Blog #7: Northeast Kingdom and Lake Champlain

We Begin The Journey Home: Northern Vermont Biking and Lake Champlain Paddling

After an amazing parent weekend filled with an abundance of food and humorous talent show productions, laughter, and workshops, we said goodbye to our families. Early Monday morning we set out with our bikes, loaded with all our gear. We brought minimal food so we could buy the rest passing through towns. The day was warm, all of us had our short sleeve shirts and bike shorts on and it was a positive introduction to our seven-day bike leg (apart from the 3k uphill!).

Over the next days we biked 30-60k per day. Our semester loves snacks so we jumped with glee when on our third day we quickly stopped in town to get cinnamon rolls. There is something so special about traveling with bikes. You get to go fast enough to get around but slow enough to notice things around you. One of my favorite things was getting to ask people to refill our water bottles. The homeowners would often be so excited about our adventure from East Charleston (Northwoods) to Grand Isle State Park. Waving and saying thanks we would continue with our refilled water bottles with a layer of encouragement. We would often camp in abandoned fields and marvelled at not being in eight feet of snow.

Further on in our trip, we were greeted very warmly by Sterling College and got a tour of the campus. Later we biked to Heartbeet and got to sleep in a barn protected from the rain. Heartbeet was a very beautiful time for us. We were welcomed into the community and got to do a community service project, a yoga class, gong meditation, and a community lunch in Hardwick. Hannah, the starter of Heartbeet, treated our group to delicious dinners in her home. The book we read during the biking leg was Where the Rivers Flow North and it was so cool reading and then seeing the actual places that the narrator was talking about or going to. We finished our expedition with our biggest day of over 60 km. Through flat tires, a broken chain, and getting lost, our navigators Georgie and Edie led us to Hero Island on Lake Champlain. It was there by the water when we said goodbye to our dear semester mate, Rachel. The next morning it was pouring rain and Seth and Nora greeted us with our voyageur canoes and a truck full of food. We hugged Misha and thanked him.

Now we looked towards the lake and were excited to paddle in the waters. Our 10-day expedition started on the 30^th of April. We paddled and paddled and started getting used to the rhythm. We stayed at Law Island the first night and were blown away by how magical it was to camp in the lake.

The next day we stopped in Burlington and had a picnic with Tikko, Ecuador Semester ’17 alum. We walked to the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Center to meet Saul, a graduate of the very first Vermont Semester. We all enjoyed talking with Saul about how much he really cared about the lake. It was interesting talking about how global warming plays into the decline of lake health. We had maple creamies and then toured the sewage treatment plant of Burlington with Matt. Talking with Matt opened our eyes to how much energy is put into a town’s waste. He showed us all the factors of processing and essentially bleaching Burlington’s waste, which then allowed for its release into the lake. We also learned that the water that we poop in is drinking water!

We continued paddling after our stop in the city and landed just in time at Shelbourne farms to witness a beautiful sunset, orange and pink. The next morning we got a tour from Marshall, the great-grandson of the original property owners. We loved meeting all the baby cows and were so happy to receive some cheese from the farm estate. 

We got back on the lake amidst blustery south winds, and made it to a special spot for swimming and jumping off the rocks. After crossing to the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, we spent the next day on a lake history program and service project. We also said goodbye to Lillian and Dylan, who had to return to Kroka basecamp at this point to rest and recover from some injuries. The thunderstorm struck that night that we had been hearing about on the weather channel for days. Safe and dry under our tarp we sang songs. 

The next day we sailed to Cole Island on a great north wind. We found that many geese had their nests on the island and Edie found a fertile egg that had been left behind. Edie kept the egg close to her body and slept with it at night. On our way to Crown Point, we role-played a 1775 face-off between the English and the Green Mountain Boys for control of the fort. After stealing ‘ammunition’ (peanut butter cups), establishing a settlement (the tarp), and storming the fort in a game of capture the flag, we camped at Crown Point and had a fun time presenting our ballads.

The next day we had a group solo, our mission was to travel 6 nautical miles down the lake to meet Nora and Seth who had walked. The wind was from the north and we missed our dedicated meeting spot but thankfully stopped soon after to check where we were. Soon after we pulled our boats up, Champ was born! It was so beautiful getting to see the little being come to life and seeing its small eyes seeing the sun for the first time. Now we are all babysitters, giving Edie a break sometimes. Champ successfully chased and ate an ant. We are also not sure what gender Champ is.

After our group solo, we landed at Five Mile Point and had 40 hours of solo time. Our water bottles were filled with twice a day and most of us chose to not bring food. It was really powerful for me to sit with myself for that long. In silence, I felt myself to be part of nature.

Two mornings later, we gathered together at breakfast, sung back to camp by Seth and Nora. Champ was so much more able to hop around. We sailed to Fort Ticonderoga from Five Mile Point. Throughout the day, we toured the fort getting to witness muskets and a cannon being fired. It was very warm so we jumped in the lake to cool down. It was amazing to be able to swim playfully and not freeze. We worked on our Book of Wisdom pages about Lake Champlain (called The Waters in Between by the Abenaki). We focused on geology, ecology, indigenous history, and industrial commerce. Adam, a Winter Semester graduate, was our guide and showed us what life was like in the fort in 1781. It was so fun to drink hot chocolate and eat bacon bean soup like the soldiers would. It was cool to sleep in the soldiers’ barracks. I slept quite well on the thick hay mattresses.

Being on boats for the past ten days has given me a perspective on the way of travel that a lot of people depended on. It blew me away seeing people treating us with such generosity, such as someone letting us eat lunch on his lakefront porch. The waters were humbling – the wind sometimes felt like it would never back down. Some days the water would be so still it was like paddling on glass. We look forward to our last pull home back to Kroka biking through the mountains.