NH Secrets Legends and Lore

"The freedom to take calculated risks, in business, love, or whitewater, is one of the most cherished prerogatives of a free people. I don't try to discourage knowledgeable people from willingly assuming risks; but I do work to educate inexperienced paddlers so they don't get into trouble inadvertently."

~ Charles Walbridge

In 2022 Charlie Walbridge, an icon of River Safety and a nationally and internationally renowned symbol of adventure and conservation, with deep ties to New Hampshire, was inducted into the International Whitewater Hall of Fame and the Southern Appalachian Paddlesports Hall of Fame.

Wayne King, host of the New Hampshire Secrets, Legends & Lore Podcast caught up recently with Walbridge to celebrate his more than 50 years of adventure and activism within the paddling community.

PD Hoyt is the pen name of New Hampshire children's author Patricia Dunfey-Hoyt, adopted as she navigated the complicated process of moving from classroom teacher to writer of children's literature. We take a broad look at her life and the process by which she has brought her ideas to life since retiring from teaching. PD Hoyt is readying her third book, "The Alphabet Comes Marching In" for release on the heels of her books "The Bakery" and "The Mother's Day Gift".

If you saw a photograph of Dick Backus and you thought - "I think I know him!" it may be because you are of a certain age when you watched daytime soaps like Ryan's Hope or went to see Eugene O'Neill's "Ah Wilderness" at the Ogunquit Playhouse, or you even went to see "Butterflies are Free" on Broadway. These are just a few of the gems that Richard Backus, born, and still living, right here in New Hampshire, has to his credit.

Today, however, you are more likely to find him going door to door in his hometown of New Boston or one of the other towns in Hillsborough District 42 running for the NH Legislature. 

This was not how Dick saw himself spending time in his golden years, but his deep concern for the loss of community among our citizens and our elected officials has drawn him into the fray. I caught up with Dick recently over Zoom and we chatted about running for the legislature, always with the thread of rebuilding community running through the discussion and how rebuilding impacts and is impacted by so many of the challenges we face in our lives. How do we rebuild a sense of community when our commitment to public education is under fire? How do we restore community when more than 50% of our population are denied bodily autonomy? These and other issues compelled Dick to do something he never expected to do, to run for public office.

From his position at the Georgetown University Climate Center James Bradbury takes the science that he has learned over the years, beginning here in New Hampshire and later at Colorado College (BS), the University of New Hampshire (MS) and UMass Amherst (PhD) and turns it into policy and strategy to help the states address the many challenges of Climate Change. 

James attributes his love of the natural environment to his years at Mowglis, School of the Open, the summer camp on Newfound Lake he attended as a boy where he developed skills that have paved the way for a life of purpose bringing him to today when he is a leader in environmental policy around the challenges of Climate Change.

In the Wake of Dobbs

Is IVF the Next Target for the Morality Police?

Dr. Adam Finkel

Adam Finkel is a resident of Dalton, NH and Princeton, NJ. He served in leadership positions in both the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations aimed at promulgating and evaluating risk-based regulations to protect the nation’s workers from chemical, radiological, and biological hazards. He has a Masters Degree in public policy from the JFK School of Government at Harvard and a Doctorate in Environemtnal Health Science from Harvard as well. In the past few years he has jumped into important New Hampshire issues including the efforts to stop the placement of a landfill in the area adjacent to Forest Lake in Dalton as well as other local efforts to protect the NH environment. 

His concern over the ramifications of the Dobbs decision of the US Supreme Court regarding In Vitro Fertilization have started to consume addition attention of his time because he is concerned that it may be the next target of the fundamentalist forces that have gained control of the Court.

David Scanlan - A Balancing Act with Forward Momentum

David Scanlan, New Hampshires new Secretary of State seeks to balance the interests of the broadest cross section of voters at the same time that he continues to move the state forward in terms of providing access to the sacred right to vote.

We caught up with him recently to discuss the First in the Nation Presidential Primary status, the balancing act entailed in assuring ready access to voting for those qualified to vote, transparency and security, as well as the newest effort to increase the voter information for those whose primary language is not english.

Without question Wah Pah Nah Yah (Lightfoot Runner) was among the great artists of the 20th century. Certainly among Native American artists his name is synonymous with efforts to document Native culture through art. What most people are unaware of is that Wah Pah Nah Yah loved New Hampshire and especially the White Mountains. He was particularly fond of (Camp) Mowglis, School of the Open, on Newfound Lake.

In fact, the entire West family has a long and storied history. His grandfather “Thunderbow” fought Custer at what the Cheyenne and the Sioux knew as the Green Greasy Grass river, today referred to as the Little Bighorn. His Grandmother Renee would be one of the children taken by the government and placed in boarding schools who escaped to return to her roots. 

Steve Rand is not what one might describe as an educational zealot or a fellow who tilts at windmills.  His family is about as steeped in tradition within the town of Plymouth as it gets. He took over the family business in Plymouth from his dad and, despite Walmart, the migration of business away from the town center, and all the odds, Rand’s Hardware continues to thrive on the main street in Plymouth. He is a blend of pragmatic Yankee and street-smart entrepreneur. But behind that wry smile lies a philosopher and a visionary; a man who wants to “leave the woodpile just a little higher” when his days are done. 

So when the opportunity arose for him to be a plaintiff in New Hampshire’s ongoing litigation over educational funding he did not hesitate. The lawsuit, we’ll call it Claremont 3, though, to my knowledge, no moniker has yet been assigned to it - may be the culmination of more than 3 decades of legal action (and political inaction) based on the New Hampshire constitutional obligation to provide funding for an adequate education to all public school children.

I wanted to speak with Steve Rand, not because he can recite chapter and verse about the legal history of the Claremont cases or the numeric minutia of tax disparities between towns or their relationship to the quality of schools from high-income or low-income school districts. Rather, I wanted to speak with someone who came at this from an experiential basis; someone who has lived the disparities on a day-to-day and year-to-year basis. Someone who has seen how the system short-changes our kids and our communities.

In writing a fictional account of the Chocorua story Jeremy Osgood has tackled the unknowable challenge of providing documentation where there is none but utilizing the rich history of folklore and myth surrounding the Chocorua story as a tapestry into which he weaves his own version of the myth. It’s a great read, especially for those who love NH folk tales, very sensitively written and quite believable as one possible through-line in the dangerous and savage period.

In an era where civility is a rare commodity, recalling the way that Dick Swett conducted himself as a US Congressman and later as an Ambassador to Denmark is a reminder that civility, humility and conscience are still honorable and - perhaps even possible again.

Dick was elected to the second congressional district seat in congress in 1990 and in 92 he was handily re-elected for another term.

The turning point of Dick's political fortunes came in 1994 with the successful passage of the assault weapons ban. Despite the danger to his own career, Dick voted for the measure and it became law. He lost his reelection bid by less than a percentage point. FOLLOWING ON THE HEELS of the ban, there was a decline in gun violence but when the ban was not extended under George W. Bush we reverted to the status quo ante and we all know what that has looked like for our country.

In 1998 he was named Ambassador to Denmark by President Bill Clinton a post he held until 2001.

In this podcast I speak with Dick Swett about his political journey and his life journey since his act of courage led to the passage of the (temporary) assault weapons ban in 1994 and his razor close loss, fueled by the NRA, in the subsequent election.