TEMPLE — Deftly swirling pieces of basswood around each other, Paul Gazzo of Boston created string like a pro Thursday during an open house at the Koviashuvik Local Living School.

It was his first visit to the rambling homestead set deep in the woods.

After meeting owners Chris and Ashirah Knapp at the Common Ground Country Fair, he has followed their newsletter and came to see “what’s new in the world.”

He wasn’t alone. More than 45 people toured the homestead and school during the open house and potluck dinner.

“It’s not about living as the American natives or as one lived 400 years ago,” Chris Knapp told the gathering. “It’s about a life that blends the old and the new.”

“Koviashuvik” is an Eskimo word that means “a time and place of joy in the present moment,” he said.

Knapp said they cut and store ice from a small pond on their 100-acre property, store vegetables they’ve grown in a stone root cellar and use a solar dehydrator and a composting outhouse. They find their efforts “really fun and fulfilling,” he said.

When they cleared the forested plot in 2004, their vision was to build a school to share information and allow people to take part in what interested them. It included an apprentice program to enable young people to live on the property and learn.

Chris and Ashirah developed an interest in simpler living as teenagers. They spent several years apprenticing and working at Earthways School of Wilderness Living in Canaan under the guidance of Maine master guide Ray Reitze.

When the couple first arrived in Temple, they cleared a portion of the field for garden space while living in a tent, then in an old cabin, Ashirah Knapp said. The next thing was building a root cellar, “a home for our food,” she said. The dry stone foundation is carved into a mound and covered with sawdust. The cellar stores root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips and potatoes.

“Try putting carrots into your refrigerator in early October,” she said. “Then see what they are like next June.”

The couple’s organic garden feeds them and their two children year round.

Visitors toured the garden and at each stop the couple offered ideas, such as eating basswood leaves. They are a wild, edible leaf that serves as lettuce for the family, Ashirah Knapp said.

The tour included their subterranean greenhouse, rainwater collection system and solar dehydrator, as well as a Cree Indian-style earth-covered lodge.

The couple use a solar oven, solar electricity and a bike-powered washing machine, fed by solar-heated rainwater — all part of their experiment in people-friendly/energy-saving technologies.

“There’s a place for both the best of the old ways and the new,” Ashirah Knapp said.

abryant@sunjournal.com

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