Celebrations are planned across the country this year for the Centennial of The Weeks Act. This 1911 law, signed by President Taft, brought National Forests to the Eastern United States. The excitement is particularly great here in New Hampshire, since John Wingate Weeks, the genius behind the Weeks Act, was born and raised in Lancaster.

The concept of preserving the White Mountain National Forest seems obvious today. But 100 years ago the idea was poorly formed and hotly debated. Even those who felt National Forests would provide many benefits could not figure out how to create them, or how to overcome the complex political obstacles in the way.

Enter Congressman John Wingate Weeks, an avid outdoorsman.

Weeks worked with a broad coalition of Americans, each group with its own reason for being interested in National Forests. Politics, history and economics were all involved, not just conservation.

Complicated as it was, according to Frumie Selchen, Executive Director of the Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire, it is an important part of the nation’s heritage. “The Weeks Act story is extremely interesting, and also very relevant,” Selchen says. “Only by seeing what a truly enormous problem Weeks and his allies faced can people today appreciate their accomplishment.”

Selchen says the Weeks Centennial Committee and the Arts Alliance have worked hard to find ways to bring this chapter of American History forward. “Many of the Centennial Committee members have scheduled wonderful lectures, and Plymouth State University created an awesome walk-through exhibit. But we thought there was still one piece missing. We needed something a bit more accessible, something for everyone.”
Enter comics artist Marek Bennett, another avid outdoorsman.

Bennett’s grandfather and grandmother were active in the Sandwich Range area of the White Mountains, hunting and trapping. “That’s actually where they met,” Bennett says. “”When I was a kid, my grandfather would take me out fishing, or out on the trapline. Grandma took me walking in the woods, where we’d collect bones and interesting animal and plant specimens.”

When Selchen named Bennett the official Comics Artist of the Weeks Centennial, he was thrilled.

“Graphic storytelling, especially in the form of comics, works for everyone. The power lies in the combination of words and pictures, and the technique of breaking a complicated story down into discrete steps and then fostering connections between those steps.”

But Bennett thinks the greatest property of comic art is its special appeal to young people. “I think it’s important for kids to be involved in history right now,” Bennett says. “With all the environmental issues we’re facing, we should all be drawing, writing and sharing our viewpoints about the next 100 years. Comics are a great way to envision the future as well as to think about the past.”

Bennett has completed his first work, a short comic that explains in just a few panels what the Weeks Act is, why it was needed, how it survived the jungle of the United States Congress, and where the Weeks Act can take the nation in the future.

Early reviews are favorable. White Mountain historian and former Forest Service forester Dave Govatski, who led the team that advised Bennett, says he was thrilled with “The Weeks Act Story.” “Marek Bennett’s mini-comic series on the Story of the Weeks Act is a wonderful way to take a complicated national policy issue and make it understandable to a wide audience. Each frame of the cartoon looks simple but presents a big issue clearly — over-harvesting, forest fires, how forest management causes or prevents floods, and so forth.”

Over the next couple of months, Bennett will be working with the Arts Alliance on many aspects of the Centennial celebrations. His activities will include special programs in participating schools. In the classroom Bennett says he wants to learn what parts of the story are the most relevant to today — and which are the most interesting to the students — and focus on those. Eventually he expects to pull together a whole collection of comics, his own, his students’, works of other artists, and collaborative works, ranging widely in content but all connected back to the Weeks Act of 1911.
Bennett holds an undergraduate degree from Brown University in mathematics and music. He has worked for a software company, traveled in Central America, worked in a bakery and picked apples. It was while he was drawing the menu board at the bakery that someone suggested doing a summer program with kids. He realized that he really liked working with kids and teaching, so he got a Master’s degree in education at Keene State College, and went into teaching. He has since taught Title I, literacy, elementary and middle school students, and is now a full-time teaching artist, who also tutors in Spanish and teaches music.

The Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire will provide programs to schools and community sites throughout the year and during the Eight Days of Weeks: The White Mountains Cultural Festival this August. Residents around the region, visitors, artists and especially school children are being invited to participate in these programs, which will look at the region’s past, the present and the future. The Arts Alliance is actively seeking sponsors for programs to be held in schools and communities.

For more information on the Weeks Act Centennial, visit weekslegacy.org. For additional information on Weeks cultural events, including comics programs, call the Arts Alliance at 323-7302, email , or visit aannh.org.