Welcome bac to another trip Across Indiana.

In this episode we'll be exploring the hobbies, activities and passions taken up by Hoosiers when they clock out for the week.

But first, we have some weekend warriors we'd like to introduce to you.

Today we're in Nashville, Indiana for the final day of the Indiana Bigfoot Conference, hosted by the Indiana Bigfoot Research Organization.

People are so passionate about Bigfoot here that since 2024, the Indiana Bigfoot Conference has opened its doors to enthusiasts of all levels and backgrounds to connect and foster a community all based around the big man himself.

We started it three years ago.

This is our third one.

There was several people that was pushing to have a conference in Indiana, and I went, “Gonna be part of it”.

If there's going to be one in Indiana, I want to be part of it.

We want people to have fun.

We want people to come i and enjoy it and know that it's a safe, free space for the to talk about their experiences.

Because a lot of times, the experiences are out there so much that people think that they're totally crazy.

And I keep telling them, don't write it off until you have those experiences that you cannot explain.

For our first story we're heading up to Whitestown where, Across Indiana producer, Sam Oliver, also spotted some big, hairy men in the woods.

Excep none of them were Bigfoot, but rather historical interpreters participating in Viking Fest.

The Vikings have breached the gates of Whitestown, Indiana!

And have taken the throne!

With the city now firmly under the control of Storrada of Ravensguard, a new age has begun.

And they have three simple demands for the common folk.

Eat, drink and celebrate with your fellow Hoosiers at Viking Fest!

So Whitestown Viking Fest is kind of a reenactment festival to kind of, give people the history of how the Vikings lived, many years ago.

Now in its ninth year, Viking Fest draws over 4000 people over three days to Arts Acres Park.

Some are locals.

Some come from out of state.

But ALL are here to have fun!

So this festival for anybody and anybody that wants to come.

Were completely Family-Friendly.

Anybody is welcome!

And at the center of it all, are the Vikings, who call themselves Storrada of Ravensguard.

But where did they get their name?

So it comes from Sigrid Storrada.

Our image, is based off of her.

She was a queen in the Old Norse sagas.

It was said to marry her, you had to give her something greater than what she already owned.

And if you couldn't do that?

You weren't a worthy suitor.

The group recreates historically accurate Viking villages like this one, reenacts Viking battles and educates people on Viking culture.

To them, this is everything.

Storrada of Ravensguard is a family.

Plain and simple.

I mean, you asked me to say this in small, simple words, but there is no way that even in a small line or a book, or even if I was to write my own scribe text, that I could tell you how much this group means to me.

it brings back a sense of camaraderie, brings back a sense of having a family that's not like bloodline, it brings back a sense of something more than like first world stuff.

Like, learn how to make things instead of going to the store and buying it.

For the entire three days of the festival.

The Vikings don't go home.

They sleep, eat and live right here in the woods.

Just like real Vikings.

We like to set up a, village that would have existed in around, 10th century, Viking era.

We go from 793 to 1066.

And we set up our tents, as was archeologically found during that time.

And we have our cooking area.

We have a bunch of obviously fighters, which you've met.

we try and make it a little home away from home.

And it is much like that.

Carol, known to the group as Grandma Carol is the hearthmaster and craft master for Storrada.

And she likes to talk about how different things really were for the Vikings.

Now the thing is, I tell people like, you literally had no stores.

You had to be able to make trade or, you know, barter for whatever you needed.

But if you're just beginning your Viking journey, you can count on the village to lend a helping hand.

Like when I first started, I didn't have anything.

It was all borrowed to me.

And now I have the ability to have more stuff now because it was all loaned to me at first and now I can build my own kit.

That kit by the way, is almost entirely handmade by the Vikings themselves.

One of the things I do mostly is tablet weaving, which, as you can see here, they use these, tablet woven, things for like straps, belts, trim for clothes like this.

I do a spinning, with a drop spindle, and that how... I taught her... Yeah, she taught me!

That was part of my job to teach people.

And that's how they made, actually made the yarn and string out of raw wool from the sheep.

Meanwhile, Grandma Carol is making socks, through a process called “Nålbinding” “Nål” stands for needle and “binding” is just binding, and what it basically involves is a needle, like a big sewing needle.

And youre basically making a whole series of loops.

If you snag a hole in it, it will not unravel like crocheting or knitting.

So they're very durable.

Everybody loves them.

And everybody that buys a pair in the Viking community says it is a game changer!

And if you're curious about any other crafts, just ask.

Yup!

I'm happy to teach whoever's interested.

I'm not rich, I'm not famous or anything like that, but I can teach what I know to people who want to learn.

Of course, Vikings were known for more than their sock making.

So within this group, I am the Kampsjef, which that means battle master.

Fighting can range anywhere from three fighting styles.

You've got Western, you've got Eastern, and then you got Huscarl.

Western, starts with t shirt, short target areas.

you're going to strike swift, fast, without leaving a bruise.

Eastern, you're going to be in armor.

You're going to be fighting pretty hard.

You're gonna be clashing, beating, you could expect to see blood in that.

Huscarl, you're going to fight and you're going to go to the killing point.

We wear HEMA masks.

Face slashing, top of the head, the groin, anywhere.

Wow!

That honestly sounds a little too graphic for me.

Thankfully at this festival, Storrada keeps it PG.

But don't think for a second that means it's any less intense.

As skirmishes and battle cries echo throughout the arena, haunting war drums and chants ring out from the band performing on stage.

It's really awesome to have a backtrack/soundtrack that you could kind of... If it beats really good, you could kind of time yourself to the beat of the music and... No, it's awesome.

It's an ego boost.

I'm not even gonna lie.

Like, imagine you're fighting and you take your sword, you go through a shield and it's like, the music's just playing heavy.

Instantly you feel like Beowulf just slaughtering Grendel.

Although many come to Viking Fest for the spectacle of the arena, after you spend some more time in the village and talk to the re-enactors, it all starts to click.

if it was at a different event and like I came up and I was like, “Hey, let's just come as a day-visit, but can I bunk in your tent for tonight?” And they'd be like, “Yeah, of course, why not?” So youre never by yourself.

It gives me a connection to the past that I didn't have before.

And not only that, but connecting to the past helped me connect to all the other people that love that connection as well.

This group has given me purpose, this group has given me my life back, this group has joined together so many friends, this group means the world to me.

You know, you walk in and everybody hugs you first thing.

And you know?

I'm a hugger and I like that!

Just the fact that I'm learning skills that I wouldn't have learned otherwise with people that are so fun to hang out with.

That, I mean, what more can you ask for?

Attending Whitestown's Viking Fest can feel like stepping into history.

But for Storrada of Ravensguard, it's more like coming home.

The Indiana Bigfoot Conferenc draws in a wide array of people, both within and outside of the Bigfoot enthusiast community.

I told them when they first started this event this would be a great location.

This will be an event that, as every year goes on, it' going to get bigger and bigger.

And if they keep at it and keep being consistent, eventually it's going to be considered one of the best events in the whole country.

Oh, yeah, the community is amazing.

These events play a crucial role.

Like I said, giving people outlets to share their encounters.

For people to learn, to share research.

Yeah.

So someone who's ne to this, who's getting into it.

I mean it'll be fascinating for them.

I know it would be for me and for them to come to these conventions and see what's availabl for them to hear, see, buy, you name it, talk abou it would be really a great thing for someone who's just starting.

We still love this.

We love to see the community grow.

Ever since I got into Bigfoot, I have dealt with people from across the United States that come to Indiana, and they say that.

That's why I keep saying there's a lot of Bigfoot in Indiana, because a lot of them do come here and go.

You have more activity righ here than what we have anywhere.

In our next story I investigated the tense history surrounding Blastcam Paintball & Airsoft in Hobart.

Today, the same buildings and fields where paintball or spend the weekends having fun with friends and family used to play a major role in the nation's nuclear defense during the Cold War.

In Hobart, Indiana, just 40 mile southeast of Chicago, you'll find Blastcamp, Paintball and Airsoft.

A popular combat sports arena and one of the oldest in the country.

My name is Virgil Frey.

I own and operate Blastcamp Paintball and Airsoft in Hobart, Indiana.

The original owners of Blastcamp came up with the idea that this would be a great place to do this new paintball thing.

So they reached out and purchased the property in 1987.

Blastcamp opened up in 1988.

That makes it one of the longest running paintball and airsoft fields in the country.

But behind the layers of paint splatter and spent airsoft BBs lies a much more serious component, in stark contrast to Blastcamp's fun atmosphere.

We're located on a decommissioned Nike missile base, Nike Missile Base C-47 The Nike Hercules guided missile system, is a powerful component of the U.S.

Army's air defense arsenal.

During the Cold War, the property where Blastcamp sits was designated as Nike Missile Site C-47 and was operated by the US Army Air Defense Command.

The Nike Missile Program was basically a missile program that protected the domestic USA from Russia.

If they had come over to bomb us during the Cold War.

The Cold War was really a war of ideas, a war of ideology, the capitalist world versus a communist world.

So the United States and the Soviet Union were allied during the Second World War.

And once the war was over, the Cold War emerged, and it was amplified by the existence of nuclear weapons.

We dropped two bombs on Japan in 1945.

By 1949, the Soviet Union had tested an atomic bomb.

That first Soviet test kicked off a decades long arms race between the two superpowers.

Atomic Panic ran so deep in the 1950s that official policies were put into place to protect the public.

Fallout shelters were designated.

Families built their own backyard bunkers, and educational films were even produced to teach children how to protect themselves in the event of a nuclear attack.

Music: “Duck and Cover” This is an official Civil Defense film produced in cooperation with the Federal Civil Defense Administration.

And I do remember the bell going off.

And, you know, we had tornado drills and had fire drills, and they had these duck and cover drills.

Each one had its own different sound.

And so when we heard the duck cover drill, yeah, we had to duck and get under our desks.

I remember my mom and dad telling me that you're going to get drafted when you're 18 and all that, so that certainly was on my mind.

It was all peace and love by the time I was born.

Now that Russia had entered the nuclear age alongside the US, the country began devising ways to defend itself from what was seen as an inevitable strike.

Project Nike became the top solution.

It was a defense program put into place by Bell Industries.

It was programmed to create the supersonic rings of steel around heavily populated areas.

For example, here in northwest Indiana, there were about 32 Nike missile bases.

Nike Missile Base C-47 protected Chicagoland area.

So if they would have came to bomb, let's say the, the steel mills in Gary or downtown Chicago.

This base would have protected them.

Nike Missile Site C40 seven is nestled in an area called the Calumet Region, historically known for its heavy industry in northwest Indiana.

It falls along the south shore of Lake Michigan, where heavy industry took advantage of the cool water and the Great Lakes system.

And so it was a target.

At first, the Nike bases were welcomed additions to communities and helped lessen the anxiety of nuclear annihilation.

But as the years went on, both public perception and technological development shifted.

There was much more awareness of the dangers of having some of these sites within populated areas.

At first, people didn't know what they were.

You know, something going off in their backyard.

They liked the idea of there being protected by the federal government, the military bases, at the same time its one of those not in my backyard kind of situations.

So as people were protesting a number of things in the 1960s for civil rights, for against the Vietnam War, they were also, really calling out the dangers of, of nuclear weapons and actually nuclear energy in many cases.

By the 1970s, the Nike missiles themselves were outdated.

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs, were becoming the standard way of deploying nuclear weapons.

Nike missiles were only capable of shooting down high altitude bombers and not suborbital ICBMs.

Project Nike lasted from about 1956, 7, 8 Somewhere in that vicinity.

Most of the Nike bases were all decommissioned by the mid 70s.

They were just outdated.

Most Nike bases were demolished and their property sold to private entities who built shopping centers, neighborhoods, and highways on top of what was once the world's most sophisticated defense system.

However, C-47 was spared this fate and now hosts a different kind of conflict, fought with paintballs and plastic BBs this time around and not nuclear warheads.

Here at Blastcamp, we offer just about every type of combat sport you could want from airsoft, magfed paintball.

We do tournament paintball like professional level tournament paintball.

For example, today we have actually the high school football team, local high school football team coming out just to kind of kick off their season.

You know, they got all the seniors.

So they they treat them to a day of paintball and teambuilding, whether these players know it or not, the abandoned buildings they run through and take cover behind are pieces of an intense chapter of both American and world history.

Their fun day out is helping preserve this site for future generations to enjoy and learn from.

You know, being a National Park ranger, I'm of the mindset.

I don't care who's preserving a site as long as somebody is.

I would have never thought of something like Blastcamp as a as a mechanism to preserve a site.

From what I can see, just walking the ground, it's a fabulous use of the, of the property.

As a historian, I embrace preservation.

And if they want to preserve it through play, I'm all for it.

I'm all for it.

I don't see a lot of, you know, changes to the building, so it looks like they're preserving it.

Remember what you do, friends.

Now tell me right out loud, what are you supposed to do when you see the flash?

Duck and cover!

While you may or may not find Bigfoo in the woods around Nashville, you can absolutely find him here at the Nashville Daily Grind Coffee House.

The baristas here get in the Sasquatch spirit by offering unique menu item and Bigfoot themed merchandise for both conference goers and local regulars.

My name is Tyler Sipes, I'm the owner of Nashville Daily Grind.

The Nashville Daily Grind has been since 1977.

We serve, coffee, pastries.

We got, 1 pound bags, a coffee, tea.

Really about everything.

The most popular menu item is the Bigfoot Brew.

So that coffee, when we first when we first had it was actually a different name.

This coffee, it was a good tasting coffee, but the name wasn't fitting, so people weren't buying it.

So we decided like, hey let's change it to Bigfoot Brew.

And it just stuck I mean, it was an instant hit.

We bring it back every year when we don't have it, when we run out, and then people complain and they they just want it.

Fall as our busiest season.

You know, we get an average of 1.7 million people come through the town of Nashville between September and to the end of November.

And it's just another thin that we can add to give people a good time.

In our last story, we're slowing down the tempo and putting on our carpentry aprons.

Across Indiana producer, Sa Oliver, made his way to Franklin wher a group of student woodworkers set out to build an acoustic guitar from scratch in just two days.

Guitar building is the thing that just, you can take a week and just kind of forget about everything's going on in your life and just focus on building a guitar.

You have nothing else to do, nothing else to distract you from getting it done.

In Franklin, Indiana, there's a school tucked away in the cornfields that teaches people how to create things.

And it all started with one man.

My name is Marc Adams, and I'm the founder of the Marc Adams School of Fine Woodworking and Time Honored Crafts.

From 34 years ago, when I did all the classes myself to where we are today it's been a fun journey.

And in those 34 years, their scope has only grown.

So I knew that woodworking would be the foundational place to start a craft school in rural Indiana.

In time, my plan was to diversify and start doing other things that initially could be ancillary to woodworking, such as blacksmithing, where you can make your own hardware, your own hinges, and so on.

I also worked into glass, where you can start making leaded glass panels for what you were making, and those things did so well that we started to go into other directions.

And so now the subtitle to the name of the school is ‘and Time Honored Crafts.

So we do everything here from quilting classes to sewing classes.

We get into a lot of glasswork.

We do a lot of, foundry and forging work, carving on stone and on other materials.

This summer, we've got 270 classes taught by 130 instructors from 15 different countries.

So we've diversified into just about every type of craft imaginable.

And today, these students are learning techniques to make a fully functional acoustic guitar in a class led by longtime woodworking instructor John Ressler.

But John wasn't always the master, just a couple of decades ago.

He was a student just like them.

John came to take a class here in the second year of the school, and then we had a class that we offered on making a guitar, and John attended that and that was it.

He just fell in love with it and he started to make guitars and that has probably been maybe 20, 25 years ago.

But he's been teaching 2 or 3 or 4 classes here every year since then, and they absolutely always sell out.

I made a conscious decision at one point that I can either be a better guitar player, or I can be a better guitar builder.

I really was more interested in building a better guitar than playing guitar better so.

Which is good news, because this weekend, John and the class, we're challenging themselves to make a guitar in just two days.

Well, this weekend we're doing a two day class.

It's called ‘Build One Guitar in Two Days, and this is a charity class where the students will still pay the same tuition fee they would normally, but all the funds go to the scholarship fund for people who may not otherwise be able to afford to take a class here.

So what actually goes into building an acoustic guitar?

Well, you start by cutting out the front of the body, underneath which a series of thin wooden braces are glued in a specific pattern that allows it to resonate.

The sides are then soaked, heated, and bent to form their iconic hourglass shape.

The neck, carved separately, will get slots cut into it at incredibly precise intervals before fret wire is placed in the gaps to create the fretboard.

Then it's all fitted and finished.

And getting this all done in two days requires some planning.

Everyone's participating.

Everyone's doing a little piece of the guitar.

It's very ambitious, and I don't think many people here thought we could, but we will.

A big part of it is the organization of it.

I have three pages written out of different tasks.

Yesterday morning everyone was given a specific task.

So I would say, here's a template.

Trace this I had just simple instructions about here, do this and we'll watch and make sure that you know you're not going off the beaten path here.

One of John's students, Chris, has taken several instrument crafting courses in the past few years and while he came to the school looking to develop new skills, he ended up finding a whole lot more.

The first class I took with John was a weeklong build, and each person was building their own guitar for that full week.

And it was intense ten hours a day for seven days.

And it was a very, very intense process and learning all of the little intricacies of it's not just building a box, but creating a musical instrument that has a resonance, that has millimeters of things that you have to pay attention to in order to make that instrument sound wonderful at the end.

As well as look wonderful.

I didn't think that I would enjoy and love it so much.

I just really, really love the process of really love and building those instruments and invigorated me to come back and do it again.

And let's say you're on the fence.

Chris has a simple answer.

Do it.

Everybody in the class helps each other out, and it's a wonderful collaborative learning experience.

Everybody works together to lift everybody up, to give them the skills and the opportunity to finish the instrument and have that sense of accomplishment at the end.

And seeing things click for the students, is something John never gets tired of.

In the beginning of the week?

You know, the deer in the headlights look like “I don't know if I can do this” Even somebody who's done a lot of woodworking because the guitar is more than just a woodworking project.

You're building a breathing, living organism.

When you strum that guitar for the first time, it's just like, amazing.

And it's like, “I built it and I can make it sing ” and and just bring life to this thing.

And it's just fun to watch them get excited about it.

And then come back the next year because they had so much fun.

This is just a messing around song I call it.

By the end of the day, John and his students actually pulled it off.

So this guitar is finished and ready to be sold, but this isn't for profit.

After the sale, the proceeds are donated to the Roger Cliffe Foundation, which helps underprivileged students enroll at the school.

The foundation got started shortly after Roger passed in 2001, and aims to continue the legacy he left not only as an instructor but as a mentor.

Roger wrote books about woodworking, and he did... one of the first people to do videos about woodworking, and I bought his book when I was a teenager.

It was a great book, and I learned a lot from it.

And I got a flier in the mail that said, Roger Cliffes doing this table saw seminar.

Im like “Roger Cliffe, my woodworking hero!

?” Most people have like sports heroes and that kind of thing, I have woodworking heros.

So I went to the seminar and I introduced myself to him and so he's the one who introduced me to Marc when Marc started the school.

And I learned a lot from him.

How to work with a group of people and how to keep them occupied, and how to keep them engaged, and how to make the class fun.

One of his, one of his favorite phrases that I know would make Marc cringe is “Try, try and do your best, glue and putty does the rest.” *Laughs* And,uh... that's not really the motto of THIS school, but that was just something funny that Roger would always say and kind of put people at ease, you know?

“Okay, I can I can do this.

There's ways to take care of things.” So he really enjoyed helping people to learn and see what they can produce on their own and then using that, what they've learned to help others to learn as well.

But they all agree that Roger's love of learning and craftsmanship lives on inside of everyone who walks through those doors.

A lot of people in the class who might be an engineer, they might be a physician, they might be a surgeon, but they don't know anything about what I do.

And to see someone who is so advanced in their field to humble themselves enough to say, “Hey, I don't know, something that I really want to learn” even though they might be very highly skilled at something else.

You need to always be learning.

And if you're not learning, you're probably dying, *laughs* is what I think.

John Ressler *cheers* There you go.

All right!

Well, unfortunately, we didn't spot Bigfoot today, but that's okay.

Well, that's all the time we have for today.

Join us next time for another trip Across Indiana.