Walking along the Lake Superior shore, Claudia Hochstein and Eric Ogdahl spotted a deck with lots of chairs, tables, pens and markers. As they get closer, a woman calls to them to stop by: “Free postcards, free stamps, just stop by and send a message to someone you love.”
That’s how Anne Brataas greets people who pass by the “Letteracy Deck,” a public letter writing project in Grand Marais, Minn.
Anne Brataas, “Letteracy Deck” founder, joins people at writing postcards. Courtesy: Letteracy Deck
Hochstein didn’t hesitate: “I love writing postcards”.
She and her partner are from the Twin Cities and were in the area camping along the Superior Hiking Trail. They describe Grand Marais as a “restorer place to be.”
Hochstein chose to write to her best friend since kindergarten, the neighbor who is taking care of their dog while they are away and her sister-in-law who is going through chemotherapy treatment. She is used to write journals and says the deck with postcards is a “place that inspires a simple life and to be present.”
Claudia Hochstein and Eric Ogdahl
One of Brataas’ purposes with the Letteracy Deck is to encourage people to be present. It also helps visitors to connect with the place, other people or even themselves for a moment without screens—an activity that has become increasingly rare as technology keeps everyone engaged with their smartphones. The project runs during the summer season, from June to October, with one week for holiday letters.
The “Letteracy Deck” is funded by private foundations, including the Blandin Foundation in Grand Rapids, Minn., which asked nonprofits to propose ideas for small rural towns to come up with forms of tourism they had never heard of.
“I proposed a letter-writing park because parks are historically locations of beauty meant to ease the spirit and create wellbeing,” Brataas says. “Letter writing deepens that.”
She also counts on support from a state agency funded by mining proceeds, private donors, contributions via PayPal and people who just drop money into the mailbox.
Since June 2023, more than 27,000 messages have been sent all over the United States and abroad. The postcards mostly resemble the North Shore landscape or some animals.
Riley Missel picked the one with bear cubs to write to her nephews in Florida. She is from Utah and just arrived in Minnesota to work for a hiking company focused on women’s active travel.
“It’s a place you can just relax and feel hugged by the forest,” she says.
Riley Missel and the postcards she chose for her nephews
Sue Heinz, from the Twin Cities, stopped by to write a message to her grandchildren. As a quilter, she reflected on the effects of writing by hand: “It develops spatial and math skills, which are precursors of learning art.”
Brataas adds: “It prepares the brain for higher order abstract thinking. Writing itself, even typing, is important in developing habits of mind that favor thought and knowledge, as well as a critical mind capable of developing a robust understanding of the world.”
In the postcards, these understandings show up mostly as words full of meaning. Brataas says the five most common words people write in the postcards are “love,” “beautiful,” “memories,” “we” and “thank you”.
She says these words are proof the goal of the “Letteracy Deck” is being achieved: “people feeling the best, most humane self and sharing it.”
