-packed it, brought it down to the country, and we were going to haul that up a tree. But the boys grew up so quickly, we ran out of time.
Trenton ReynoldsSo that seems like the essence of a fort, or like the foundation that you need to have to then... And then any amount of creativity can follow from that. That's right. You've got to have a strong tree. You've got to have the Filipino lashing maybe with some finishing knots like a clove hitch or you mentioned another one. The reef knot. The reef knot. And you've got your strong platform and then anything after that is…
Uncle Chasis good to go. Is that right? Exactly. That's exactly it. And it all dates back, oddly enough, to Baden-Powell, of course, who went to boarding school and he didn't like classes. And what he'd often do is he'd sneak out of class. and he'd go and he'd trap rabbits, cook them and eat them with smokeless fuel, and then he would build himself a tree platform so he'd be up above the ground when the professors came to look for him. And he would just sit there and watch them, and that's the essence of the work.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAre you serious? Who is this guy?
Uncle ChasBaden Powell is the man who founded scouting back in 1907.
Trenton ReynoldsHe's the guy, yeah. He's it. He's scouting. You've heard of him, Trenton?
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Trenton ReynoldsI was not aware of that history, though. That's really, really interesting.
Uncle ChasIt's in his book, Scouting for Boys, that he wrote in detail about how he used to hide from the teachers high up in the trees in sort of a perch he'd built. and that's the beauty of a fort, isn't it? You're safe and you can see what people are doing and they can't see you. It's privacy.
Right. That's interesting.
Trenton ReynoldsSo what are some examples of what the types of structures that you've built on top of these platforms? Do you have examples or things that you found especially fun or...
Uncle Chasexciting? Well, the best one has to be one I didn't build. Judy and I were on safari in Africa. We booked a night in effectively a tree platform high above the canopy. And the best bit was that there was a huge, great, flat bed with table and There was a mosquito net, big double bed, and a gas lantern. And then there's sort of a rickety walkway to another tree where they had a full flushing loo. You know, with a cistern and a handle. And you could sit there and use the conveniences 20 feet above the ground while big animals prowled around below you.
Trenton ReynoldsI love that I love that when you flushed was the plumbing effectively just gravity or dropping on the animals or did you have
Uncle ChasI think pipe disappeared into some sort of septic tank in the ground but I didn't examine it Judy refused to use it
laughter
Uncle ChasOh, gosh. That was spectacular. But, you know, it's all the wonderful things. I mean, my brother had a tree fort with his cousins, and we kept, I reckon, close to 250 Marvel and DC comics there. And it was just far enough away from the various houses that the parents had to be really angry with you before they'd come look for you and then climb up to the tree fort.
It was bliss.
Sabrina Ward Harrison- It's such a natural instinctual, that's why I'm so interested. It's so instinctual to create forests. Like it's in our being and it comes from so far before us. before us.
Uncle ChasThat's absolutely right. And it's the sense of security and privacy.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAnd your own place, your own spot.
Trenton ReynoldsThat's it. What are the types of structures that you would build on the ground?
Uncle ChasOh, I see. Well, there... The one I built for my three sons in London was effectively just a box using four beams with diagonal beams to hold steady. And then I bolted a ladder to it, then the platform, and then put the Wendy house on the top.
Sabrina Ward Harrisonmy whole thing is about when I think of forts I think it's all found material I never think of it also I don't have you know I feel like I'm a strong fort builder but I don't have any of those skills for say. And that's the part of it. Like it's, it's, it's in your being to just do it. And you just sort of, I could make one right now. I could just go make one and I don't, I would find whatever,
Trenton Reynoldsand I would love the making of it. Sabrina, what, what is it that you look for when you're, when you are seeking? What are the kinds of things that you look for when you're going to go make a fort? Is there a process that you have in mind or is it just like, freewheeling it as you go.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI think it's, I mean, and also, well, it reminds me of, it was a very interesting, I think the age of boys and girls is around the age of eight years old. It's a really, before it's sort of pre-adolescence and before you kind of are just a girl or a guy, like it's, at least for a girl, it still can be a tomboy phase, but. And I remember very clearly that summer that I built that fort, which has, like, your imagination. Like, I remember finding the police album that mixed, it was a cassette tape in the forest, and I thought I'd literally discovered the band The Police. It was like 1985 or 1986. Like, it was their big album. And Chaz, I remember playing it in my granddad's, Judy's dad's little ghetto blaster and really thinking I'd discovered the band and then finding this toilet out in the woods and thinking it was a real Indian's toilet. You know, it's just, but it was, you know, not having the structure being told, this is what you can use is what you can't use the right amount of. finding... At that time, we lived in Toronto, and there was a back alley, and I was determined that I was actually an archaeologist. I was going to be an archaeologist, and I'd found all this stuff in the back alley, and I thought I'd found all these ceramic tiles that were from the Native Americans.
And...
Uncle ChasWe can make it work. And it was practically beautiful and romantic. I mean, the down tree over the lake, the big oak down, and the way it just nestled, you could nestle in it over the water. I mean, it was a magical location and a magical use of what was there ready to be taken and adapted.
Yes.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonHow does that work when you're working with kids that are around that age and their kind of curiosity and mentoring them in a way that inspires that and encourages that as well as learning skills?
Uncle ChasWell, they love it, don't they? Yeah. Just like you were at that age, the... the kids I work with, you know, if you say to them, oh, it's going to be dry, warm tonight, you can all go off and build a bivouac, you know, one night structure. They're effectively building a lair. They're building a fort. Yeah. And they make these cozy little nests where they are going to hide away from the world and no one's going to know where they are.
Sabrina Ward Harrisonpartly why we were talking about forts, Chaz, is because we have a podcast called Broom in the Trees.
I know that. And so
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI don't know if I didn't, I know you know the name, but we built a fort in my parents' the backyard there on Louise Drive. And the idea of just doing this sort of temporary structure with whatever we found that day in the old high school parking lot.
Trenton ReynoldsOne thing that I've thought a lot about just since that time, building that fort, is how that space became, it was almost as if we built that space to be able to have a conversation that we had. after it was done. And I think similarly, I think even kids that are going out to find materials and make a little space for themselves, I think we have this vision of possibilities or things that we might be able to do in that space. you know, like a mental space even, like a sense of adventure, or the kinds of thoughts, or being able to read comic books alone, or listen to music, or it's all kind of geared towards this creating a space for us to be able to have experience. I don't know, I think that's, it's an interesting thought of, I don't know, that we have this impulse to create an opportunity for ourselves to... to do stuff, you know, to experience. I don't know.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonI think it's sort of like you're creating the moment to be in the privacy and the protection of it, but the experience is in the making. That's what I always find. The real thing is in the... when I think of fort building, it's the action of like, I'm going to go build a fort. It's not like I want to have a fort erected in my backyard for me to go into. And that's where it ties into people that are parents right now and how to encourage in this day and age where they're not like, I downloaded this app about how to build a fort for my kids in 25 minutes and this is what I need and I'm going to buy it on Amazon and they're going to have a fort by this afternoon. Like that sounds...
horrible
Trenton Reynoldsbut I think that's essentially the conversation that I think we're trying to have in the podcast is how to live creatively and how to find that mental space or find those opportunities to foster that type of
Uncle Chasthinking. I think Trent is right. It's deep, deep, deep in our genes. You know, it's tied up with the fear of the dark and being safe after dark and being safe from animals. It's a natural thing for boys and girls. before they pick up all the strictures of the teen years, the embarrassment, they just go out like puppies. They start building a home for themselves.
- Yes.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWhat comes with it for, as Trenton was talking about, that the thing that happened after we built the fort and he was interested in the conversation we had with my dad, what so much a part of you as a leader has been, and my memories of you growing up, has always been a really incredible creator of creating a moment for people to gather together
and...
Sabrina Ward Harrisonbe together and tell stories and that's such a fading fading thing in our culture that I deeply treasure about whether it's even writing the common news that you've done every summer But how does that feel for you when you're aware that that's such something that's kind of a fading tradition?
Uncle ChasI just love it. To me, there's no more special moment than that. and then you start to tell them the story. It could be a simple story. It could be a funny story. And their little shining eyes as they reluctantly let go of the day and surrendered to the magic of being together. I mean, there's no other word but communion for it. They're communing around the campfire and it's magical. And their minds can wander. Their imaginations soar. It's glorious.
Yeah.
Sabrina Ward Harrisoncan you tell us the story right now
Uncle Chaswe had the guys camping here on Saturday night 10 girl guys from Judy's school and they said oh could Chaz tell us a story so we had a couple of songs and I told them the story about the two young braves belonging to the people of the plains and they were set a mission to cross the great jagged ice mountains, to go to the Great Salt Lake. Whichever of the young warriors brought back the cup of salty water from the Great Salt Lake, the great chief of the war band, he would become the next chief. And these little girls were just hanging on the edges of their seats. They were just gripped by it, and they could see it all. and they could feel it all. A buffalo in the grass, and they were curious about pemmican and mixing the berries and the buffalo meat. It was pretty special. It wasn't a great story, but, you know, it's how you package it and tell it.
Oh. Thank you.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonSuch a tremendous gift you give with that. It's not the one with the gooey green arm, right? Oh, I love that.
Uncle ChasAlways let me tell that. If all the cubs are in, I think it's in year seven, it's a good one.
Sabrina Ward Harrisonthis is a story I've not forgotten around the campfire since probably 25 years ago
Uncle ChasI heard it at scout camp our scout leader sat down and after the sing song said I'm now going to tell you the story of the gooey green arm and he launched into this tale and it got more and more terrible and more terrifying I thought I'd have to scream or something and I never forgot it so when I had the first opportunity to shock and terrify the folks over on the campfire I thought I can do this But Judy watches me very carefully, and she feels that some child's about to run off screaming. She does. Just back off a notch.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonThat's what's so great about the two of you as kind of co-leaders and co-sisters. It always felt that great. And that's how you guys connected too, right?
Uncle ChasThat's right. Yes. Judy joined the scouts, I reckon, to entrap me. She started working with a cub pack in Ottawa when I was running one at the university in London, Ontario. And she sent me photographs of her running a cub meeting. Tried to catch my attention. And, of course, she succeeded. She did. And the poor girl, actually I think her honeymoon was at a jamboree in Switzerland at Kendershted.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonYeah, I remember that story.
Uncle ChasShe's been very brave. That's awesome.
That's awesome.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonJudy's going to have to be on a separate podcast about her focus on teaching, the focus on her teaching, working with different people. different learning styles.
Uncle ChasI don't know exactly. - Most of our Cub Scouts are in her learning center. So it's the magic of her job brings us together in a funny way. - Yeah. - 'Cause I know the other teachers, I know the kids, I get to speak to them and see them. And so instead of having two separate working professional lives, They come together in this curious crossover.
Yeah.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonWe really appreciate this, Chaz. Any final tidbits or little...
Uncle ChasWell, I was just thinking how great it is to speak to you and Trent, you know, across the world like this and talk about things that unite us. You know, these common things we need as human beings, the need, for example, to build forts, places of safety, you know, to build a city. to be with nature, to explore our creativity. It's just magic. All these things I don't get to talk about normally during the day with villains and burglars.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonCan you mention what your day job is?
Uncle ChasI'm a criminal lawyer, and I defend, well, because of my age, I guess, I defend some pretty sad people who made awful, awful life choices.
Trenton ReynoldsThat's fantastic.
Sabrina Ward HarrisonAny last thoughts about what you would tell to people that are young parents that have kids that are getting into the age of fort building and how to... I know a lot of your scouts and cubs are in boarding school and don't have parents that really work.
They aren't around to... to help.
Uncle ChasTo be somewhere where you as the parent can see the opportunity and then leave out things like bits of rope or cardboard or wood and the kids will seize them and they will build that fort, however awkward, however difficult. If they've got just a little bit of help, however discreet, they'll go for it.
That's beautiful. Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsChaz, it was a pleasure meeting you. Thanks for making the time. It was great to talk. Okay. Cheerio, kids. Au revoir and many, many thanks. Thank you, Chaz. Ladies and gentlemen, Chaz McClain Koshand, a gentleman adventurer, father, husband, and only uncle of Sabrina Ward Harrison. You can find show notes for this episode at roominthetrees.com, including detailed instructions on how to tie a Filipino lashing. You can support us at patreon.com backslash room and by rating us on iTunes and by telling your friends. My brother Brent Reynolds provided the music for this podcast. You can hear more of his music on SoundCloud.com by searching for Venters Stag Motel. And now, interns, we are searching for you. We're currently looking for two interns to join us in building in Grum, Room in the Trees. We need someone experienced with audio editing and someone to help us expand what we are doing on the website. Someone with... experience developing websites. We don't care where you live as long as you have a solid internet connection. We just care that you are self-motivated, you enjoy what we're doing here at Room in the Trees, and have skills and ideas that will help us grow. You can find more information about how to apply online at roominthetrees.com backslash intern. Join us next week for a conversation with Sabrina's father, John Kent Harrison. For real this time.
Now, go make stuff. ♪ ♪