Ski jumpers at the Olympics travel hundreds of feet; students who launched themselves from the modest jump at the base of Mount David in the 1930s flew far fewer feet.

Still, the spectacle was no less grand, or less popular, judging from the crowds who gathered between Cheney House and the President’s House to watch these jumpers. These clips, from the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, are from the 1936 Winter Carnival.

Here on campus, we’d see about 15 inches of snow in an average February.

We’re now close to 50 inches, which is more than double the height of your average bobcat. In just the last week, 47 inches have fallen in a one-two-three-four-five punch.

Here’s how much snow each storm dropped:

Feb. 8 — 5.5 inches
Feb. 9 — 11.5 inches
Feb. 11 — 3.5 inches
Feb. 13 — 19.5 inches
Feb. 15 — 7 inches

And here are some scenes and sounds from the week that was as �ֲ���ý people went about their business.

What did the Floridian say to the Mainers?

The temperature was about 13 degrees and the wind was gusting to 25 mph when we caught up with Kinsey Moser ’18 of Florida, at left, who was walking with Emma Foss ’19 and Adam Poulin ’19 of Maine and Jade Donaldson ’18 of New Jersey.

Which one had a sunny outlook on a snowy day?

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Many hands make light work

�ֲ���ý is able to clear campus walks and driveways quicker than ever these days. Begun last year, a new approach to moving snow has Facility Services staff from many different departments pitching in to help the 12-person grounds crew.

Snowbanks? We got 'em, especially after nearly 50 inches of snow so far in February. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The wind kicks up snow on Feb. 13 as students cross the frosty Historic Quad. (Durotimi Akinkugbe '18 for �ֲ���ý College)

Students head into the wind on Alumni Walk on Feb. 13 as the 19.5-inch storm slowly winds down. (Durotimi Akinkugbe '18 for �ֲ���ý College)

The Class of 1929 Gate has seen its share of snowstorms. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Students crossing the Historic Quad are the only thing not cloaked in snow on Feb. 16. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

�ֲ���ý ‘doesn’t really shut down’

WCSH-TV’s Kristina Rex spent the day at �ֲ���ý on Monday and joined grounds crew member Tim Kivus on his plowing rounds. “In our eyes, [�ֲ���ý] really doesn’t shut down,” he said.

�ֲ���ý did slow a tad during the week, including an afternoon closure of administrative offices on Feb. 9 and a full-day shutdown on Monday. (When offices close, individual professors choose whether to hold their classes or not.)

As nearly 20 inches of snow fell on Monday, Jonathan Lindgren ’20 of Plainville, Conn., still had three classes, including an exam. “I have hard-core teachers who live right down the block,” he told Rex.

Recalling February 1969

In terms of snowy Februarys, current students experienced the 28.5-inch snowstorm of February 2013.  Much further back, alumni of the late 1960s will recall two storms two weeks apart in 1969 that dropped  20.5 inches Feb. 10–11 and 36.4 inches over four days, Feb. 24–27.

A day into the infamous “100-hour storm,” the Lewiston Evening Journal’s banner headline on Feb. 25, 1969, announced 17 inches of snow had fallen. Though the paper’s forecast called for improving weather that day, the storm would continue for another three days.

The storm was so disruptive that on Friday, Feb. 28, Gov. Ken Curtis invoked a never-before-used Maine law and declared that large grocery stores could open on Sunday, March 2. At the time (and until 1990), state law prohibited businesses with more than five employees and 5,000 square feet of retail space to open on Sundays.

The Lewiston Evening Journal‘s banner headline on Feb. 25 announces 17 inches of snow. But the storm wasn’t over yet.

Snowbells

Get a 360-degree view from atop windy and snowy Mount David and hear the Hathorn Hall bell on Feb. 9.

During the May 21 cleanup of Mount David, from left, Oliver Farnum ’19 of Marshfield, Mass., Jeremy Mack ’16 of Brooklyn, N.Y., and George Fiske ’19 of West Hartford, Conn., grapple with old sections of chain-link fencing. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

If the party vibe isn’t quite right, a �ֲ���ý student can exit the back of a Frye Street house and, 3 minutes later, discover a quiet place above it all.

Mount David, an historic campus spot rising 381 feet above its surroundings, is a curious amalgam of nature, �ֲ���ý, and Lewiston, a fluid identity that holds both charm and challenge, says Dana Cohen-Kaplan ’16, a campus environmental leader who led a Mount David cleanup this spring.

 The hill is a gateway experience for �ֲ���ý students “just beginning to get outside.”

On the one hand, Mount David is one of those valuable “neutral spaces” that doesn’t feel “owned by any one campus constituency,” Cohen-Kaplan says. It feels open to the community, too. “I’ve watched a lot of sunsets with friends up there. And I’ve had great conversations with Lewiston residents up there.”

The hill is also a gateway experience for �ֲ���ý students “just beginning to get outside,” he adds. “And if a student enjoys a trip to Mount David, they might feel inclined to check out and similar offerings.

On the other hand, this neutral �ֲ���ý space just might need a stronger ally.

“It’s a beautiful spot, but people treat Mount David poorly,” Cohen-Kaplan says, with students and residents being equal-opportunity litterers.

“They treat it poorly because other people treat it poorly. People don’t take their litter away because other people don’t take their litter away.”

EcoRep leader Dana Cohen-Kaplan ’16 (left) and �ֲ���ý sustainability manager Tom Twist confer during the EcoService Day project on Mount David on May 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

A leader of the student EcoReps organization, Cohen-Kaplan graduated in May with a geology degree and a minor in teacher education, and he spent part of his final Short Term planning and leading a significant cleanup of Mount David, one of four on- and off-campus EcoService Day projects on May 21.

He and his team of EcoReps with support from the college’s Facility Services staff and the Sustainability Office, hauled out trash and broken glass from the hill, removed graffiti, and generally tidied the place up.

Working behind several Frye Street houses, they also removed about 100 feet of derelict chain-link fencing, a vestige of mid-1900s approaches to campus security.

Back then, �ֲ���ý stewarded Mount David the old-fashioned way. Topped with barbed-wire, the fencing ran around the base of the hill from Rand Hall to Frye Street, with strongly worded “No Trespassing” signs at intervals.

Dana Cohen-Kaplan ’16 holds an old sign that reads, “Private Property: No Admittance Without Permission, Trespassers will be prosecuted, President and Trustees of �ֲ���ý College, Owner.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Besides being a safety issue — the fencing, pushed over in places, was topped with barbed wire — it also “represented boundaries between �ֲ���ý and Lewiston,” Cohen-Kaplan says, “and that was in our heads as we worked. The fencing is a boundary that’s a remnant of a time that was different.”

Now, “when you look up toward the mountain from most of the Frye Street houses, you can’t see any fencing, which is cool,” he says.

Now the challenge is to keep it clean. As that famous ’70s “” TV commercial intoned, “People start pollution, and people can stop it.”

Adam Auerbach '16 (left) of Silver Spring, Md., and James Pardo '18 of South Salem, N.Y., dig a water bar that diverts runoff to prevent erosion along a Mount David trail during the EcoService Day project on May 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Jeremy Mack '16 of Brookly, N.Y., rolls up old chain-link fencing during the EcoService Day project on Mount David on May 21, 2016. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

During the EcoService Day project on Mount David on May 21, Tim Kivus of Facility Services clears leaves from the base of a metal pole holding chain-link fencing before cutting the pole down with a grinder. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Rachel Minkovitz '19 of Wilmington, Del., picks up trash on Mount David during the EcoService Day project on May 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

�ֲ���ý sustainability manager Tom Twist estimates that about 100 feet of fencing was removed from behind the Frye Street houses during the EcoService Day project on Mount David on May 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Yet stopping bad behavior takes more than posting “no littering” signs, says Tom Twist, the college’s sustainability manager. “You can’t beat people over the head with what they should or shouldn’t do.”

Instead, Twist says, a goal might be to change a “keystone habit” among hill users, a simple change that might have “many other positive repercussions.”

One keystone habit that Cohen-Kaplan and Twist would like to change is the use of glass bottles on the mountain, which is linked with the bad habit of tossing them off the hill. “It’s super-laborious to clean up broken glass,” Twists says. “Broken glass begets broken glass.”

“Maybe we can be creative and engaging” with the signage, says Cohen-Kaplan. “Something that speaks to students: ‘Hey, don’t be that guy. You use this mountain, so do other people.’”

Along with some signage, there are plans to install an information kiosk near the trail behind 280 College St. residence (the old Rand Field).

Mount David is one of two “wild” pieces of land on the �ֲ���ý campus proper, the other being the approximately three-acre parcel of woods near Merrill Gymnasium.

Take a quick hike up Mount David on the path that starts behind Pierce House on Frye Street.

Occupying about 10 acres of the main campus’ 133 acres, Mount David is double the size of the Historic Quad, and it lives large in the �ֲ���ý consciousness, too.

Chiding the college a bit, Cohen-Kaplan says that since �ֲ���ý uses the Mount David name as a brand — Mount David Summit, Mount David Society — perhaps the college should also devote resources to upkeep of the namesake space itself. (Speaking of the Summit: the poem “On the Tops of Things,” by Nicole Danser ’15, read at the 2015 Mount David Summit, celebrates all of Mount David’s charms.)

“You can enjoy a space and leave no trace. The two can go together.”

While the college can’t devote buff-and-burnish resources to Mount David as it does with the Historic Quad, the student-college partnership of the May cleanup suggests a sustainable model, says Jay Phillips, director of operations for �ֲ���ý Facility Services.

“When there is an opportunity to partner, we want our people involved,” Phillips says.

Rachel Minkovitz ’19 of Wilmington, Del., picks up trash on Mount David during the EcoService Day project on May 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Twist agrees. “I would like to continue to have [Mount David stewardship] be student-run, to build ownership of the place. If we had more students cycle through the cleanup, it would improve the culture of the mountain’s use” while instilling sustainable land-use habits among student.

The main message? “You can enjoy a space and leave no trace,” Twist says. “The two can go together.”

Mount David cleanup was among four EcoService projects that included work at the 14-acre David Rancourt River Preserve, owned by the Androscoggin Land Trust; at River Valley Village apartments; at the 372-acre Thorncrag Sanctuary wildlife preserve; and at Lots to Gardens urban gardening program in Lewiston-Auburn.

Mount David’s namesake, David Davis, is buried near campus in the Davis family cemetery, on the corner of Sabattus and Franklin streets. (Jay Burns/�ֲ���ý College)

Mount David rises 381 feet above sea level. Chided as a “mountain by courtesy” by a newspaper writer a century ago, the peak is also known as “Mount Davis,” “Davis Mountain,” and “David’s Mountain,” tautonymic variations due to its namesake, a man named David Davis, born Sept. 1, 1775, and died Jan. 5, 1851.

David Davis’ Dad

David’s father, Amos Davis, was Lewiston’s third settler. A Quaker, Amos was a farmer, shoemaker, and surveyor who drew one of the earliest maps of the area, dated 1776. His son David was the second male born in Lewiston.

Early Teachings

In 1798, when public education was still a haphazard affair, David Davis and four other citizens teamed up to hire one of the first Lewiston schoolteachers.

$5 and a Mountain

In 1803, David Davis paid $5 for 100 acres of land that included the mountain. He then named it for himself, according to some accounts.

�ֲ���ý’ Mountain

David Davis farmed the land until his death in 1851. His heirs bequeathed the mountain to �ֲ���ý, which hoped to build an observatory on its summit.

House of David

The original David Davis home on Main Street in Lewiston was the oldest building in the city, and one of the most run-down, when it was torn down in 1989.

All in the Family

Davis, Frye, and White streets near campus are all named for the same family.

Firm as Granite

At the opening of the new Maine State Seminary, on Sept. 1, 1857, a local pastor said that if David Davis were present, he would tell the new students to “go up that mountain, where you will obtain a view of our united villages. Make your principles as firm as the granite base on which the mountain rests.”

The Mount David “Brand”

The mountain lends its name to the college’s leadership giving group, the Mount David Society, and the college’s annual academic showcase, the Mount David Summit.

David’s Legacy

Many of David Davis’ direct descendants are �ֲ���ý alumni, the youngest being his great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Toby White ’94, an associate professor at, of all places, the University of California at Davis School of Education.

Toby’s great-grandmother was Marion Wellman White, who, according to family history, attended �ֲ���ý for a year but was expelled for the sin of skating on the campus bog (named Lake Andrews years later) on a Sunday morning.

A century ago, �ֲ���ý students hauled logs and tar barrels up Mount David for massive bonfires to celebrate sports triumphs or to drive away the winter blahs.

Bonfires are a no-no today, but fire on the mountain is still part of �ֲ���ý life, thanks to a �ֲ���ý Outing Club tradition known as Children of Midnight.

The �ֲ���ý Outing Club’s “Children of Midnight” event on Jan. 29, 2013, culminates with the launch of sky lanterns above Mount David. Photograph by Will Strathmann ’13.

A few times each year, and on short notice, the BOC announces a Children of Midnight event. The most recent one, on Jan. 29, featured the launch of sky lanterns into the snowy sky above Mount David.

Michelle Pham ’15 of Vancouver writes the blog , and she describes heading up the mountain to join the Children of Midnight:

Tonight, while writing some notes out for my class, my friend told me that the BOC was hosting “Children of Midnight.” Since I usually work midnight and beyond, of course I had to come when I heard that they were releasing flying sky lanterns tonight. It is snowing heavily in Maine today, and all the pathways glisten and sparkle with fresh crystals of snow. The purity of the snow combined with the warm light of the lanterns created such a mystical ambiance that was entirely beautiful.