ELY—The banjo strings pluck out a hesitant rhythm as people work through an attempt at clawhammer technique. Their instructor, Blake Ferree, watches carefully, reminding them to keep the claw shape, to move the whole hand, not just the fingers. It’s Monday evening at the Ely Folk School, and like countless classes before it, this one is about connection, between teacher and student, between strangers who’ll leave as friends, between old traditions and new hands.
“A lot of people are kind of moving their fingers into this, trying to … “ Ferree demonstrates, fingers reaching. “But really, that paw shape should stay, and you move your hand up and down.”
“Being a guitar player, I found myself using, like, this finger’s closer,” says one student. 
Ferree nods. “It’s not a bad habit. It’s just a habit from playing guitar.”
This year marks 10 years since the Ely Folk School opened its doors on Sheridan Street with its first classes. What began as a gathering at the old Vertin’s restaurant in 2014 — when a group of residents talked about what they wanted for Ely — has blossomed into a thriving hub with 130 staff hours across four employees and hundreds of classes annually.
“Folks knew that they wanted to be able to tell the story of people who live here in Ely,” said Lucy Soderstrom, who joined in July 2021 and now serves as executive director. “They wanted to be able to have a space where people can come together, get to know each other, learn from each other, build new connections and build new hobbies.”
The school has come a long way from those early days when it was only open during summer and winter festival. Since 2021, the folk school has offered classes year-round.
Along the way, it’s added a ceramic studio, a blacksmith forge that same year and, in 2025, a brand-new kitchen. Ten instructors have taught since the very beginning, joined more recently by 21 new teachers in 2025 alone.
The offerings reflect the curious spirit of Ely itself. Where else could you learn to make a beaver hat, throw pottery on a wheel, craft a wet-felted sauna hat, or study traditional foods like Slovenian potica and Cornish pasties?
Last weekend, French exchange student Manoline Dumesnil taught French cooking demonstrations to raise money for her senior class trip to Washington, D.C., breakfast, lunch, and dinner themed classes that drew on her heritage while building connections with her Ely community.
“I think here in Ely, we are a really curious population, and I think that’s one of our greatest strengths,” Soderstrom said. “The desire to be able to hear each other’s stories, the concept of learning in a classroom from someone from France, I think is more appealing to a lot of us than learning on YouTube.”
The school also hosts quarterly community dances with live music and a caller from Duluth, bringing together everyone from four-month-old babies to folks with walkers. There’s Maker’s Morning, a weekly gathering where people bring their own projects to craft and converse over coffee and cookies. And there’s the Spring Bonfire, held the Wednesday before fishing opener each year.
But perhaps the most telling measure of the Folk School’s impact is  in moments like that Monday night banjo class, where a group of strangers becomes a community, fumbling through the same challenges, sharing the same small victories, learning that it’s okay to make mistakes as long as you keep moving forward.
“There are just lots of ways to get engaged with the folk school,” Soderstrom said. “We have a really diverse spread of types of classes, and then we also have a number of programming that doesn’t have a barrier to entry.”
As the Folk School looks ahead to its second decade, plans include expanding online class offerings and developing more classes featuring the cultural foods of the Iron Range. But the mission remains the same as it was when those first community members gathered in 2014: to build community by providing learning experiences that celebrate the wilderness heritage, art, history, culture, and craft of the Northwoods.
Back in the clawhammer class, Ferree is wrapping up his demonstration.
“Why don’t we try the first part altogether as a group slowly?” he asks. The students ready their instruments, fingers poised in that claw shape they’ve been practicing all evening. Together, they begin to play.