A Native American longhouse, similar to the one in this artist's rendering, will be built on the grounds of the Hans Herr House in Willow Street. Longhouses were common in this area when the Herr family settled here in the early 1700s.
A small forest is on its way to the 1719 Hans Herr House.
Within a few weeks, those 2,000 to 3,000 saplings will be transformed into a Native American longhouse.
In the meantime, however, those trees aren't going to debark themselves.
The Hans Herr House and the Circle Legacy Center are calling for volunteers to help denude the forest April 28 at the site of Lancaster County's oldest surviving building.
"The more the merrier. It's a big job," Hans Herr director Becky Gochnauer said Thursday.
"Anybody who has even a remote interest, we'd love to have them come out," she added. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not many people are building longhouses any more."
"We want to do this as traditionally as possible," said Uhma Ruth Py, a Lenape elder of the Wolf Clan and member of the longhouse committee.
"We have researched this big-time. We've been all over the eastern United States and even into Canada to see how longhouses should be constructed," Py said. "I am totally honored to be a part of this venture."
Gochnauer said she hopes to make an occasion of it.
"The goal is not just to get the saplings debarked, but to hold a community event," she said. "This is a very unique opportunity to do something that's really pretty cool.
"We are looking for people to bring a chair — sawhorses if they have them. And everyone should bring a draw knife, a pocketknife, a potato peeler — some sort of knifelike tool."
The saplings — a variety of hardwoods as well as softer poplar — will measure 2 to 8 inches in diameter, she said, and be used for different parts of the longhouse structure.
"The bigger ones will be used as posts that run down the center," she said. "The smaller saplings will create the ribs of the framework."
The bark comes off in long strips — "It's sort of like peeling a ripe pear," she said.
Although they're looking for adult volunteers to handle the blades, Gochnauer said children are welcome to help collect leftover bark strips.
"There's going to be a lot of it," she said.
Gochnauer estimates it will take about 5 minutes per sapling.
"We've never done this before," she noted. "Very few people have actually done this. It's exciting — it's like a brand-new thing."
A Hans Herr volunteer will be working one of the site's historic grindstones to keep knife blades sharp, she added.
Construction on the longhouse will begin the next week.
"We'll have about a 10-day window from the time the sapling is cut," Gochnauer said. "If you wait too long, the sapling won't bend. It will break. It's a narrow window of opportunity."
Construction will take about a week, she noted.
"We'll be looking for volunteers throughout the next couple months as we finish the interior," she added.
"At this point, we're planning a soft opening this summer and a grand opening in the fall."
Longhouse plans have been in the works for nearly two years.
The intent, Gochnauer said, is to recognize the sort of structure that would have dotted the local landscape prior to European settlement. The Anabaptist communities that first settled the Lancaster County area had good relationships with the local natives, she noted —\!q predominantly members of the Conestoga and Delaware tribes.
The loaf-shaped longhouse being built at Hans Herr will measure 62 feet by 20 feet by 20 feet, she said. It mirrors the dimensions of longhouse remains unearthed in Washington Boro in 1969.
"I think it's an absolutely wonderful idea," Py said.
"We realize that, in order for it to last, we have to incorporate a few modern elements, but we're going to hide those features as much as possible," she said.
"For instance, the natural roping used to lash the saplings would deteriorate very quickly. So we'll use wire or plastic, then cover it with natural material … so we don't have to do maintenance every year or so."
Lunch and snacks will be provided for volunteers, and Native American food will be for sale.
Interested volunteers should contact the 1719 Hans Herr House at 464-4438 or longhouse@hansherr.org by April 20.
For more information on the project, visit hansherr.org or circlelegacycenter.org.
Py, who's also in charge of collecting furnishings for the longhouse, said she already has amassed a number of hides, mats, trade goods and tools appropriate to the setting.
"We have to educate not just school kids, but the general public as to what the native culture was like," she said. "There's so much misinformation out there."
