Quad cent

All up and down the Hudson Champlain corridor the buzz is on for the 400th anniversary of, well, Hudson and Champlain (up the river and down the lake, respectively). Champlain made so many trips to the new world (57 by one count) that local 400 celebrations are going to run for many years.

One event is an end to end paddle of Lake Champlain, 110 miles over 8 days. It looks like only 2 are going the whole distance, with others joining for 1 or more days as time allows.

4 of us locals joined in on Tuesday from Charlotte to Kingsland Bay.
The voyageurs approach. They spent the night camped at Shelburne Farm.


There was a slight delay because someone had locked his boat to a tree during the car shuttle, then left the key at the other end.

A bolt cutter made quick work of that. Actually the last bit of plastic sheath took longer to sever than the steel core.

The through-paddlers were more interested in shortest-distance than exploring every cove along the way.


At Kingsland park, Dave Miskell brought out lunch. An organic localvore's dream with Dave's lettuce, carrots, and peaches, local turkey, bread, 3 cheeses. The lemonade's not local... Vermont's citrus crop isn't doing well this year.


There was a voyage logbook that I think started in Quebec city in which we were all supposed to make entries. My glasses were back in Charlotte, so I couldn't read any of the early entries, but could see that many were in French.
It was accompanied by a replica of Champlain's astrolabe.

With the weather we've had, there haven't been much of any celestial sightings made with this lately.

After lunch us day-trippers went home and the rest continued to their next overnight camp at the Maritime Museum.