Compass American Guides Vermont - Couverture souple

In some ways Vermont is pure anachronism, as if the 20th century had passed it by. In other ways, Vermont seems on the cutting edge of social change. Environmental consciousness, concern for quality of life, attention to the public welfare, nurturing of civic culture -- these are all areas in which Vermont is out in front, thanks to its citizens' unique angle of vision. And the state's small size directly encourages this different way of seeing things.

Lack of size does matter; so does lack of population. Only about one U.S. citizen in 500 lives in Vermont; the population is so small that the state gets only one seat in the U.S. House. Two senators, but just a single representative -- again, we're talking small. We're also talking about a state with adequate land to go around, though -- 10 acres per person, roughly. True, greater Burlington has areas of much greater population density, and the Green Mountain National Forest (occupying more than five percent of the state) has large tracts of land that ar
e wild and uninhabited. But for the vast majority of Vermonters, life is neither urban nor a sojourn in the wilderness; it is rural, based on managing small tracts of privately owned land -- or, if not rural, then it is centered on the life of towns whose diminutive size would in most other places be the subject of jokes. Nothing is more characteristically Vermont than the white-steepled village in the middle of nowhere, home to just a couple hundred families -- or fewer -- living in an intimate and basically self-contained community.

For many of the 98.8 percent of U.S. citizens who are not Vermonters, the mere mention of the place summons up a landscape freighted with nostalgia. Mown hay, lush pastures, fat Holsteins dozing in the shade of leafy sugar maples. Farmhouses, barns, and assorted humble outbuildings nestled in an open palm of gently rolling hills, bordered by thick forests and within sight of the Green Mountains. Maybe an aging tractor crawls across the middle distance, harrowing the soil. Does
this picture have a stream? Then a covered bridge should cross it. And along the banks an angler casts his line where trout are rising.

Such pastoral scenery is the stock in trade of the standard Vermont photo. We display it everywhere -- on calendars and syrup cans, on postcards and travel posters. Wary outsiders will place one hand on their wallets; how can endless icons of the rural picturesque present the honest truth about a place? They are, perhaps, just emblems of a dying culture; fewer than 1,800 dairy farms are left in Vermont, and not many of the state's nearly 600,000 residents have milked a cow. Yet the "working landscape" that such photographs celebrate can still be found in nearly every corner of the state, and the ideals that this landscape represents are a distillation of the state's enduring, bedrock values.

That is Vermont's face of rugged independence; but there are comparably famous icons of the state's idea of community. For many, Vermont conjures images of thrifty, white-clapboard
towns with homes and shops and churches arranged around a common green. Rocking chairs lined up on the porch of a country inn. An overcrowded cemetery tucked behind a picket fence. An old-fashioned general store replete with balding, aproned clerk -- a man equipped to sell his patrons virtually anything. This scene, like the Vermont pastoral, is no impossible fantasy, nor is it apt to be the work of shrewd salesmen hawking nostalgia. Scores of classic, human-scale, unpretentious, and yet highly picturesque towns can be found all across Vermont -- and found in something close to their 19th-century condition. Perhaps this shows a lack of imagination, or represents sheer force of habit. Perhaps, though, it shows that Vermont's idea of a town is uniquely satisfying to the human eye and spirit.

And for some, Vermont primarily represents a four-season playground for outdoor recreation. Skiing and snowboarding are oft-practiced winter pastimes -- not to mention skating, hockey, snowmobiling, ice fishing. Come sp
ring thaw, canoes and kayaks take to the rivers; anglers wade into chilly streams and try their luck. Summer makes the lakes and ponds congenial for swimming, and an armada of pleasure boats cruise the state's varied waters. More than 50 golf courses open up for business. Mountain footpaths -- several hundred miles of them -- are trafficked by day hikers and trail campers; mountains that have been carved up with downhill ski runs are turned over to kamikazes on mountain bikes. All this fun unfolds in an environment of breathtaking natural beauty that remains, to a remarkable extent, essentially pristine and unpolluted.

The sheer persistence of photo-op Vermont within a few hours' drive of 40 million people is an ongoing miracle. The mountains should remain intact -- although miners and quarriers have picked apart a few of them, and ski resorts have altered the appearance of several others. The state's streams are apt to continue draining upland hillsides into the existing web of rivers, lakes, and seas. But
the classic vistas that Vermonters like to celebrate, and that offer sights for sore eyes to those who love the state -- these are highly fragile, the result of certain kinds of human interaction with the landscape's physical resources over a fairly recent period of time. One wonders how these vistas will endure the many forces -- some human, others not -- that alter them drastically. Such questions occupy the thoughts of those who live here; people routinely debate -- and worry about -- the future of Vermont's pastoral landscape. Everybody seems to care.

+ABOUT THE AUTHOR=

Don Mitchell was born in the Midwest and educated in southeastern Pennsylvania.  After college he spent time in San Francisco (as a hippie), in Los Angeles (as a Screenwriter) and in Greece (as a hermit) before moving to Vermont in 1973.  An obsessive carpenter, he has designed and built half a dozen buildings on his 150-acre farm, including the passive solar house where he lives with his wife and children.  A sheperd for over two decades, he has produced several thousand lambs and many tons of wool.  A member of the faculty of Middlebury College, he has taught literature and various creative writing courses, including workshops on screenwriting.  Mitchell is the author fo six other books including the novel Thumb Tripping, three "Upcountry" essay collections about life in Vermont, and a philosophic fable, The Souls of Lambs.

Luke Powell, a resident of Middlebury, is best known for his landscape photography, especially for his dye-transfer process prints of people and places around the world.  His images have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States, Canada, and Europe.