Swanton, VT

We pulled into Swanton, VT about an hour ago, and have been exploring the small town a bit. Unfortunately, the Abenaki Museum was not quite what we expected. We headed up to New York on time, and found the boat hung up about a quarter of a mile down stream from where it was lodged several days before. The water had gone down signifcantly, placing the boat was in the middle of the river amidst shallow Class I rips. Just upstream and around the bend, the ledges we had stumbled into the week before could be heard, still roaring.

We got our lines together, pfds on, and came up with a plan. The water was not very high, but the Saranac had screwed us once, and we were not about to play into a repeat performance. Ben lost the rock-paper-scissors, so I got to stay in the larger eddy and anchor him while he eddy hopped to the overturned boat.



We fixed lines, and pulled her in; it was readily apparent that the river had given her a working. She was no longer the new, beautiful canoe I had picked up at Chewonki several weeks before. Ben thinks it adds character, while I disagree.



We had a great dinner in Plattsburgh, NY before saying goodbye to Ben's mother and checking into the Rip Van Winkle Motel, just across the road from Cumberland Bay and within sight of a massive Georgia-Pacific complex. If any one reading this ever visits Plattsburgh, I would highly reccomend the Rip Van. The place stinks of class like no place I have ever laid my head.

A mere four hours later, we were up again and portaging over to the shores of Cumberland Bay. By 4:30AM we were on the water. A few quiet miles later we rounded Cumberland Head, just as the sun just peeking over the horizon by the lighthouse. The day was cool and sunny, and we pushed ahead, mixing big crossings with hard miles won along the shore. We weaved up through the Hero Islands to Stephanson Point, and our campsite. Twenty-two miles into a headwind on the 6th largest lake in the country, not bad for the first day back on the water.

Stephanson Point State Park was just about drowned out by the floodwaters, but we found a north-facing patch a few feet out of the water to set tents and relaxed for a few hours before bed. As the sun began to set, we cooked up some dinner, and while it was a bit bland, the local flavor was not. A middle-aged carpenter and his chocolate lab Angus joined us on the beach for a about an hour. He drove his Ford Ranger pick-up throug the shallow flood waters to reach us, and, grinning beneath a white mustache and with a coozy-clad can of Gennessee Cream in hand, he regaled us with the tales of a North Hero Island local. He called the park there his "church," a place were he came every day of the year after work "to run his dog, watch the lake, drink a beer, smoke a joint, and love life." He also used the f-word or some derivation of it no less than 65 times during our chat. He also managaed to put away three beers. Needless to say, we were impressed.

He knew every thing about the land we camped on. The cycles of the trees and the turtles, how the ice was grinding away the point every year, eventually to destroy his beloved land, and how Vermont is the best state in the country because it is the only place where it is legal to shoot fish. In fact, he was headed home to a dinner of shot pike. We spoke about the lake and the quifers beneath it, about the spotted turtles we would see the next day, and about the Missisquoi we would encounter the next day. Eventually, he took his leave of us and drove back across the water and down the gravel road. As we prepared to turn in, he raced back in reverse and jumped out of his truck, across the water dividing us. He got down on his knees and pulled out a harmonica. He serenaded us as his dog howled, and in that moment Ben and I both realized that we and the trip in total were going to be just fine. He bowed, returned to his truck, and raced off with Angus in hot pursuit.