To be a New Englander is an assignation and an identity. It is not a stretch at all to say that New Englanders look down at the rest of the United States with some degree of pity and disdain. They view their five states as the cradle of democracy and home to all true and good American values. That they think they have a monopoly on these traits and values is of course, ridiculous. Every region of the United States holds another in some degree of contempt. The south hates the north, the flyover states of the Midwest hate the coastal states, and everybody hates Florida. What makes New England unique is that, while they hold themselves above others as a region, they have within that region perpetual arguments over which is the better, the true religion, so-to-speak, the “best” New England state.
Vermonters bristle at the audacity of New Hampshire’s claims of superior maple syrup. Robert Frost famously said, “good fences make good neighbors.” This has been happily adopted by many New Englanders and especially taken to heart by Vermonters. Drill down deeper, you’ll find the typical rural versus urban rivalries that exist in every state in the union. However, in Vermont there is a subculture that resides in the islands of Lake Champlain that elevates that sentiment to another stratus.
Lake Champlain is a point of pride for the Green Mountain State. Nestled in the Appalachian Valley, it is the jewel in the crown of Vermont. Curiously enough, even though both New York and Vermont lay claim to this lake, it is Vermont who has come out on top as the home to this placid body of water. The lake holds a special place in Vermont history. Discovered by Samuel De Champlain in 1609, Lake Champlain became a vital part of the region and its economy, linking the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Hudson Valley. It was De Champlain that first sighted a creature that would later be nicknamed Champ—America’s home-grown version of the Loch Ness monster. Champ is a legend that is still nurtured by locals to this day. All refuse to admit the possibility that Champ may not exist and, in fact, be nothing more than a clever tourism marketing scheme.
Although not the most trafficked commercial waterway today, in colonial times Lake Champlain was an economic center of trade and commerce. During the Revolutionary War, local hero and proto-guerrilla Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys paddled across the waters of Lake Champlain and captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. Most Vermonters hold Ethan Allen in high esteem to this day. There is a current of independence that still runs through this sparsest populated of the New England States. Vermonters look to the west at their neighbor across the lake and shake their heads at their lack of stewardship on the New York side. Sitting in the middle of the lake are what locals affectionately call the Islands and within those islands is the most exclusive, exclusionary culture in the state of Vermont.
