FOURMILE CANYON — Winter in the mountain communities can be long, dark and lonely—especially if you’ve just moved across the country from busy and crowded Portland, Oregon, to the woods and hills of Salina, as Anna Stifter did in mid-2025.

As Stifter found herself facing the prospect of her first winter in the mountains, she realized she could be facing a lot of quiet nights at home.

“It's not like you're doing a ton of outdoor recreation in the evening,” she said. “The season is dark. It's cold as hell. There's wildlife.”

What Stifter needed was community and activity: People to gather with and something to do—not just for her, but for her neighbors. 

“I grew up in the Midwest,” she said, “so neighborly connection is a big thing.”

Stifter turned to her neighborhood group chat, arrangeded on Meta-owned WhatsApp, to organize a winter skill share for the residents of Fourmile Canyon. 

Helped along by word-of-mouth and the communities already attached to two local historic buildings, the skill share is now an organized fact. Throughout the winter, interested community members will gather to share their knowledge and expertise. 

So far, residents have signed up to teach chainsaw maintenance, knife sharpening, an introduction to music theory, how to inoculate logs with mushroom spores, and  ecology-based nature therapy. A botanical drawing workshop may also be offered, providing that the necessary materials aren’t too expensive.

“We don't want this to be cost prohibitive for folks,” Stifter said. “It's hard enough as it is right now economically.”

Stifter is also trying to make the classes accessible in other ways. The first workshop, scheduled for December 8, will be a pine basket weaving class. Assistance will be available for older residents who may have less dexterity.

We’re “figuring out ways to make things inclusive and adaptive as well,” she said.

The workshops will be hosted in Salina’s two iconic buildings: the historic Salina Schoolhouse and Little Church in the Pines, both located on Gold Run Road. The schoolhouse was built in either 1875 or 1876, while the church's construction dates to sometime between 1902 and 1908.

Today, the facilities are owned and maintained by two separate, all-volunteer teams of locals.

Stifter’s “long-term vision” for the skill share is to generate monetary support for the nonprofits—or, at the very least, generate interest in and more utilization of these important community assets.

The hope, she said, “is that people see these spaces being used, and maybe wanna put $20 a year toward a nonprofit” that “has to pay for electricity, water, lights, maintenance.”

Marti Anderson, a trustee of Little Church of the Pines, has the same hope.

“The success or failure of these buildings should be in the hands of those who live in Fourmiile Canyon and along Gold Run,” Anderson wrote in a message conveyed to The Mountain-Ear via Stifter. “We hope that [the] skill share project and other uses will remind our neighbors how important it is to have a place to gather and support each other.”

Although the workshops are limited to residents of Fourmile Canyon, Stifter hopes other communities will organize their own skill shares.

“It would be really neat to see it if people wanted to proliferate the idea,” she said. “One for Fourmile and one for Jamestown; Gold Hill has one, Lee Hill—you know, all these little hubs.”

Stifter hopes this energy can be the catalyst for larger events, too: She dangles the tantalizing prospect of a mountain prom, possibly in the spring. 

Whatever the eventual fruits of the skill share, Stifter will keep finding ways to connect with her neighbors, and help them connect with one another. That’s important not only to individual wellbeing, but to the survival of a community—especially in a place so prone to natural disasters. 

“Up in the mountains, how often are we actually interfacing, person to person? When there's a natural disaster, are we really checking in on each other? 

Events like the skill share “fortify those relationships,” Stifter said. “We can all share our talent and practice leadership and practice community resilience and maybe learn new skills that are applicable for survival or fun.”