61. Lake Champlain

Lake Champlain seems a world away and I sometimes even forget that it’s in my own country.  It rests beautifully just south of the Quebec border forming a great part of the boundary between New York and Vermont. The Green Mountains rise from its shores to the east and to the west is the expanse of the Adirondack Range.  On early summer days when it is cool I can imagine myself ferrying across it from somewhere in Vermont to somewhere in New York. The cerulean sky is mottled with puffy cotton like clouds with here and there a darker one threatening to rain on some distant shore. The breeze blows over my face sometimes lifting the bill of my hat so I finally have to turn it around to keep it from blowing away into these waters claimed by some crazy Frenchman several hundred years ago.

Again, the beauty of water somewhere in my country astounds me. I am drawn to Champlain differently than other bodies of water, though, because in so many ways it seems to be the birthplace of this country I love. I have no doubt that Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys spent many a day on the shores of this lake. And the U.S. Navy was born right there at Whitehall, New York. Several naval battles against the British were fought on these waters in the war of 1812 and the evidence is still being dredged up today. Naval battles on a lake you can always see the shore? Wow!

I have spent quite a few youthful summers on this lake’s shores. I have toured Fort Ticonderoga and almost every time I see yellow Ticonderoga pencils in the hands of a student my mind whisks me right back to that lake. I often go to lakes and seaside bays when I can’t get away physically but my mind necessitates that I do. And what would one expect of a boy born on the shores of a lake and raised in the canyon of rushing waters? And so Lake Champlain is one of those places in our country that I am thankful for.