By Lisa Phillips

People who do restoration and conservation work realize that, in nature, it takes many voices to make a healthy chorus. In recent years, a group of Chicago-area women have given a new voice to nature interpretation with the biannual journal, Seeding the Snow. It’s a collection of original artwork and writing by women in the Midwest involved in the restoration movement, conservation efforts, or local nature in general.

At a recent potluck dinner, a group of 20 Seeding the Snow supporters, contributors, and volunteers gathered to hand-bind and mail the Fall/Winter 2000 issue.

Co-editor Nancy Freehafer says the idea for the journal sprang from a women’s prairie restoration weekend campout in July 1994 at Nachusa Grasslands in Lee and Ogle County near Franklin Grove, Illinois. Freehafer’s friend and fellow editor Karen Rodriguez had been working on an article about women in restoration and was thinking of eventually writing a book on the subject. After the campout, Rodriguez and Freehafer began collecting manuscripts from others and talking about the project at subsequent gatherings. They realized a need for an ongoing place for women’s nature interpretation, so the book idea evolved into Seeding the Snow.

Freehafer and Rodgriguez held a planning meeting for the journal in September 1996. During a time of uncertainty for restoration efforts (a moratorium had temporarily been imposed in Cook County), the journal provided a place for women to continue their involvement, above and beyond doing the work itself. The best time to plant some seeds for spring is in a light snow, one of them realized, so the journal’s title became Seeding the Snow.

The first issue appeared in spring of 1997. Since then Freehafer says the addition of Christiane Rey as art director has brought a stronger sense of continuity, as did formulating their mission statement. The production team also includes graphic designer Corasue Nicholas (who designed the Chicago Wilderness Atlas of Biodiversity).

"If the restoration movement is to keep growing," says Rey, "it has to go beyond on-the-ground environmental concerns, and become more emotional in order to reach a wider audience." Seeding the Snow includes high quality woodcuts, photographs, poems, and essays on everything from prairie loose-strife to one woman’s first seed gathering trip. Ideally, says Rey, the artwork they choose stands on its own alongside the text, with equal weight given to both.

Rey sees the journal’s usefulness as a place for women to express feelings they might not feel comfortable expressing elsewhere. In fact, many of the women whose work is eventually featured in Seeding the Snow don’t really know much about restoration or conservation, but they will learn about it through the journal.

Though circulation is currently only a few hundred, a September 1999 profile in the Chicago Tribune helped increase both submissions and subscriptions, and Freehafer says they are trying other ways to reach new readers. Seeding the Snow will sponsor a March 11 nature writing workshop to be led by Stephanie Mills (author of In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land).

At a recent potluck dinner, a group of 20 supporters, contributors, and volunteers gathered to hand-bind and mail the Fall/Winter 2000 issue. The women sat around tables and on the floor, drank hot cider and carefully poked holes into the spine of each issue, then tied them with raffia. They talked about the color variations and quality of the covers, which are handmade by WomanCraft, Inc., a women’s job skills program affiliated with social service organization, Deborah’s Place. As they worked and later ate a bountiful meal, they talked about politics, an upcoming seed processing day, and their lives.

"This is a community for women in the Chicago area," says Freehafer. "They have really taken Seeding the Snow on as something they believe in."