[gentle orchestral fanfare]
♪
[resonant strings lead
building orchestration]
♪
(male narrator)
Welcome to "Our State,"
a production of UNC-TV
in association
with "Our State" magazine--
for over 70 years,
bringing the wonders
of North Carolina
to readers across the state.
On this edition,
a visit with the coastkeepers
and the big job
they face each day...
how an entire house
has found its way
inside
Elizabeth City's
Museum
of the Albemarle...
and the master
of tiny,
wooden
masterpieces
turned from
beautiful
and exotic woods of the world.
♪
[gentle piano melody]
(male announcer)
From Manteo to Murphy
and all the small towns
and big cities in between,
BB&T believes opportunity lives
everywhere in North Carolina.
It's a belief we've held
for more than 130 years
and guides us
as we support our communities
from the mountains
to the coast.
We love calling
North Carolina home,
and we're proud to provide
major funding for "Our State."
Quality public television
is made possible
through the financial
contributions
of viewers like you,
who invite you to join them
in supporting UNC-TV.
♪
[seagulls calling]
[water lapping]
[surf pounding]
(narrator)
A coastal island
in its natural state,
very much like what
the first European settlers
may have seen
when they came ashore...
and what most of us
like to picture
when we think
of the coast.
That image may still exist
in our minds,
but in reality,
in most places, anyway,
it looks more like this.
And the consequences of our
love affair with the coast
are fast catching up
with us.
(woman)
Every biological system
has a carrying capacity.
And we're doing
everything we can
to pack more and more
people in here.
And my great fear is that,
you know,
I'm gonna tell my grandchildren
about a coastal North Carolina
that's not gonna exist.
And, uh, that's why
I do what I do.
(man #1)
To protect this organism,
we better come out here
and swim and fish,
come down
to the shoreline and crab
and bring your grandchildren.
If we don't, we're gonna be like
New Jersey and California,
where you cannot swim
in the water.
Do we want that?
I don't think so.
(narrator)
These are the voices
of our coastkeepers,
three individuals
dedicated to safeguarding
our coastal rivers,
sounds, and beaches.
[mellow piano and
strings arrangement]
As part of the North Carolina
Coastal Federation,
they are independent
of any state agency.
They don't enforce
or write laws.
Instead,
they work with citizens
who want to have a voice
in the management
of coastal issues.
(woman)
We have three parts
of our program.
One of them is
environmental education.
One of them is
restoring our marshes
and oyster reefs and other,
you know, coastal habitat.
And the original goal
of the coastal federation
was advocacy--
making sure that our coast
is protected...by law.
The laws are followed.
And that's really
what a waterkeeper does,
more than anything.
(man)
It is unfortunate
in North Carolina that--
and I suspect
it's true of most states--
that enforcement in--
of environmental regulations
these days is done mainly
by complaint, um.
And that's not because
the agencies don't want
to enforce
their rules, uh.
They just don't have
the manpower to do it.
We're the squeaky wheel,
you know.
We are the squeaky wheel,
and, uh,
we try to get the agencies
to do their jobs.
(narrator)
Monitoring what's going on
in coastal waters
is a big job
for just three coastkeepers.
It's made easier
by a small army of volunteers,
such as these folks,
who are helping with
a study to measure pollution
that's plaguing
the White Oak River.
The nearby community
of Cedar Point
is a partner
in the project.
(man)
The four watersheds
we're looking at
with this test
or this project,
they're all impaired.
Like to see that changed--
see what we can do
to
ensure that that does change.
Development will occur,
but we can be smart about this
and ensure that, uh,
part of that development
is to, uh, keep future
problems from occurring.
(narrator)
Samples are taken
all over the watershed
to help define
the amount of pollution
finding its way
into the creeks
and then into the river.
The overall culprit,
however, is clear,
and it's the same
up and down the coast:
stormwater runoff.
(man #2)
See the concrete pipe
coming out
at the end
of the bulkhead?
(two men)
Yeah.
(man #2)
That's the problem
we face.
That's a stormwater pipe.
Dumps--dumps
that stormwater, uh,
here into Bogue Sound.
[water flowing]
And, uh, that stormwater
carries with it
a lot of pollutants, um.
Heavy metals...
hydrocarbons...
coming right off the highway.
And, uh, bacteria is the one
we're most concerned about
because of its effect
on shellfish waters.
♪
[crickets chirping]
[water lapping]
♪
(narrator)
Howe Creek, near Wilmington,
is another example
of the challenges being faced.
♪
It was once classified as
"outstanding resource waters,"
the state's
highest designation.
(man #1)
Back in the '80s,
there was no sewer
on Howe Creek.
When the city of Wilmington
brought sewer in,
it actually allowed
development in areas
that really should have
never been developed.
And thereby, it lost
its water quality designation
and is permanently closed
to shellfishing--
the entire watershed.
(narrator)
It's not sewage
but stormwater runoff
from nearby residential areas
that has closed these waters
and may now
be affecting survival
of the shellfish beds.
(DeBlieu)
The coastal federation's motto
is, "no wetlands, no seafood."
And it's absolutely true;
if you don't have the wetlands
to help filter out
all the pollutants
that come from
the heavy coastal rains,
we're not gonna have anything
left of our estuaries.
[crickets chirping]
(man #1)
Three hundred species
of fish use oyster beds
as their habitat.
They filter the water.
Well, when the water gets bad
and these start dying,
they are telling us something--
that we're not
living here right,
we're not developing right,
and we're not controlling
what we do
with our stormwater
and our...sewer systems
and everything else
that affects
our water quality.
This is a keystone species
in North Carolina,
and if we lose it,
we're not gonna
be able to swim.
(narrator)
There are success stories.
The small town
of Cape Carteret
became concerned
wh
en Lowe's proposed a new store
alongside Highway 24.
The town believed that
the state's requirements
for Lowe's to build
retaining ponds
capable of holding water
from 1 1/2 inches of rain
was not adequate protection
for nearby Deer Creek.
[water splashing]
(man)
We were concerned about
the creeks, so, ah,
we thought maybe we'd ask Lowe's
if they could maintain
10 1/2 inches
of stormwater runoff on-site.
And Lowe's was very good
about that,
said "absolutely,"
and they keep their
stormwater runoff on-site,
almost 100%.
[thunder & rainfall]
A 10 1/2-inch storm
would be almost a--
a storm of the century,
or a Category 4
or 5 hurricane.
(narrator)
The real success here
is the example of one town
and one retailer
agreeing to go far beyond
what is normally done
in regulating stormwater.
It's an example other towns
are starting to follow.
(Tursi)
When I started this job
five years ago,
you started talking
about stormwater
and people's eyes
would glaze over.
But--but now,
because of efforts, you know,
we have made
and other groups,
there is a very,
very clear understanding
among most people
of what's happening.
[seagulls calling]
(narrator)
Another case of a community
acting to save themselves
is the fishing village
of Wanchese, below Manteo,
where developments
seem poised to alter
the entire character
of the town.
But the solution
turned out to be
an aggressive rezoning plan.
[boat engine whirring]
It's all geared
toward family businesses
and the fishing culture.
The smallest lot you can have
is a half acre.
And it's single-family
residential.
So they have
effectively zoned out
the kind of development
that has ruined
portions of the coast
for fishing families.
And their efforts
are being copied
in places like Manns Harbor,
here in Dare County.
You know, Wanchese will
forever be a fishing village.
That's a drum!
That's a nice drum!
(woman)
Aw, nice one!
(Tursi)
This is where
the traditional
coastal communities were.
They weren't on the beach;
no one lived on the beach.
This is where
the boat builders,
the commercial fishermen,
the decoy carvers,
the hunters--
this is where they were.
And now this is--
those are the lifestyles
that are--
that are gonna be threatened
here in the next wave
of development
that's gonna occur.
We're really threatened
of losing our identity
of who we are
as coastal North Carolinians.
♪
(narrator)
Town by town,
group by group,
one person to another,
the constant goal
of the coastkeepers
is to push us to define
sensible development
guidelines for the coast
and then set out
to live by them.
♪
(Tursi)
I've kept aquariums
my entire life, uh--
freshwater aquariums.
And the first one I got,
Santa Claus brought to me
when I was
eight or nine years old.
And as soon as the pet store
opened after Christmas,
I ran down there
and got 20 goldfish
and put 'em
in this 10-gallon tank.
And they were fat
and sassy
and happy for...
a week.
And then one died,
and the other died.
Within two or three days,
all the fish died.
And I've learned a lesson
that has stayed with me.
You can't put 20 fish
in a 10-gallon tank.
[strings resonate darkly]
We're coming up
against that limit
as to what
this water body can stand.
Do we want to be
that ten-year-old kid
who shoved 20 fish
in a 10-gallon tank
and watched it all die,
or are we gonna be
smarter than that?
♪
(DeBlieu)
Nature is in charge here;
we're not.
I think our job
is to be stewards for nature
in the best way we can be
and, you know,
try to get people thinking
about what it's like
to live
in a dynamic system.
(Giles)
If we do not
develop correctly, you know,
we're gonna kill the goose
that laid the golden egg.
It's not a lost cause,
and it can be done.
North Carolina has
a beautiful coastal system.
Uh, we're not New Jersey.
We're not South Carolina--
Myrtle Beach,
and that's why everybody
wants to live here.
♪
[lyrical dulcimer melody]
[hammer pounding]
(female narrator)
There are plenty of places
to visit in our state
where you can get a good sense
of North Carolina history,
but nothing quite like this.
[pounding]
Something truly extraordinary
has been taking shape here
for many months.
[energetic violin joins]
(narrator)
This is the 1755
Jackson House,
housed in the Museum
of the Albemarle,
a modern building along
Elizabeth City's waterfront.
♪
(man)
This is really
a great opportunity
for people to feel
what it was like
to live in this house
in the 18th century.
The story of this house
is something
that is fascinating,
and I took the paperwork
home one night,
all the research,
and read through it,
and it was just fascinating
about how it changed
from a struggling family
to a fairly well-to-do
family.
(narrator)
The building had quite a few
lives come and go
before it was brought here...
in pieces,
from Pasquotank County
not long ago.
[tranquil piano melody]
Daniel Jackson Jr.
built the house
and operated
an isolated subsistence farm
beginning in about 1755.
The house would later
serve as the center
of a small,
antebellum plantation
and then a home
to tenant farmers
around the time
of World War I.
♪
The reconstruction
of Jackson House
has fallen primarily
to Russ Steele,
who has some mostly
positive words
for his carpenter
predecessors.
(Steele)
I give 'em high marks
for inspiration.
There's some interesting
places where you see
how they solved
a particular problem,
and it may not be
the most elegant solution,
but it's clever.
They tried to get
high degree of proficiency,
and executing that
is always a problem.
Can I pull this off?
Can I make it look as good
as it should be?
[pennywhistle leads
gentle guitar]
(man)
All the interior
woodwork missing
will be adapted
from what we know existed
in eastern North Carolina
and Russ's background
in the Chesapeake Bay...
bam, bam
'cause our building traditions
came from the Chesapeake Bay,
not necessarily
from interior, uh,
North Carolina.
[folksy violin leads guitar]
(Steele)
Pine is the--probably
the material of choice
for most of the house.
There's some cypress--
a little bit of poplar.
(Thomas)
What we've been doing
is looking at other buildings
that date--
mostly a little bit later,
but that have surviving
elements that we can try
to see if they would fit
in this building.
(narrator)
Restoring the Jackson House
is like deciding
which puzzle piece goes where.
(Steele)
The difficulty,
I think, we have--
this is like shooting
a moving target
because there's
a lot of changes
that took place in the house
over a long period of time.
(narrator)
And one of the puzzle pieces
has been trying to decide
precisely where
the two rooms were divided.
(Steele)
If you start at the top,
there's a bit of this molding,
and there are nail holes
left in it
all the way across,
and panels--
boards were running
from the bottom
to the top to create
a partition wall.
[sentimental piano melody]
When the wall was removed,
these boards
managed to survive.
They were recycled,
but this, we think,
went all the way
across here.
(narrator)
Fewer than 5% of people
in pre-Revolutionary America
lived in so commodious
a dwelling.
(Steele)
The majority of houses
in the 18th century
in this region
were one-room houses,
and this being
kind of a two-room plan,
is really a great
representative
of a very early surviving
house from that period.
You know, there was
some attempt to jazz it up.
[lively dulcimer melody]
This is a piece of crown,
just, uh, OG molding.
It's a nice treatment
to dress up a room
and close up gaps
that are left
at the top of the, uh--
the panel wall.
Sometime
after the Civil War,
we understand that, uh,
the house was modified.
A full second story
was added.
A new staircase
was put in.
There was an opening here.
This was your
stairwell opening.
This is a--the ghost mark
of a stair stringer
that started all the way
at the bottom,
and they cut through this
bit of chair molding here--
goes up through this window
all the way up
to the very top.
(narrator)
Larger windows
were another embellishment,
a feature that said "modern."
But since
today's Jackson House
is being interpreted
as of 1755,
authenticity
requires restoring
the original-sized windows.
(Steele)
Unfortunately for me,
each one of these windows
is different.
There are no two alike,
so you more or less
custom-make each one.
(narrator)
The house went through
anywhere from three
to five building periods,
and now
it's going back in time,
so to speak, to 1755,
where it will stay.
♪
Nearby there will be a younger
architectural companion
from the early 1800s.
(Thomas)
Well, this represents
an early-19th-century
smokehouse
and the museum
plans to replicate
or reconstruct this--
put it back together,
basically.
(narrator)
Which, for the moment,
looks like nothing more than
a hopeful pile of wood...
and maybe
not even that hopeful
unless someone gets busy.
[lively fiddle
and guitar tune]
♪
[power drill buzzing]
♪
(man)
Whoa, careful!
(narrator)
The restored smokehouse
is just one more piece
of evidence
from a past that was lived
one day at a time
by people who were more
like us than we might imagine,
even 250 or so years ago.
[sentimental piano melody]
Touring these
historic buildings,
we are able
to look in on their lives
from a distance
as, nail by nail
and board by board,
they worked their share
in creating a dream
that eventually would become
21st-century North Carolina.
It's a fascinating story,
and the next chapter
is ready to be written,
perhaps by you,
at the Museum of the Albemarle
in Elizabeth City.
♪
[ethereal harp melody]
(male narrator) It's not easy
to
picture craftsman Jim McPhail
in the button-down world
of big business--
at least now.
Today he wears
what might be called
"comfortable clothes"
and works in an atmosphere
of his own making...
filled with the rich aroma
of exotic woods
being turned
into something wonderful.
[lathe whirring]
That something is McPhail's
handsome layered wooden bowls,
and it all began as a hobby.
(McPhail)
I started doing this
as a recharge-your-battery
thing on the weekend
at a high-pressure
corporate job
and ended up doing it
for a living.
♪
(narrator)
The bowls that Jim creates
are rich with detail
from a creative mind
that somehow sees the bowl
that eventually will emerge
from a series
of production steps
as a finished product...
beginning with the selection
of the several wood species
that go into each piece.
(McPhail)
There's no material
in the world I know,
particularly
in natural material,
that has the differences
of color and texture
and the like that--
that wood does.
♪
There is 800 or 1,000 kinds
of wood in the world,
and it's really fun
to work with.
These are some of the more
than 200 kinds of wood
I have here
in the shop--
really interesting
bunch of textures.
This is, um,
bacote from Mexico--
has this wonderful
stripe in it,
and African blackwood.
See, it basically looks
as dark and as black as ebony,
but it's not endangered.
It's pretty expensive,
though, um.
Then this purpleheart.
Purpleheart is this
beautiful purple wood
that comes from Brazil,
and it's so prevalent
down there,
they use it for making
packing crates,
believe it or not.
Wood is my palette.
I can use
the different colors,
so I don't look at 'em
as being imbuia or blackwood,
I look at 'em
as color and texture.
And I can combine 'em
together to make my bowls.
♪
(narrator)
That process starts
by gluing the squares
of wood together.
(McPhail)
So what I do
is to first
take an accelerator,
which makes the glue, um,
glue real fast.
I spray it on the piece,
and I take the glue,
and I spread it on the...
bottom piece
in kind of a pattern--
a circle.
I push it down onto the veneer
and kind of squeegee it around
to get rid of any
air bubbles and the like,
and it's already set.
CA glue sets
almost immediately.
To make sure
it's all done,
I give a little spray
around on the edges,
and I cut off the excess...
♪
spray it,
take the glue again,
and it takes
about 20 minutes
to 45 minutes
to glue each bowl.
Squeegee it around.
And it's a fairly
tedious process.
[spraying]
And you glue it
layer by layer by layer
until you've glued up
the entire bowl.
Then I pick up
a compass.
I turn a circle that'll
let me see what diameter
actual bowl's gonna be.
[saw whirring]
♪
The next step
is to put a post
or waste block
onto the piece.
(narrator)
Now comes the fun part--
turning the block
of prepared wood
into a work of art.
[grinding]
[gentle oboe leads harp]
(McPhail)
I shape the outside first,
which gives me
the overall look
of what
the bowl's gonna be.
♪
♪
The inside of the bowl,
when it's turned,
it really is kind of--
even after doing
se
veral thousand of these bowls,
it's quite a revelation.
[grinding]
As you turn into it,
the color starts changing.
♪
You start seeing
each of the layers
that you've glued up,
and as much as you know
they're gonna be there,
it's still a kind of
a fun surprise.
♪
'Cause it's really fun
to watch
the bowl inside emerge.
♪
I spent 30 years
as a graphics designer
and learned an awful lot
about color
and color combinations
and texture.
I kinda draw on
that knowledge.
Whatever combinations
make a pretty bowl
are the ones I like best.
(narrator)
Next step: finishing.
(McPhail)
I coat the inside
and outside of the bowl
with a superglue
that's real thin,
and it puts
a really nice, even,
regularized surface
on the bowl.
Then I polish with a product
called "Micro-Mesh,"
a space-age product
used by the Air Force
to polish windshields
on F-18s.
It makes wood look beautiful.
♪
(narrator)
Then it's time
to separate the turned bowl
from its support pedestal--
a process called "parting."
(McPhail)
You've gotta be careful
with it.
You can make a little mistake
and scratch the bottom,
which basically destroys it.
And you gotta have
your hand ready to catch it,
because if you don't,
it'll hit the floor.
It's a dramatic 15 seconds
in your life
when you part a bowl off.
(narrator)
Well, the only step remaining
is to sign the bottom.
And, of course, if you're
as meticulous as Jim McPhail,
you also write down
everything you've done.
(McPhail)
This shows you all the
different kinds of wood
I've used in each one
of these bowls.
What I do is, when I cut
the corners off the bowl,
I sand 'em down
nice and smoothly.
I put the bowl number
on the piece,
and then I can later
go back
and identify
what the woods are.
I've even had
people call in saying,
"I have one of your bowls;
what are those woods?"
I can always tell 'em
'cause I've got the reference.
(narrator)
There are bowls that you have
to flip upside-down
to see some of their
hidden beauty.
There are lidded bowls.
Some appear to have maps
on their sides...
and all have one thing
in common--
each bowl
is relatively small.
(McPhail)
It's kind of funny.
Small bowls
are for two reasons:
I'm not able
to do really big work
because I've got
a hip condition,
and I can't stand up
at the lathe
and turn great big bowls.
The other reason--
I do this for a living.
(woman)
It's like throwing a pot
in wood.
Yes, yes,
very much.
(McPhail, voiceover)
And it puts the product
at a price point
where people can afford it.
(woman)
Oh, I love your
finished products.
Well,
thank you.
At first, I had a really
hard time selling stuff
because when I really
liked one
I didn't want to sell it,
and after a while,
you begin to realize
I can do another one.
[grinding]
♪
[water sloshing]
[birds chirping distantly]
[gentle hammered
dulcimer melody]
♪
♪
[fiddle leads
as tempo quickens]
♪
Caption Editing
Will Halman, Norah Andrews
and Lauren E. Gardner
Caption
Perfect, Inc. CaptionPerfect.com
(announcer)
To subscribe
to "Our State" magazine,
visit the Web
si
te www.ourstate.com or call...
[gentle piano melody]
(male announcer)
From small towns
to bustling cities,
from the Outer Banks
to the Blue Ridge Mountains
and all the places in between,
BB&T believes
opportunity lives everywhere
in North Carolina.
And for more
than 130 years
we've helped people
discover it.
We're proud of our
North Carolina roots,
and we're proud to provide
major funding for "Our State."
♪
Quality public television
is made possible
through the financial
contributions
of viewers like you,
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