Stowe Guide & Magazine Summer/Fall 2023

STOWE

CONTENTS

features

62 Visual storyteller: Remembering Glenn Callahan, longtime Stowe Reporter photographer who died this winter, through his portraits by Greg Popa

72 Radical remembrance: As a world without its founding figure looms, Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover looks to preserve its legacy by Aaron Calvin

80 Home brew: Hill Farmstead’s Shaun Hill rediscovers his long-dead relatives at the bottom of bourbon-aged barrels of beer by Corey McDonald

86 Summer light: A pictorial by Paul Rogers

92 Jackson Seivwright: “Razzle dazzle. Welcome to Title Town!” Beloved Stowe teen remembered. by Tommy Gardner

118 Chair guy: A touch of Windsor with George Sawyer by Robert Kiener

152 Cheese culture: Four local dairies perfect the Art of Fromage by Avalon Styles-Ashley

192

CONTENTS

10 Contributors

20 Rural route: Hilary Engisch-Klein

Drawn & boarder’d • Toll Road

Yellowthroats • Emoji Nightmare

56 Outdoor primer: Paddle sports

Swimming • In the mountains

Golf • Recreation paths

94 Shop, arts, explore: Summer events

Exhibits & openings • Mixed media

Music in the Meadow • Music

136 Sip, stay, sup, indulge: Cajun’s Snack Bar • Shakedown Street

Butler’s Pantry

ON OUR COVER

On our cover this summer is “The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain,” 1858, oil on canvas, 38"x1318", by Jerome B. Thompson.

Thompson (1814-1886) “earned a reputation for combining the breadth of Hudson River School landscape painting with the anecdotal appeal of contemporary genre painting,” according to The Met, where the painting is on view. “This work is one of several in which he used Mount Mansfield, Vermont’s highest peak, as a foil for domestic recreation. As half the party of day trippers admire the summit and the vista toward Lake Champlain, another young man holds his watch aloft, warning of the lateness of the hour and the need to descend.”

Not much has been written of Thompson, but a contemporary wrote in 1857, “No living artist, more than the subject of this study catches the lights and shades of American life and humor; and consequently none is so truly popular ... He succeeds in producing pictures which literally talk with reminiscences and life.”

While prolific and successful during his lifetime, he is now mostly known through a handful of works in major American museums.

GUIDE & MAGAZINE

Gregory J. Popa

Bryan Meszkat, Patrick Immordino, Judy Kearns, Wendy Ewing, and Michael Kitchen

Gregory J. Popa

Katerina Hrdlicka

Kate Carter, Robert Kiener, and Tommy Gardner

Leslie Lafountain

Leslie Lafountain

Gordon Miller

Stuart Bertland, Kate Carter, Orah Moore, Paul Rogers, Kevin Walsh

Mark Aiken, Avalon Styles-Ashley, Kate Carter, Nancy Crowe, Willy Dietrich, Biddle Duke, Elinor Earle, Tommy Gardner, Robert Kiener, Brian Lindner, Peter Miller, Mike Mulhern, Amy Kolb Noyes, David Rocchio, Julia Shipley, Nancy Wolfe Stead, Kevin Walsh

Stowe Guide & Magazine & Stowe-Smugglers’ Guide & Magazine are published twice a year: Winter/Spring & Summer/Fall

Vermont Community Newspaper Group LLC P.O. Box 489, Stowe VT 05672

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Phone: (802) 253-2101 Fax: (802) 253-8332

Copyright: Articles and photographs are protected by copyright and cannot be used without permission.

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Best Niche Publication, New England Newspaper & Press Association 2010 through 2018, 2021

COREY MCDONALD

IN THIS ISSUE: Home brew, p.80

Behind the scenes: I got a lot of book recommendations during my conversation with Shaun Hill, the man behind Hill Farmstead Brewery: Carl Jung, Rainer Maria Rilke, and others. While most beers are called something like the Big Squeeze—or something else evoking citrus—I found it curious to order a beer named after Friedrich Nietzsche or Walt Whitman. Vermont is an interesting place.

Currently: Corey lives in Vermont with his partner and their husky. He’s a staff writer for the Vermont Community Newspaper Group, contributing stories weekly to The Other Paper, The Shelburne News and The Citizen. Previously, he covered Hudson County for The Jersey Journal and NJ.com. Before that, he lived in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia. More at coreywmcdonald.com.

ROB KIENER

IN THIS ISSUE: Chair guy, p.118

Behind the scenes: George Sawyer has become well-known throughout the nation for the elegant Windsor chairs he builds by hand in his 150-year-old workshop. Intrigued by the classic chairs that his father David started building in 1982, George gave up his career as an industrial designer to follow in his dad’s footsteps. As the New York Times notes, “In the world of Windsors, the Sawyer family is royalty.”

Currently: Rob, a frequent contributor to Stowe Magazine, has been an editor and staff writer with Reader’s Digest in Asia, Europe, and Canada, and now writes for the magazine and other publications from his base in Stowe. robertkiener.com.

TOMMY GARDNER

IN THIS ISSUE: Cajun’s Snack Bar, p.138

KATE CARTER

IN THIS ISSUE: Ed Flanagan, p.22

Behind the scenes: I’ve been shopping at Stowe Seafood for as long as I can remember, and I finally learned Ed’s last name! It was fascinating to hear about the seafood industry and what it takes for him and his team to bring fresh fish to the mountains twice a week. Did you know Ed sells four different types of salmon?

Currently: Kate is a freelance writer and photographer, and when she’s not researching stories she is photographing homes for Vermont real estate agents, builders, interior designers, concierges, and this magazine. Contact her at vtrealestatephotos.com.

AARON CALVIN

IN THIS ISSUE: Radical remembrance, p.72

Behind the scenes: In the entry room of the Bread and Puppet Theater Museum a room full of books and prints from the printmaking shop are on sale for a reasonable price. I bought two posters on a recent trip that really brought the theater’s unique style to my living room. The museum is also open year round—visitors can just let themselves in—with tours given in the summer.

Currently: Aaron Calvin is a writer and journalist in Vermont, and a staff writer for the Stowe Reporter and News & Citizen newspapers. His journalism has appeared in The Guardian, Vice, The Intercept, and more. His fiction has recently appeared in the magazines Soft Star, Arboreal, and Sequestrum More at aaroncalvin.com.

Behind the scenes: I didn’t remember this until listening to my audio recording, but when I was chatting up some ATV riders in the Cajun’s Snack Bar parking last summer, this one guy with a face full of burger and fries said he wouldn’t give me his name because “BLEEP Stowe.” When I told him this magazine is distributed far and wide beyond the borders of BLEEPing Stowe, he said he has a record and didn’t want to be in the story. I’m assuming, of course, he was talking about the latest release from Taylor Swift.

Currently: Tommy is news editor at the Vermont Community Newspaper Group and he has covered more beats than an EKG. He lives in Morrisville with his partner and their black cat, Mr. Martin, who brings them nothing but good luck. And mice heads.

A Bread and Puppet without Peter and Elka Schumann

I’ve never met Peter Schumann, the visionary, along with his late wife Elka, behind Bread and Puppet, one of the oldest nonprofit political theater companies in the country.

But I did once kill him off in a newspaper item.

A very kind Hyde Park man wrote to us in 2021 to say, “In your September 16 News and Citizen column you called Bread and Puppet co-founder Peter Schumann ‘the late Peter Schumann.’ He might rightly quote Mark Twain’s cable that ‘the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’

“While it is true Peter’s wife, Elka, died on Aug. 1, and her presence is deeply missed, Peter is alive and continues to guide the theater through these challenging times.”

Ouch. I replied, “Oh my ... that’s on me. I knew about Elka and my old, tattered mind clearly became confused. We’ll make a correction, hopefully before Mr. Schumann catches wind of his fate. It would be great to run this as a letter, too. It so eloquently holds us to account.”

That is what’s called in journalism parlance as an attempt at salvaging one’s reputation. Our letter writer was game.

A few days later, Amelia Castillo submitted a news item for the theater troupe, with nary a reference to my trip down the rabbit hole. Glutton for punishment that I am, I felt compelled to respond.

“Thank you, Amelia. Please also give my apologies to Peter, who I noted last week in a short item had died. Clearly, I’d confused Peter with

Elka, and didn’t double check. I am mortified.”

In mere moments—Ding!—went the email. Without missing a beat, Amelia replied, “Please don’t worry about it! I actually think Peter will get a kick out of this. Do you have any copies you could send us?”

After asking Amelia for the mailing address, she responded with yet more consoling for the poor, poor editor: “I’m pretty sure he’ll have a good laugh. He needs it. It’s been a hard time.”

I promptly dropped five copies into the mail.

At the time, these exchanges reminded me that I needed to get back to Bread and Puppet for a dose of Resurrection Circus, a tour of the museum and its puppets and other artifacts, and a visit to the memorial forest where “community members, close friends, and fallen troupe members are memorialized in a garden ... a place where collective grief is memorialized,” as Aaron Calvin writes this summer in our feature about the group, “Radical Remembrance.” (Read more on p.72.)

But COVID-19 surged again and life got back to crazy. I never went.

I received no report back whether Peter got a laugh about his greatly exaggerated death, but as Calvin’s story details, plans are well underway to ensure that the legacy of Peter and Elka Schumann, who brought their vision of an equitable and just world to a hillside in nearby Glover in the early 1970s, will continue long after Peter is truly gone. n

— Greg Popa

BREAD & PUPPET Founders Peter and Elka Schumann seen through a window of a little house built in the memorial garden in honor of Elka’s parents. (For more about his year’s performances, turn to p.112.)

ESSAY / David Rocchio ILLUSTRATION / Katerina Hrdlicka

MEDITATIONS ON SNOW

I know it’s summer, but I am thinking about winter.

Flat, low, northern light. Snow falling sideways. Deep silences of a hardwood forest. In December, skiing by headlamp as early as four o’clock in the afternoon. By March, coming out of the woods in daylight even after six.

By January, the light comes back, there is brightness in the day. The cold gloam of December is gone. January light is a painter’s light, enough to brighten your soul but not the scorching sun of summer.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no argument against summer in Vermont: Boundless hikes and camping; swimming holes to refresh the spirit; gardens to plant, nurture, harvest; languid nights in backyards, the kids running around like unbridled calves, chasing fireflies, eating s’mores; friends sipping gin and tonics with mint pulled from the field behind the house; showing off the garden; softball leagues; kayaks on a dam release; rock climbing; your favorite reservoir.

I have no beef with any of this, but like many of us, I am here for the winter.

Being in the woods in winter is as close as I come to church. The Irish have a concept that captures the feeling. In Celtic tradition, “thin places” are spots on earth where the mortal world comes close to touching the spiritual side. The divine bleeds in. My Catholicism is long in the past, but I certainly adhere to the concept.

Being in the woods in these mountains in winter, I feel the divine breaking through to our humble lives. After a ski in the woods the world is just brighter, problems seem tractable, everything is a bit undaunted, even if just for a little while.

Not to sound like a backcountry disciple, but I stopped lift-service skiing several years ago. It was not a plan, but just the way things happened. I served on the Mt. Mansfield Ski Patrol for 22 years. Leaving it was mostly happenstance, not causation. Life itself had me hang up my butt-pack. I could not commit to the days.

When I left patrol, I did not mean to stop riding lifts. That first year I needed a break from the Mountain, and it did not hurt that the backcountry was good that year. Then I just got stuck with what had been good the year before.

I certainly miss patrol. I miss the camaraderie and my friends. I miss the unbridled access to the mountain and the rescues, in equal measure. And I miss the gear. A great gig, ski patrol. But, at the end of the day, 22 years is a good stretch of time to dedicate to any one thing.

I rolled this ambivalence about lift-service skiing around in my head for a long while, but then I just stopped analyzing it. There’s enough in life to be existential about, and whether I ski at a resort is just not worth thinking about. Life is a series of turns, and times change, and for now I’m content with the days I can get into the woods. The season is shorter, there are breaks in it, but I like it. Analysis closed.

To be clear, uphill skiing in deep woods is hard work and relentless. It really is not an option to stop and turn back. Once committed to a route, you ski the route, and it is not without its risks.

But being deep in the northern forest in winter is the most peaceful place on earth. A slight wind, and the trees sing. On stone cold January days, sometimes the trees boom with expansion cracks. But mostly, the sounds are subtle, and it is typically silent.

Beyond the challenge and the cathedral of the woods, it takes skill and preparation. It is not a lark. Then, in the end, finding a stand of beech trees off some distant ridge and feeling a route to ski through the stand is just about as good an experience as you can find on Earth.

Beyond the skill, it keeps you fit. You can’t fake it. If you are not fit, you cannot go.

Spring in the East can be tricky. Heavy snow at the base is annoying, but usually with a bit of elevation the snow dries out, and while still dense, it becomes dry and sandy. Perfect. The density of the snow means even steep pitches can be taken with a bit of confidence. You are gliding, unbounded. Just keep moving. Go wherever you want. Skiing a big spring storm is difficult, peaceful, calm, otherworldly.

I expect most people have places where a calm takes over, everything seems to make sense, and even the knottiest of problems untangle. For me, that thin place is the northern forest in winter: Deep snow cover and more falling like madness out of the sky; the sound of the wind; a thermos of sweet tea to enjoy as your stop to strip your skins and prepare to descend.

This is as close as I might ever come to heaven, and as we roll through this glorious summer, it is all I’m thinking about. n

David Rocchio lives, works, and writes in Stowe.

RURAL ROUTE

TAKING A TOLL The original Toll House, built in 1919, is now encapsulated inside the Inn at the Mountain. The Toll House also served as the first home in the U.S. for Sepp Ruschp, who came to America to head the ski school in Stowe, and was the resort’s first true base lodge. A Socony gas station and gift shop sits in the foreground. The cars are facing toward Stowe village on Route 108. Inset, a horse and buggy heads up the Toll Road in this old postcard.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Mt. Mansfield Toll Road as a way for cars to reach the summit of Vermont’s highest peak.

Work on the Toll Road was completed in 1923, and at that time the town of Stowe turned over its ownership of the road to the Mt. Mansfield Hotel Company. There’s no indication, however, that the transfer resulted in any fanfare. (The Toll Road originated in 1850 when settlers decided to cut a narrow horse trail up the mountain, but it’s unclear exactly how far they got.)

For these early automobiles, the climb to the summit was difficult and engines routinely overheated. Watering stations along the road once used to keep horses hydrated were retrofitted to refill car radiators.

According to historical reports, in September 1927 Max Leon Powell

Jr. of Burlington set a “new” speed record in his LaSalle convertible to reach the Summit House—the old mountaintop hotel, which can be seen in the photo at left—in 11 minutes and 5 seconds. Two years later, Ab Jenkins of South Bend, Ind., drove his Studebaker up in 7 minutes and 32.8 seconds, breaking Powell’s record.

In 1932, when commercial skiing arrived in Stowe, Craig Burt Sr. renovated one of his logging camps—Ranch Camp—into primitive lodging for skiers. This was before ski lifts, requiring a hike up to ski down. For the first time, skiers began to regularly use the Toll Road as a route to ski down the mountain.

On Feb. 1, 1934, the Bruce trail—the first purpose-built ski trail in Vermont—was completed and 544 guests were registered for that season at Ranch Camp. Skiing had truly arrived on Mt. Mansfield and the Toll Road began to see significant winter use as skiers used it to access The Bruce for their runs down Mansfield. — Brian Lindner

ED FLANAGAN

Ed Flanagan is the chief fishmonger at Stowe Seafood in the Baggy Knees shopping center on Mountain Road. He grew up in Rochester, N.Y., and moved to Stowe in 1996. He lived in Stowe Hollow for two decades before moving to Morristown, where he lives with his wife, Tina, and three children, Lila, 13, Gertie, 7, and Camden, 2, along with a chocolate Lab, Pickles, and three tetra fish who do nothing all day but eat and float.

How did you end up in Stowe?

I grew up working in kitchens and spent summers working as a chef on Martha’s Vineyard and the Cape, and winters at Killington, working for Killington Snowmobile Tours. One summer I got a call from the snowmobile company about a job running snowmobile tours in Stowe. That was in 1996, when I could fit my whole life in my Jeep CJ, a great rig for the beach, by the way.

How did you get into purveying seafood?

the intErviEw

I must pay homage to Kathy and David Kneale. They owned the Partridge Inn in the 1980s, and the little shack behind the inn was called Fish’s Inn. Eventually Mike Soffron and Rob Darling bought it and I worked for them for five years. I bought it in 2002. I just celebrated 20 years in October.

What is a typical work day like?

We set up in the morning. I spend a lot of time making phone calls and texting purveyors in Boston, finding out what’s coming in and what’s available. A lot of what we get is typically in stock and a lot is seasonal. Then I spend the rest of the day waiting on customers.

How many employees do you have?

There are four of us, three full time, and one part-time driver. It increases in the summer and holidays.

Who drives the truck to Boston to pick up fish?

Usually Miles. He’s been our driver for years and also works in the shop. A run to Boston takes about eight hours round trip, and Miles usually leaves at 3 a.m. and returns by 11 a.m. with fresh seafood on Tuesdays and Fridays.

What is your best seller?

Salmon, hands down. We have four varieties, sometimes five. The organic is the most popular. It comes from Norway. Right now, all our prices are inflated $3 a pound over what they used to be. The economy has been affected by the war in Ukraine as most grain for fish food comes from Russia, as does the fuel for transporting it to the U.S. Ours is flown in to Boston. A lot of fish is driven by truck up and down the East Coast, and the high cost of fuel has trickled down and affected the price. We get seafood from all over. That’s what’s nice about going to Boston, it’s a good central location for a fish market and distribution point.

GORDON MILLER

INTERVIEW CONDUCTED & COMPILED BY KATE CARTER

‘We get seafood from all over’

What else do you sell besides seafood?

Top choice steaks, lamb, veal, pork, Bell & Evans all-natural antibiotic-free chicken. We also have clams and oysters on the half shell, shrimp cocktail, cook and crack lobsters—we do the work—a lot of take home and cook products.

What are some of the challenges of running a seafood store?

Everything has changed in the past three years due to COVID-19. You really have to roll with the punches. Fortunately, we did not have to close during the pandemic because we were considered essential. If anything, we got busier. The challenge was supply. We are small and have worked closely with Boston purveyors over the years and have a great relationship with them, and they took care of us. We often had meat and seafood when the bigger stores in Vermont didn’t. Transportation is also a big challenge. We used to lease trucks and now we own one. We do high mileage and need refrigeration.

Do you sell to restaurants?

We do provide for a handful of restaurants in town. It used to be that one-third of our business was retail and two-thirds wholesale to restaurants. But that has flipped. With wholesale we don’t get paid up front. We carry the cost until we get paid. We now only work with about a dozen restaurants.

How much longer do you think you will continue with Stowe Seafood?

I just had my 24th Christmas with Stowe Seafood. It’s always the time of year I ask myself that very question. Different parts I enjoy every day, and other parts are a job. I’m not yet at the point where I can seriously consider stepping away.

What do you do in your spare time. Sunday is my favorite day of the week. I get to enjoy it with my family. Before COVID-19 we were open seven days a week, but when it hit, we started closing on Sundays. It gave me an excuse to change up our business model and now we have Sundays off and better peace of mind.

What has been the best part about owning Stowe Seafood?

The customers. It’s been a pleasure to serve the community all these years.

despite growing up in Cambridge and participating for years in drag queen story hours at various local libraries, Emoji Nightmare had never really brought her big queen energy to a proper Lamoille County show until late last winter when she hosted a drag and burlesque show on the stage at Stowe Cider.

“It was awesome to connect,” Justin Marsh, the person beneath Emoji’s wig, said after the gig. “There was someone I went to high school with in the audience who I hadn’t seen since high school, who came up to me afterwards, and it was a little bit like a reunion in a lot of ways. It was just really lovely.”

Part of the reason it took Marsh more than seven years to book a local show was simple: until Stowe Cider expanded its space last year, there was a lack of big rooms to perform in the area that aren’t bars or theaters or VFW halls. Also, that pandemic? It put a dent in live performances.

Another reason is Marsh has been too busy bringing Emoji to big cities across the country and tiny towns around Vermont—Stowe was just one of four stops in three states in eight days. Heck, she played the Big Apple before playing the small apple cidery.

When Marsh began exploring gender in public, they would go to the Brewski, a dive bar popular with locals and Smugglers’ Notch Resort employees with a simple get-up like big eyelashes and a sparkly dress.

Of course, mom got wind of it and called Marsh concerned, suggesting they might be safer in a more progressive and bigger place like Burlington. But Marsh, pre-Emoji and working in food service at the resort, really hadn’t yet become part of the Queen City queer landscape.

“At the time, I had no community in Burlington and all my friends were Smuggs people, and I knew everyone from working at the café, so I felt safe at the Brewski,” Marsh said. “I told my mom, ‘I don’t feel safe in Burlington. Who would I hang out with? Who would protect me?’”

Emoji retains some of Marsh’s rural upbringing, and they call Emoji Nightmare the “country queen,” sporting cow-print dresses and performing Shania Twain and Dolly Parton standards.

Emoji Nightmare, along with fellow queens Nikki Champagne and Katniss Everqueer, have, for the past five years, been on the library circuit, bringing some color and spice—G-rated for the kiddos—to rural communities where there aren’t as many LGBTQ offerings.

Marsh in 2017 co-founded the Vermont chapter of Drag Queen Story Hour, which features the queens reading books to kids at libraries. The Vermont chapter’s very first event was held in Lamoille County.

“It was important for me to bring my whole self to the place I love,” Marsh said.

Country queen

Marsh began performing as Emoji Nightmare in 2015 but has been putting on makeup since high school at Lamoille Union, despite eyerolling from their mom about just wanting to do it “to be different,” to which Marsh replied, “I want to do it because I want to do it, just like anyone else.”

However, as much as the country queen helped shape Marsh, Marsh no longer relies on Emoji for swagger and confidence. They love putting on the makeup—it used to take three hours to become Emoji but now Marsh can do it in 45 minutes flat. It’s not exactly Clark Kent in a phone booth, but it’s still a relatively quick alter-ego switcheroo, and it’s one Marsh can switch out of just as quick, because sometimes Justin just wants to be Justin.

“There are times that I’m, like, ‘God, I really wish I wasn’t doing this in drag. I wish I could just roll up as me and have the same conversation but look boring,” Marsh said. “Because it’s the same brain. It’s the same mouth. It’s just a different package.”

—Tommy Gardner

LOCAL ICON Emoji Nightmare played Stowe Cider last winter, her first official gig in the Stowe area. GORDON MILLER

BUMPED! Hilary Engisch-Klein was the World Cup’s first dominant female mogul skier, winning four overall titles and helping to set the sport on course for the Olympics. Her domination was so complete that Skiing magazine called her “the greatest female mogul skier alive, and a woman who can routinely do what most of us only dream about.”

She was the overall World Cup winner for women’s moguls four times.

She won a total of 21 World Cup mogul events.

She is in the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame, and the University of Vermont Sports Hall of Fame. And she lives in Stowe.

Hilary Engisch-Klein was the fourth of six children and grew up in Williston. She got hooked on skiing early and participated in the Smugglers’ Notch race program. She mentioned at her induction to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame that being the fourth child had its advantages in that it made her harder to keep track of. She occasionally would stash her skis in the woods, skip the school bus, and then hitchhike the 40 miles to the ski area.

One day she ran into her father at the ski area—almost literally. That may have curtailed some of her extracurricular skiing.

After watching mogul events on TV, Engisch-Klein basically said, “I can do that!” She left racing behind, although she still maintains that racing is good training for becoming a mogul skier. She began competing and winning prize money as a pro at 17. Her first win came at Silver Star in British Columbia in 1978.

In 1980 the FIS created the World Cup mogul competition and Engisch-Klein became the dominant women’s skier. She won three events that first season and as a result the overall World Cup in moguls. In 1981 she would win five events and repeat as overall champion. Also, in 1981 she competed in the Pro Mogul Tour and won all five events.

The mogul competitors at that time faced an interesting decision. They wanted mogul skiing to be an Olympic sport, but the Olympics were still restricted to amateurs. So, Engisch-Klein and the others decided to give up the money that came with being a professional for the sake of achieving Olympic status for their sport. This wasn’t without some hardship as the competitors would now have to raise money to support travel and training. They often had to stay at people’s houses as they traveled through Europe and the United States. But Engisch-Klein recalls this made the competitors a closer-knit community and the source of many great memories.

Moguls were added as an Olympic event in 1992, but it was too late for Engisch-Klein and some of her contemporaries.

As an amateur she won two more overall World Cups in 1982 and 1984. In 1984 she also suffered a serious knee injury. Not one to waste time, Engisch-Klein used her recovery and rehab from surgery to co-author “Skiing Freestyle,” which would be the training guide for the U.S. Freestyle

Ski Team. She would return to competitive skiing after the injury but retired in 1987.

Looking back at her competitive career, Engisch-Klein is proudest of handling the pressure. She talks about finding that “sweet spot” where you block out the noise and find a quiet focus standing atop a mogul run. She attributes some of that to her study of martial arts at a young age.

Engisch-Klein is a breast cancer survivor, and that experience motivated her to start Kids on Top (kidsontopvt.com), an outdoor adventure program for children suffering from cancer or other serious childhood diseases.

The program’s team of experienced coaches “creates a lighthearted atmosphere for children of all ability levels in collaboration with the University of Vermont Medical Center’s Pediatric Oncology department.”

Engisch-Klein is still skiing. She describes her skiing now as “fast and flat.” She told Wendy Clinch on theskidiva.com in 2018, “Both my knees are titanium. They’re awesome. I can do everything I want.

—Greg Morrill

Greg Morrill is a retired college professor and computer programmer. More at retro-skiing.com.

FROM LEFT: COURTESY PHOTO; GORDON MILLER

RURAL ROUTE

MYSTERY BUYER ADDS STOWEHOF TO EDSON HILL PROPERTY

A private buyer purchased the Stowehof Inn last fall, adding the property to their growing Edson Hill portfolio and likely signaling the end of the architecturally unique hotel.

The property was purchased for $7.5 million, marking a near doubling in price after the property was sold by its longtime caretakers, the Grimes family, to Saltaire Management for just under $4 million in 2016; the property was subsequently sold again in 2018 for $6.4 million.

The property was initially purchased by a shell corporation and then transferred to Five Roads Stowe LLC, the same unidentifiable entity that purchased 185 acres of land surrounding the 26-acre Stowehof property on Edson Hill in Stowe for a market-leading $33.7 million dollars in 2021.

Coordinating both multi-million dollar transactions for the mysterious buyer were lawyer Ed French of Stackpole & French, and Barbara Gordon, a longtime Stowe resident with little record of facilitating real estate transactions outside of the Edson Hill blockbuster. French declined to comment on the purchase and Gordon did not return a request for comment.

The 2021 sale of three surrounding tracts of land to Five Roads Stowe in 2021, known as the “Newbury property,” represented a 240 percent markup from its 2018 sale price of $10 million; the property previously sold in 2008 for just $3.2 million and includes a 13-room home built in 1955. With the inn left derelict for the winter—its driveway unplowed, its lights and other utilities turned off—all visible signs point to Stowehof’s likely end. As Pall Spera, the real estate agent involved in the land purchase put it, it’s unlikely the property will continue to operate commercially.

No final plans have been made regarding the actual structure, and any planned demolition must be permitted with the town.

Spera assured that there was nothing insidious or clandestine about the purchase, that there was no dramatic plan to upend the character of Stowe taking root on the 211-acre combined property.

“Some people want to be private,” he said. As for the Stowehof Inn, Spera noted that some properties just “get to the end of their useful life.”

The inn was built on the hilltop in 1949 by Larry Hess, who arrived in the nascent ski town with grand dreams of Austrian alpine architecture, and features hand-cut wood salvaged from nearby farms and included seven fireplaces and a jutting roof structure held up by a massive beam.

The property was eventually purchased by AIG executive and then-Stowe Mountain Resort owner C.V. Starr in 1968 and remained a part of the ski resort’s hospitality offering until the Grimes family—Christopher and Susan with their son C.J. and his wife Kristin—bought it in 2000. —Aaron Calvin

Katerina Hrdlicka of Mud City in Morristown poses with a copy of last winter’s magazine while on a visit to Switzerland, specifically Zermatt, er, The Matterhorn, to ski and visit family. Fittingly, she’s sporting a hat from Stowe’s most famous après ski joint—The Matterhorn!

Do you have a photo of our magazine on some far-flung island or rugged mountain peak? Send it along to us at ads@stowereporter.com, with Stowe Magazine in the subject line. We’ll pick the best one—or two!—and run it in the next edition.

“Witchity, witchity, witchity.”

I know that common yellowthroats have returned to my neighborhood in spring when I hear that distinctive song. With luck, I’ll glimpse the striking male as he darts about the shrubbery. The common yellowthroat is one of North America’s most abundant warblers, nesting across Canada and the United States, including Alaska. Male yellowthroats return to the breeding grounds before females and begin defending territories.

This small warbler is easy to identify by its olive-green back and the bright yellow coloring of its throat and under-tail coverts. The male has a black facial mask bordered on top by a white band, making him look like a bandit. The female is browner and lacks a facial mask, but also has a yellow throat.

Ornithologists believe the black facial mask and the male’s yellow bib may play a role in attracting females. Once the female chooses a male, he follows her closely until she is ready to

ders, as well as insects and insect larvae, including dragonflies, beetles, caterpillars, and moths, gleaning them off vegetation or flying from a perch to snatch them from the air.

These warblers nest on or close to the ground, attaching their nests to clumps of grass, reeds, or bushes. The female weaves a loose outer layer of dry grasses, dead leaves, grapevine bark, and ferns, and lines the inner cup with fine grasses, bark fibers, and hairs. The nest is well concealed, and sometimes partially roofed over. The female lays a clutch of three to five white or cream eggs, speckled with brown, black, or gray.

Brown-headed cowbirds, known nest para-

sites, often lay their eggs in yellowthroat nests. In some instances, the yellowthroat pair raises a baby cowbird as one of their own—what the female cowbird aims to achieve. Other times, yellowthroats abandon their nest or build a second or even third nest over the strange eggs.

The female yellowthroat incubates her eggs for about 12 days, while the male sings to maintain their territory and delivers food to her. The young are born naked and with eyes sealed shut, but soon open their mouths to beg for food. They grow rapidly on a diet of insect larvae and softbodied adult insects provided frequently by both parents, and within days, the nestlings’ eyes open and they develop feathers. The parents keep the nest clean by removing eggshells and fecal sacs.

By their eight day of life, young yellowthroats are usually ready to fledge, or leave the nest. After a few days of hopping around the ground and low vegetation, the fledglings learn to fly, although both parents continue to feed and care for the young birds until they are at least four weeks old. Once the juveniles become independent, the parents may raise a second brood.

Though yellowthroats are still numerous, their population declined 38 percent between 1966 and 2014, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Habitat loss was likely the largest contributor to this decline. These birds are also affected by water pollution that degrades the wetlands where they nest and lack of insect food due to pesticide use. Since their territories can be as small as a halfacre, backyards in rural areas can provide suitable habitat for yellowthroats if there is tall grass or dense shrubs.

Listen for the unmistakable call of the yellowthroat this spring, and you may be treated to the sight of this colorful warbler.

Susan Shea is a naturalist, writer, and conservationist based in Vermont. Illustration by Adelaide Murphy Tyrol. The Outside Story is assigned and edited by Northern Woodlands magazine and sponsored by the Wellborn Ecology Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, nhcf.org.

Serves up its last rink-side treats

Stowe has plenty of restaurants to choose from, but good luck finding a place that serves a quarter-pound burger—with or without cheese—for under six bucks as well as one of the biggest breakfast sandwiches in town, whether breakfast time is dawn, dusk, or somewhere in between.

Julie Roy slung sammies at the Snack Shack at Stowe Arena for so long that the folks who used to skate there as youth hockey players bring their own kids. But now, after 23 years running the Shack, Roy has hung up her oven mitts.

“Of all the jobs I’ve had, I love this one the most,” she said. “I love baking for people and cooking for people. Quite honestly, I love the praise that people give me. When they say, ‘that’s the best soup I’ve ever had,’ it’s very rewarding.”

Roy said before starting the Snack Shack in 2000, she was a stay-at-home mom for about a decade. When her youngest kid turned 10, husband Mike suggested a food cart—he’d run the concession stand at the Barre city pool when he was in high school and figured Julie had the chops for the work. Her cousin in Connecticut ran a hot dog cart, and he gave the Roys some tips, from cooking the dogs to handling the cash box.

“We bought a hot dog cart that weekend and you know what? There wasn’t one part of me that thought this wasn’t going to be a successful business,” she said. “I just knew it.”

Thus began Roy’s College Dogs, which Julie ran for 20 summers in Waterbury’s Rusty Parker Park before calling it quits in 2020.

After Roy saw a newspaper ad seeking someone to run the concession stand at Jackson Arena, she leapt at the chance. The shack’s first location was spartan and so disconnected from the rest of the facility that Roy had to fetch water and lug it over to make coffee or hot cocoa. Eventually the shack was moved to a better location.

“We felt like we were high off the hog because they had water for us,” she laughed.

After 13 years, Roy thought about getting done, but then town voters approved a new rink. “And we were, like, you know what? We deserve to come and work in a good kitchen,” she said.

That was 10 years ago, and Roy quickly took advantage of the more spacious digs, adding more homemade fare to the menu. She began baking her own breads and making her own soups, and hungry skaters, fans, and regulars in the know gobbled it up.

HAT TRICK Mike and Julie Roy at their popular rink-side food emporium at Stowe Arena. Julie serves a young hockey player.

The number one menu item overall, though, is the Hat Trick, an egg and meat sandwich served on a kaiser roll with a hashbrown tucked in there. It’s on the menu all day.

Tim Meehan, a Stowe builder and regular rink-goer, said he is “a devotee” of the Hat Trick. When asked to say a kind word about Roy and the Shack, he audibly grunted in disappointment over the phone. He hadn’t been informed.

“It’s a great place to stop in, especially on a Saturday morning after skiing, when the little kids were playing, which is always fun to watch,” Meehan said.

Tony Whitaker, the rink superintendent, said his twin boys, now in their 20s, have been frequenting the place since they were young children. He said Roy’s personality has made the Snack Shack a popular place for locals and visiting teams alike.

“I told the kids when we were younger to tell Julie to just put it on my tab,” Whitaker said. “It wasn’t just a business to her. She got to know everyone in the rink.”

— Tommy Gardner

“It wasn’t just a business to her. She got to know everyone in the rink.”

history books can be boring. Consider the beginning of “History of Stowe to 1869,” written by Mrs. M.N. Wilkins in 1871: “Stowe is situated in the south part of Lamoille Co. in Lat. 44’ 28’, Long. 4’ 20’, about 60 miles from Canada line, 15 miles N.W. from Montpelier and 25 east from Burlington in a straight line.”

Not exactly a page-turner.

That is a bit unfair to Mrs. Wilkins, whose history of Stowe gets much more engaging once she gets going, and it is an admittedly invaluable record of the town’s origins. There’s even a story of hunters swinging axes to fight off bears, some poetry, and voluminous detail on the town’s citizens who fought in the Civil War. I’m picking on her to make a point. While history can often lie flat when confined to a printed page, it invariably comes alive when seen through historical artifacts handed down and preserved through the ages. These objects can both transport us back to—and help explain—the past.

Thanks to a devoted band of volunteers, Stowe has a modest but fascinating collection of artifacts from its past. These include everything from farm implements to Civil War artifacts to a 19th-century wedding veil. Some of the items were donated by generous residents and can be found in the Stowe Historical Society Museum located in the cultural campus that also includes Stowe Free Library and The Current, the town’s contemporary art center. The museum is open Thursday to Saturday, 1-4 p.m.

To support Voltaire’s claim that “history consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions,” we introduce this regular feature about artifacts of Stowe’s history.

Jail bars

These jail bars, located in the Akeley Memorial Building, are all that endures of Stowe’s former jail, built in 1902. The long-unused cell remained on the bottom floor of the building until 1991 when an elevator took its place.

“The jail was really just a two-person lockup,” said Barbara Baraw, president of the Stowe Historical Society. “It was mostly occupied by folks who were sleeping off Saturday night’s hangover.” More serious offenders were usually transported to a more secure jail. The handcuffs and leg shackles once used on these lawbreakers are also on display at the museum.

Given the number of bars and restaurants that now dot Stowe, it’s hard to believe that the town was dry from the late 1800s to the 1950s. Although residents had the chance to legalize drinking in town after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, they voted at each annual town meeting until the mid 1950s to keep Stowe dry. Nevertheless, it’s rumored that the jail filled with a steady stream of weekend “customers” during its existence.

—Robert Kiener

GLENN CALLAHAN

flashback

Carroll Brothers was a fixture in Stowe.

Anyone here in the 1980s and 1990s—and long before—who worked in the restaurant industry encountered Carroll, usually manning the dishwasher. He was good at it, when he showed up, which was more often than not. He took an instant dislike to me—except for when he didn’t—and both times I asked to profile him in the Stowe Reporter Carroll was clearly in dislike mode. He often hitchhiked up Mountain Road to work, and I’d still pick him up. Sometimes we’d chat, oftentimes not. A sizeable contingent of kind and caring Stoweites looked out for Carroll over his many years here—church folk, Stowe Rotarians, businesspeople—lots and lots of good people. He was a big Stowe booster, often helping out at local events, as shown above in the dunk tank, in full clown regalia or face painted. He was always—always—a tad disheveled. I often wonder, would he be tolerated today? —Greg Popa

River Arts: Art 100

Art fundraiser, Morristown, Feb. 10

Pixie Loomis and Kyle Nuse emcee the Art 100 event.

PHOTOS BY GORDON MILLER

Jen Vol.

Hope Sullivan.

Melissa and Penelope Dimora.

Cocktails and conversation.

Brother Dutton birthday bash

Peigi Guerra, Father Jon Schnobrich, and Sam von Trapp.

Parishioners and guests celebrate the 180th birthday of Joseph Dutton, who is being considered for sainthood. The church is built on the land of his ancestral home.

Gracious Ladies of New York perform.

Young parishioners.

Blessed Sacrament Church, Stowe, April 23

Parishioners, Catholic clergy, and guests in front of the church.

PHOTOS BY JOANNE BISCEGLIO

Charlie Schaffer and Father Sahaya Paul.

MUSEUM EXHIBIT SHOWCASES 30 YEARS OF BURTON DRAWN& BOARDER’D

There are plenty of painters who get their art displayed on gallery walls all over the world. But how many of them have had their paintings strapped to the boots of the world’s best athletes as they push the envelope on what’s possible for mere seconds in mid-air?

That would be Scott Lenhardt, an artist who has designed 60 boards for Burton riders like Ross Powers, Shannon Dunn, and Danny Davis, as well as work for Phish, Nike, and Mountain Dew.

The Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum on Main Street in Stowe, with its current exhibit, is presenting a deep dive into nearly 30 years of Lenhardt’s work. With more than three decades worth of pigment under his nails, Lenhardt is in no hurry to move from hand-painting his designs to doing them on a computer.

“I’m putting so much energy into them, in

hopes that a fraction of that energy is going to come through when someone’s standing on it and riding it,” he said during a recent Red Bench talk at the museum. “Or, if they’re sitting in their room and it’s leaning against the wall, they’re like,’ I gotta go ride that thing.’ I don’t think you get the energy with computers.”

Lenhardt grew up in West Rupert, a tiny Bennington County village—not that Rupert proper is a metropolis—about a mile from the New York border. His youth snowboarding years were at Bromley as part of the Glebelands crew that dominated the mountain in the early ’90s.

As someone who has produced some 60 boards for the world’s most famous snowboard company, Lenhardt has also worked with some of its most famous faces, creating indelible duos that mesh the personalities of rider and artist. Many of those finished products are part of the museum exhibit. His collaborations root the viewer in their tracks, with inside jokes and tributes drawn into the whimsical lines that involve robots, Vikings, the Headless Horseman, and classic movie monster motifs, but also breathtaking vistas of fantastical colors.

Michael Jager, the creative director of JDK designs, which has collaborated with Lenhardt with several designs, described Lenhardt’s work as “the lion, the lamb and the fearless flow.”

“His art, ideas and very sensibility created there (in southern Vermont, where he grew up) resonates with the bold uniqueness of a lion unafraid to create a universe of images, characters, spaces and places radically individual and powerfully crafted, while simultaneously creating art with a soft flowing nature in line and form, an aesthetic as gentle as a lamb,” Jager writes in the exhibit.

For all the eye-catching nature of the untouched products carefully curated and placed around the museum floor, some of the richest pieces in the exhibit are the artifacts from Lenhardt’s

BURTON MAN Scott Lenhardt at the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum in Stowe, where his work is on exhibit through October. He produced some 60 boards for the world’s most famous snowboard company over several decades.

archives. There are conceptual designs drawn on paper and handwritten notes between him and pro riders riffing on concepts. There is a collection of limited-edition Mountain Dew bottles with his designs and even a Ross Powers “Huck Doll” bendable action figure, still in the original packaging.

Perhaps the most museum-quality artifact, though, is a nearly 30-year-old twintip snowboard with a portrait of Jane’s Addiction front man Perry Farrell, the only actual ridden board in the collection. It’s arguably the most tangible representation of Lenhardt’s mid-90s origin story.

He said he knew he wanted to get into the business of designing boards, so he painted his own and toted it over to Stratton for the biggest event in snowboarding, the U.S. Open, hoping one of the riders would see it and ask him about it.

That someone was Shannon Dunn, a legend in snowboarding—the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in snowboarding, taking home bronze in the 1998 Nagano Games. Now, the Perry Farrell board is included right along with Dunn’s Lenhardt originals.

“For anyone out there who wants to break into snowboarding, that’s how I did it,” Lenhardt said. “I basically painted my board and went to show it off at the biggest event in Vermont.”

May-October, Tuesday-Saturday, 10 to 4

Explore exhibits, walk the museum grounds, enjoy the views along the Stevens Branch of the Winooski River, climb the indoor bouldering wall, play bocce ball, or tour the museum grounds by pedal car.

curated to meet you where you are at the moment and help you move towards your goals

Reformer | Mat Classes + Privates on all Apparatus

Adiminutive alpine shrub last documented in Vermont in 1908 has been rediscovered on Mt. Mansfield. The small shrub is called purple crowberry, and a hiker from upstate New York recently spotted it while on a foliage-season visit up Mt. Mansfield. According to state wildlife officials, the last time the specimen had been documented in Vermont was on Camel’s Hump, the state’s second-highest peak.

“If I had to make a guess, it’s probably been there all along, and we just missed it,” said Bob Popp, a botanist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.

That’s not for lack of searching. Popp said the purple crowberry is easily overlooked because it grows nearby and looks a lot like its more abundant brethren, the black crowberry.

“This discovery emphasizes the benefit of having a community of keen botanical observers on the ground,” he said.

The keen observer in this case is Liam Ebner, a summit steward with the Adirondack Mountain Club in New York. Ebner was on Mansfield in mid-October as part of the 2022 Northeastern Alpine Stewardship Gathering, a biennial conference hosted by the Green Mountain Club and The Waterman Fund.

Ebner said he is very familiar with alpine tundra zones like that found atop Vermont’s highest peaks as well as the tops of many Adirondack summits—he’s particularly familiar with Marcy, Cascade, Algonquin, Colden, and Wright peaks—so he knows how to gingerly poke around without upsetting the fragile tundra flora. He’s also always on the lookout for purple crowberries, which are also very rare in New York.

“One of my bosses at the beginning of the season said if we find any new ones, she’d buy us ice cream,” Ebner said.

If that’s the case, Vermont might owe Ebner a whole lot of Ben & Jerry’s.

“This is an extraordinary find,” Popp said, adding it was even more extraordinary because Ebner was able to identify the shrub not by its titular fruit, but by its needle patterns.

The purple crowberry (Empetrum atropurpureum) grows low to the ground in rocky habitat above the tree line. The species is identifiable by needle-like leaves and purple berries, and is found in Maine, New Hampshire, and New York—in greater numbers in Maine than in the rest of the Northeast. It is listed as uncommon in New Hampshire and endangered in New York.

In Vermont, it is still listed as extinct, or to be technical, it is “extirpated,” a term conservationists use to mean something no longer exists in one place but may in others.

Popp said there is no indication that the purple crowberry was ever a common species in Vermont.

“Considering its rarity, it probably doesn’t play a big role in the overall ecosystem,” Popp said. “But it is a native species and is part of our heritage and losing it would be tragic.”

With that in mind, state wildlife officials aren’t saying where Ebner found the shrub—which Popp himself verified a few days later—and neither is the eagle-eyed New Yorker. It is off the beaten path, and summit stewards have for years posted watches over the high peaks during fair weather seasons to educate people about staying on the beaten path, and away from fragile alpine vegetation.

“They can withstand cold and wind, but not getting trampled,” Ebner said. “The soil up there is very precious and getting established is the hardest part of a plant’s life cycle.”

Both he and Nigel Bates, the Green Mountain Club’s Caretaker Program supervisor, say the health of the summits—and perhaps the very existence of purple crowberry on Mt. Mansfield—is a testament to careful stewardship.

“We take this sighting as proof that our practices on the mountain are working,” Bates said. “We thank visitors for their commitment to walking on durable surfaces, leashing their dogs and protecting the fragile alpine flora communities in Vermont.”

As for the purple crowberry’s future in Vermont, things are looking up. Popp worries a little that some snowshoe hare might nibble away some of the Mansfield shrubs, and he worries a lot more about increased human traffic in the backcountry during the winter.

Still, the shrubs—there is more than one up there, Popp discovered— have probably been right under their noses for more than a century, and he’s hopeful that continues.

In the short term, the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department and the Green Mountain Club will monitor Mansfield’s purple crowberry population for signs of predation or encroachment by other plants. In the longer term, the department will consider the purple crowberry for designation on the state’s threatened and endangered species list as more is learned about the species’ viability in Vermont.

“I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be up there next year,” Popp said. “It’s been there for at least 114 years.” — Tommy Gardner

ESSENTIALS: greenmountainclub.org

TOP DOGS News editor of the Vermont Community Newspaper Group, Tommy Gardner, graphic artist and webmaster Kristen Braley, and reporter Liberty Darr. Inset: Paul and Ryan Percy.

GOOD NEWS

The Vermont Community Newspaper Group took home several top journalism and advertising design awards including the top prize for the Stowe Guide & Magazine—at the annual New England newspaper contest.

The Better Newspaper Competition, hosted by the New England Newspaper and Press Association, was held in Waltham, Mass., in May as part of the weeklong New England Newspaper Convention.

Newspaper group publisher and editor Greg Popa won first place for the Stowe Guide & Magazine in the competition’s Best Niche Publication category. The magazine had previously placed first in the same category from 2010-2022, with one third place showing.

“We are fortunate to have such a talented group of writers and photographers who provide content for our magazine—many of whom also write and shoot pictures for our five newspapers,” Popa said. “These continued first-place awards are really a testament to their skill and talent. I’m proud of them all and feel fortunate to work alongside them.”

Journalism awards

Among the competition’s first-place journalism awards, the judges recognized two different reports of a devastating fire that destroyed the Percy family’s iconic Stowe dairy barn in early 2022. Aaron Calvin won first place in the General News Story category for his Stowe Reporter story “130 cows, historic barn lost in Percy farm fire.”

And Rob Kiener placed first in the Human Interest Feature Story category for “A town responds,” which covered the aftermath of the Percy farm fire for this magazine.

Also winning a top spot was Tommy Gardner—first place in crime and courts reporting for his News & Citizen series about an Elmore man who killed his wife and himself.

Numerous second- and third-place reporting awards included:

• Gardner tied—with himself—for second place in business and eco-

nomic reporting for stories about dairy farmers left in the lurch by a national organic dairy conglomerate and another about how stores pulled vodka from their shelves in the early days of the war with Ukraine.

Gardner also gathered silvers in the sports and transportation reporting categories, and finished second to Kiener in the same human interest competition with “A Buffalo Man,” a magazine story about a New York guy who dressed in a dirndl and traveled to Trapp Family Lodge for Oktoberfest.

• Avalon Styles-Ashley took second for her coverage of a former South Burlington High School teacher under investigation for racial harassment.

• Styles-Ashley and Calvin shared an award in health reporting, while Calvin won third place in the obituaries category for his Stowe Reporter piece, “Marvin Moriarty remembered: Olympic skier, bar brawler, fashion influencer,” the title of which really tells it all. He also placed in the government reporting and right-to-know categories.

• Kiener took second in arts and entertaining reporting for a magazine piece on sculptor David Stromeyer.

Stowe Reporter photographer Gordon Miller won a passel of awards —five in all—along with Paul Rogers and Nathanael Asaro.

Advertising awards

The Stowe Reporter and News & Citizen design team also took home several awards, matching the newsroom in the number of first-place plaques, with four. As a team, they won first place for themed multiple advertising pages and best holiday ad, while production manager Katerina Hrdlicka took first in real estate advertising and designer Kristen Braley won for automotive display.

RIDE, the newspaper group’s annual mountain bike supplement, won in special sections and Hrdlicka and Braley also won for several other advertising campaigns and individual ads for the Body Lounge, Caledonia Fair, Empower MedSpa, and Pall Spera.

“It’s great to be recognized by your peers, particularly after the last three years of COVID-19. Hopefully our communities know how hard this team works to serve them,” Popa said. —Tommy Gardner

LISA LYNN; INSET: GORDON MILLER

Globetrotting adventurer enters ski hall of fame

‘INDIANA JAN’

an Reynolds, the Stowe skier, writer, alpinist, photographer, explorer, and ethnographer, known in some circles as “Indiana Jan,” was off on another trip in March. This time it was to Big Sky, Mont., where she contemplated some backcountry skiing if the avalanche danger wasn’t too high.

If not, she would just have to settle with being inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.

While some of the marquee names in this year’s class are known for singular sports— Bode Miller in Alpine skiing or Shannon Dunn for snowboarding—Reynolds is finally getting her due for doing it all and often doing it first, from setting altitude and speed records in the Himalayas, to skiing on the U.S. Biathlon team, to writing about the places she’s been and the people she met along the way.

Fellow hall of famer and extreme skier Kristen Ulmer wrote in her nomination of Reynolds, “Current extreme mountain skiers, male and female, stand on Jan’s shoulders.”

Reynolds herself, while deft at a jaw-dropping tale, is also very good understating the momentous.

“We kind of put ski mountaineering on the map a little bit,” she said recently.

That’s like saying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had a thing for rocks.

Record breaking

Reynolds, who lives on Mountain Road in Stowe, grew up in Middlebury as the sixth of seven kids, and her siblings still live in the area, which gives her a sense of grounding whenever she’s wherever. She has two adult children of her own.

“I’m an eighth-generation Vermonter and it’s just the sense of place that makes it easier for me to go away, because I have a place to come back to,” she said.

And she has been places, from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to the peaks of the Himalayas.

In 1980, she set the women’s world record for high-altitude skiing when she and a group of guys bombed down the side of Mount Muztagh Ata in western China, becoming the first skiers to descend a slope higher than 7,500 meters—at 4.7 miles above sea level, it’s roughly 4,500 feet lower than Mount Everest.

But wait, she did that one too, the very next year, becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the world’s tallest mountain, and doing it on a pair of skinny, free-heel 1970s-era sticks.

According to Ulmer, before Reynolds and a small crew did it starting in 1981, no one had used light cross-country skis in the Himalayas.

Ever the historian, Reynolds noted the first ski lift, in Germany, wasn’t built until 1908, but people have been free-heel skiing for almost 10,000 years, and archeologists have discovered skis dating as far back as 8,000 BCE. She said the first recorded ski race was a biathlon, using skis and a bow and arrow. And they were free-heel skis just like the ones Reynolds was using in the 1980s on the world’s highest peaks.

“It’s the all-terrain vehicle of skiing,” she said.

“You go up, you go down, you go across.”

Hap Klopp, co-founder and longtime CEO of The North Face gear company, said Reynolds was the first female athlete the company sponsored, and was one of the company’s leading product testers—i.e., she wore the heck out of The North Face on innumerable actual north faces.

“Jan’s exploits around the globe were critical in helping build The North Face’s female (and male) customer base and pioneered the era of outdoor women-sponsored athletes,” Klopp wrote in his nomination, calling Reynolds a “skiing and outdoor legend” and “an inspiration for female participation in the outdoors.”

Dan Egan, a fellow Hall of Famer and legend of the Mad River Valley, echoed that sentiment.

“Her accomplishments are not only bold but have shaped the outdoor action sports world as we know it,” Egan wrote. “Many, if not all adventure, extreme, and professional athletes have her to thank for the direction her impact forged in the industry. When you add in her international

RECORD BOOK Title page, Jan Reynolds, a Stowe resident who has traveled to the globe’s most remote nooks and crannies, setting extreme skiing records and sharing the stories of people in far-flung places, was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in March. Previous page, from top left, Reynolds has traveled the world, writing 20 books and innumerable articles about the Indigenous people she has met. Jan Reynolds was a member of the U.S. Biathlon team that earned a bronze medal at the 1984 World Cup. Her lifetime of adventure culminates in her 2019 book “The Glass Summit: One Woman’s Epic Journey Breaking Through,” which author John Krakauer called an “inspiring, unsparingly honest book.”

records, plus her impact on the type of equipment used and developed by her experiences, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame is empty without her.”

Reynolds has never been to the resort of Big Sky, but she will be staying at a place called Lone Mountain Ranch, which is the same place she stayed almost 40 years ago when she was part of the U.S. Biathlon team. It almost seems like a lark—she joined in 1984 after deciding she needed a break from breaking world skiing records in the loftiest spots in the world.

According to Ulmer, Reynolds was the top athlete picked for the women’s team, which finished third in the 1984 World Cup in Chamonix, France.

Dr. Bob Arnot, a Stowe resident and television medical correspondent, described Reynolds’ lung volume capacity as “world class,” a discovery he made after hooking her up to a spirometer while she hit the treadmill, back when she was training for the biathlon squad.

Again, for all that, she’s still a hometown girl.

“She has given back to the community in spades,” Arnot said. “Stowe’s favorite kid’s ski instructor!”

Record taking

There’s a reason people call Reynolds “Indiana Jan,” and part of that may be her pulp novelistic exploits—while setting an altitude record for hot air balloon flight over Mount Everest, the aircraft crashed and caught fire; while soloing in the Himalayas she found herself on the China side, being chased away by that country’s army. But also, much like how Indy frequently trades in his fedora and whip for hornrims and bowtie, Reynolds

regularly swaps out her skis and backpacks for pen and camera.

Reynolds is the author of more than 20 books and counting, including a series of photography books called “Vanishing Cultures,” in which she spends time living with Indigenous tribes on each of the world’s continents— including the Sherpa of the Himalayas, the Tuareg of the Sahara, the Yanomami of the Amazon Basin, and the Tiwi of Australia.

“When I would climb and ski in the nooks and crannies of the world, I fell in love with the people that I met that were still living very basic, indigenous lives,” she said.

In the Himalayas, she hung out with the women in their yurts, milking goats, and trading earrings. In the Atlas Mountains of northern Africa, she met the Berbers and learned about a subset of that group, the Tuareg, that she wanted to meet someday.

Her writing career was hastened in the late 1980s when she was holed up in her house recovering from a bad back injury and ensuing surgery. During her conversations, she often refers to this point of her life as her “timeout.”

“I think everybody needs to have a timeout somewhere in their lives, because it really changed the way I see things,” she said.”

Back home in Stowe, she pivoted to writing and photography, at first drawing on all those memories from that picaresque prior decade, penning articles in publications like National Geographic, the New York Times, and Outside Much of this would culminate in her 2019 book “The Glass Summit: One Woman’s Epic Journey Breaking Through,” which author John Krakauer called an “inspiring, unsparingly honest book.”

Her next endeavor will see her branching out into fiction, but right now she’s engrossed with a tribe that might seem like something out of a science fiction story—the Bajau people of Indonesia, a tribe also known as the “sea gypsies.”

The seafaring tribe has evolved throughout millennia to the point where they can regularly hold their breath underwater for more than five minutes—Reynolds says some of them approach 15 minutes—longer than highlytrained divers from other populations. The Bajau utilize this natural ability to spend hours every day underwater hunting fish.

“They run on the bottom, hunting, and they can see underwater in a way we can’t because they’ve lived on the water and boats for so many generations that their bodies changed,” Reynolds said.

Remember Arnot’s remark about Reynolds’ “world-class” lungs? That’s nothing compared to the Bajau. And that’s what gets Reynolds excited, not only spending time with a new culture, but challenging herself well into her 60s to do so.

She just turned 67, but at the age of 66 she trained hard to get her scuba certification. All so she can leave her familiar environs of Stowe and go somewhere new.

“There’s always something new to explore, and you don’t have to go someplace no one’s ever been before to explore,” she said “Everybody has their own sort of adventure zone. It’s just stepping into something new so that you have to see the world and participate in the world in a different way, and then you start finding out all these new things about yourself.” n

HIGH PEAKS Jan Reynolds, a newly inducted member of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, has traveled the world, setting mountaineering records.

Pucker Street (Route 100N), Stowe 802-253-4157

FROM SWANTON TO ST. J

Lamoille Valley Rail Trail opens for business

The Lamoille Valley Rail Trail—all 93 miles of it—is now open for outdoor recreationists to traverse.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation officially completed the trail in March, with the exception of the Fisher Bridge in Wolcott, which was expected to be open by Memorial Day. This means that people can now walk, ride, ski or snowmobile, uninterrupted, between Swanton and St. Johnsbury.

“The AOT project team and our partners have worked especially hard in the past year to expedite the construction of the trail,” according to transportation secretary Joe Flynn.

It is the longest rail trail in New England.

The 93-mile trail follows the route of the Lamoille Valley Railroad, which was founded in 1877 and shut down in 1994. It was a scenic train ride, dubbed “The Covered Bridge Line,” and leaf-peeper excursions for fall foliage viewing ran into the 1970s.

The Vermont Association of Snow Travelers

acquired the right of way and was responsible for converting the railway into a trail. In 2020, the state took over responsibility for building— and funding—the rest. While the rail trail is closed to most motorized vehicles, snowmobiles are still allowed, a nod to the decades of work done by VAST.

All in all, the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail features five tunnels, 53 bridges, 96 crossings, and 525 culverts. It passes through five counties, 18 communities, and 36 total miles of it are adjacent to the Lamoille River.

Michelle Boomhower with the Vermont Agency of Transportation said by taking over management of the state’s four rail trails—the other three are the Beebe Spur along the eastern shore of Lake Memphremagog in Newport; the Missisquoi Valley trail, which runs 26 miles between Richford and St. Albans; and the Delaware and Hudson in the south-central portion of

Vermont—the state will ensure the trail’s existence far into the future, by making them part of the transportation agency’s annual budget.

According to transportation officials, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., secured $700,000 to improve amenities in towns along the trail. More than three-quarters of that money will pay for new picnic tables, portable toilets, bike facilities, and other features at the path’s trailhead on Robin Hood Drive in Swanton—near the rail trail’s western terminus—as well as at a trailhead in Greensboro.

The rest of that money will fund a study for a trailhead in Hyde Park; a study of parking and amenities in Sheldon; and a study of the need for more regional amenities in St. Johnsbury, Danville, Cabot, Walden, Greensboro, and Hardwick. n

— Tommy Gardner

ESSENTIALS: More at lvrt.org.

GLENN

93 MILES! A jogger and her dog enjoy the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, which will be fully open by Memorial Day.

SOUNDS OF SILENCE Clockwise from bottom left, Green River Reservoir offers solitude and serenity. The 653-acre, man-made water body is home to an abundance of wildlife, including nesting loons and a great blue heron rookery. The only thing missing is the sounds of motors—they’re banned from secluded state park. Scene from the water on Green River Reservoir. Loon chicks hitch a ride. The park manager’s office at the Hyde Park entrance to the state park.

GREEN RIVER RESERVOIR

Environmental groups, utility, state, feds debate its future

The Stowe region is filled with many areas of natural beauty. But one of the area’s largest wilderness settings, which offers wildlife, water, and tranquility, is likely one of the least known and less visited places— Green River Reservoir State Park.

Located in Hyde Park and Eden, this park covers 5,503 acres, and includes several ponds and the 653-acre Green River Reservoir, which features 19 miles of undeveloped shoreline. Created when Hyde Park’s Green River was blocked by a 97-foot dam, the reservoir is fairly unusual in that no gas- or diesel-powered boats are allowed, making use of the park a “unique experience,” according to Ron Kelley, treasurer of the nonprofit Friends of the Green River Reservoir. Other than a small parking lot at the end of the entrance road, the only way to enjoy this huge nature area is on foot or by canoe or kayak.

On some days, the calls of birds and the wind rustling through the trees might be the only sounds park visitors hear. Kelley says he relishes quiet early mornings when he can paddle to the very secluded north end of the reservoir to shoot photographs of loons and moose.

The park’s significant forest is home to many creatures, including deer, moose, bear, bobcats, fishers, mink, coyotes, red fox, otters, and raccoons. Bird life is also plentiful. Species include woodpeckers, flycatchers, wrens, warblers, and osprey. The park is home to a blue heron rookery and, according to Kelley, is one of only two Vermont locations that has four pair of nesting loons. Anglers will find the park’s reservoir and ponds well-stocked with smallmouth bass, yellow perch, and brook trout.

While it might seem as though this secluded, serene natural setting would engender nothing but peace and solitude, that’s not been the case

for several years. The reservoir’s water releases have been a source of hydroelectric power for many area homes and businesses. Operated by Morrisville Water & Light, the dam occasionally releases water to generate power, which lowers the reservoir’s water level.

But in 2019, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled Morrisville Water & Light must change the way water flows through its dams to meet water quality standards, which has created a cloud of uncertainty that has enveloped the future of the reservoir. Meeting those water quality standards would make operating the Green River dam financially unfeasible, the utility has argued.

Removing

the dam means no Green River Reservoir.

The utility has asked the state to purchase the dam, the path of least resistance for both the utility and those anxious about the reservoir’s future. In 2022, Vermont legislators allocated $350,000 for a study to identify what would be required to maintain the dam in the short and long term.

Michael Wickenden, a board member of the Friends of the Green River Reservoir and chairperson of the organization’s dam subcommittee, said the group is encouraged by the utility’s hiring of a new general manager and its “increased focus on collaboration and reservoir protection.”

Kelley noted that the new general manager, Scott Johnstone, is an

engineer and seems “very much in favor of keeping the dam.”

Johnstone affirms Kelley’s and Wickenden’s optimism that an acceptable solution can be reached. According to Johnstone, Morrisville Water & Light needs to find a solution to operate the dam in an economically sustainable way but, he said, “We all subscribe to the same hope for an outcome: the system stays in place, and all people get to continue to enjoy it.”

So, as the federal licensing process lumbers forward, there is increasing hope that a crisis will be averted, protecting the reservoir while also allowing the utility to keep using the dam to generate hydroelectric power and ensure it is not removed.

Kelley said attendance figures are up, which, for Friends of the Green River Reservoir, bodes well for the reservoir, both as a special natural environment for wildlife and a peaceful, unique nature experience for people for years to come. n

ESSENTIALS: Friends of the Green River Reservoir, fgrrvt.org; Morrisville Water and Light, mwlvt.com; and the News & Citizen, the area’s community newspaper, newsandcitizen.com.

(Aaron Calvin and Greg Popa contributed to this story.)

FROM TOP: TOM ROGERS; RON KELLEY; KEVIN WALSH

MTB & GRAVEL BIKE EVENTS

STOWE TRAILS PARTNERSHIP

The outfit you want to join for all things MTB in Stowe. Rides, events, trails, more. stowetrails.org.

JULY 15: Raid Lamoille

Long and short rides. Craftsbury Outdoor Center. grvl.net/raid-lamoille

JULY 28 - 30: Flow State MTB Festival

Ascutney Outdoor Center, weekend of rides, family fun. flowstatemtbfestival.com.

AUGUST 27: Race to the Top of Vermont

4.3-mile hill climb, bike or run up Mansfield’s Toll Road, 2,564 vertical. rtttovt.com.

GOLF: DON LANDWEHRLE. HIKING: KATE CARTER. FISHING: PAUL ROGERS. OTHERS: GLENN CALLAHAN.

OUTDOOR PRIMER

Golf

More than a dozen courses are within an hour’s drive, but two of the state’s most spectacular are the 6,213-yard, 18-hole Stowe Country Club, and the private Stowe Mountain Club. Other courses options abound, from Copley Country Club in Morrisville, to options in the Mad River Valley, Burlington and beyond.

Adventure mountains

Hiking options abound in the Greens. Access the Long Trail from the top of Mansfield and the extensive trail network from the summit area. Routes up Vermont’s highest peak come from all directions— Nebraska Valley, Ranch Camp, Smugglers Notch, and even Underhill, on the mountain’s backside. In addition to Mansfield, the mountain trails around Stowe are too numerous to list, from the Sterling Pond Trail in the Notch to Belvidere Mountain. A good place to get oriented is at the Green Mountain Club headquarters in Waterbury Center. Looking for an adventure? ArborTrek on the Cambridge side of Smugglers Notch offers ziplining, a treetop obstacle course, and more.

Paddle sports

Local outfitters offer river trips on the Lamoille and Winooski rivers, where you can canoe past dairy farms and through quintessential Vermont villages, all the while soaking in sweeping views. Or if you prefer, launch a kayak on Lake Eden, Lake Elmore, Caspian Lake, Wolcott Pond, or Waterbury Reservoir. Canoes and paddleboards are welcome everywhere, such as Long Pond in Eden, Green River Reservoir in Hyde Park, and Little Elmore Pond.

Swimming holes

Innumerable mountain streams meander through the Green Mountains, serving up a Vermont-style swimming experience and a unique kind of solitude. Some are a cinch to find: A walk up the Stowe Recreation Path to a spot on the West Branch River, or the well-known Foster’s swimming hole. Better yet, find your own!

Bike in the woods

Whether you want a gentle ride along the 5.3-mile award-winning Stowe bike path with its views of Mount Mansfield or a teeth-chattering, lung-burning trip through Cady Forest or Adams Camp, strap on your helmet and get riding. Varied terrain and hundreds of miles of trails make the region a perfect biking destination. To get started, stop into a local bike shop or go to stowetrails.org.

Stowe Recreation Path & Rail Trail

Stowe’s nationally recognized 5.3-mile walking and hiking greenway starts in the village behind the Stowe Community Church. While never far from civilization, the path offers scenic views of the West Branch River and Mt. Mansfield. Other access points are on Weeks Hill Road, Luce Hill Road, on the Mountain Road across from Well Heeled, and at the path’s end on Brook Road. The Lamoille Valley Rail Trail meanders through several of the towns north of Stowe. It’s a great biking, running, and walking path—93 miles in all. lvrt.org.

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Former World Cup mogul skier Dr. Kelsey Albert is joining our team in September

KETTLE POND

Nearby Groton boast five state parks

‘BLUE GALAXY’ Kettle holes were formed with the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet. This one, aptly named Kettle Pond, is part of Groton State Forest.

Kettle Pond, located in Groton State Forest, is known for its green-hued, moss-covered boulders and low-bush blueberries that dot the water’s edge. It’s also known for its undeveloped shoreline, home to nesting loons, 3.1-mile walking trail, and non-motorized boating.

Canoes, kayaks, and paddleboards are welcome, and some say the sunsets, calm waters, and call of loons at dusk make for some of the best paddling around. It’s also home to the rare and endangered (in Vermont) white laurel (Rhododendron maximum), whose white flower clusters bloom mid-July.

Kettle holes, in case you were wondering, are unusual geographic indentations, formed with the retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet, which covered much of Canada and the northern United States. The icebergs it left behind got covered with sediment until they melted, leaving holes in the earth that eventually filled with water.

Kettle Pond is one of many kettle holes in Vermont. Geologist Robert Thorson calls them “fossil icebergs” in his book, “Beyond Walden: The Hidden History of America’s Kettle Lakes and Ponds.” He goes on to say that “collectively, kettle holes dimple the landscape south of the Great Lakes, Adirondacks, and New England mountains, ending around the 37th parallel.”

He calls them a “blue galaxy” within 19 “kettle states.”

A 3.1-mile trail circumnavigates Kettle Pond. It’s flat, but rugged, and takes well over an hour to walk the entire path. In the spring you’ll see an abundance of ephemeral wildflowers and in the summer flowering shrubs are in full bloom. Several remote campsites are spread out around the pond and pets are permitted on leash. The Groton Nature Center is nearby and serves all seven state parks in the Groton State Forest.

Day use parking for hiking and boating is located next to Vermont Route 232. The hiking trail and boat portage trail is located in the northwest corner of the parking are near the kiosk. And, the Cross Vermont Trail, a 90mile-long rail trail from the Connecticut River to Lake Champlain, passes right by. n

ESSENTIALS: Kettle Pond is approximately 45 miles from downtown Stowe. Take Route 100 north to Morrisville, then Route 15 east to Walden. Turn right on Route 215 (Cabot Road) to Marshfield. In Marshfield, turn left on Route 2 and right on Route 232 to Groton State Forest. Kettle Pond is located in Groton State Forest on Route 232, about halfway between Marshfield and Groton. Parking is available at Kettle Pond. More at pr.vermont.gov.

NEARBY GEM Kayaking on undeveloped Kettle Pond, part of the Groton State Forest. The endangered white laurel. Campsite No. 10.

VERMONT STATE PARKS; LAUREL: KATE CARTER

glenn callahan / visual storyteller

February 19, 1961 - March 10, 2023

glenn Callahan, 62, died this winter after a long battle with cancer.

For 25 years, Glenn shot photos for the Stowe Reporter and the Stowe Guide & Magazine. His body of work is remarkable. A stack of hundreds and hundreds of his photos taken for the newspaper sit on my desk at present, too overwhelming to even think about looking through.

One year he was named Photographer of the Year by the New England Press Association. But, then, he won awards every year.

Glenn was a journalist. He told people’s stories, just not with words. He and I could chat about a magazine feature for mere moments and he’d come back with an always well-chosen selection—12 or so—of photographs that perfectly illustrated whatever story was at hand. He always made a writer’s work better.

Glenn grew up in Carlisle, Mass., and earned a degree in bioengineering from the University of Vermont. After graduation, he returned home, but ventured back north a few years later to start his long tenure with the newspaper.

He loved the traditional European timber-frame barn he built in Johnson, from which he operated the lovely Fledermaus Teahouse with his wife, Renate, whom he also dearly loved.

He grew up in a house with five sisters. His dad taught shop.

He loved hockey. He loved trips to Europe, architecture, European history, sports cars, and woodworking. Sometimes I would wonder if he loved photography, but he was damn good at it.

Picking photographs to showcase his work here was a monumental task. First we narrowed it down photographs shot just for the magazine. Then we winnowed those down to just portraits. Over 100 selections made the final cut, and, finally, to these 15 or so choices.

If we’re allowed only one word to describe the essence of Glenn, it would be humility. Perhaps that is what enabled him to capture the essence, personality, and character of each one of his subjects. Even a dog.

— Greg Popa

SOUL CATCHER Evelyn Wermer Frey, “Queen of props,” 2007. Bambi Freeman, “The Bambi Freeman way,” 2020.

COMPOSITION Liz Lackey, “All atwitter: Confessions of a fledging birdwatcher,” 2017. Jed Lipsky, “Logs to lodging,” 2009. Jean Sousa, “Community meets challenge of Helen Day,” 2006. Parker, “Saying goodbye to Parker,” 2010.

CANVAS Gail Kiesler, “Everything’s a canvas for Stowe artist,” 2012. Jo Sabel Courtney, “Stowe Theatre Guild: Behind the curtain,” 2014. Sebastian Sweatman, “On a journey: Gallery SEB reveals art’s significant other, The Artist,” 2015.

PERSONALITY Merton Pike, “Mert Pike earns Vermont farm honor,” 2008. Bill Lee, “Bill Lee: Former Red Sox pitcher shows no signs of slowing down,” 2016. Sam Gaines, “Ski town jobs,” 2014. Beverly “Miss O” Osterberg, “BEV-O-legend: Winningest coach in Stowe high history dies,” 2020.

ESSENCE Opal Savoy and Tulle Fogg, “The valedictorian,” 2019. George Woodard, “George Woodard: A Vermont original,” 2011. Michael Kloeti, “The masterful hand of chef Michael Kloeti, 2004.

radical remembrance

As a world without its founding figure looms, Bread and Puppet Theater looks to preserve the historic company’s legacy through its unique modes of memorial

It’s fairly common for the post and beam barns built across Vermont in the 19th century to hold within them the artifacts that make up some loosely personal historical record. They might contain antique tools, rusted-out cars and mid-century furniture crying out for restoration. Whereas many of these barns are exploding with the detritus of agriculture’s steady evolution, only one such barn, on the side of a dirt road in the Northeast Kingdom town of Glover, is brimming over with puppets.

Across every square inch of space not reserved for walking, papiermâché puppets hang or sit or lie. Their faces—some massive, some miniscule—laugh and frown and wail and grimace and sneer. In stalls once devoted to livestock, the puppets are grouped in a cacophonous array, some with explanatory notes and others simply self-evident.

Together, they make up the extant archive of one the most unique and enduring forms of political expression ever established in the United States. For over half a century, first in New York and then, more famously, in northern Vermont, Bread and Puppet Theater has embodied a now mostly bygone political sensibility forged in the leftist movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

Over the years, remnants of pageantry as protest have accumulated in the barn, on property owned by the group’s founders, Elka and Peter Schumann. Peter remains the creative engine that drives every aspect of the Bread and Puppet operation, which includes nationwide tours in the summer and a printmaking operation, but with Elka’s death in August 2021, there has been a concerted effort within the organization’s leadership to prepare for a fully post-Peter theater.

Preservation and archival practice in a troupe whose organizing principle is the “Cheap Art Manifesto” can present a challenge, but the museum marks the group’s first pass at its own history.

If a visitor leaves the museum and turns right down the dirt road, parks on the long lawn and walks up the back bowl of the earthen amphitheater, in the tall pine forest they will find a collection of ad hoc structures made of wood, plaster, and found things.

At first blush, they appear to be the human equivalent of a magpie nest or maybe pagan altars built with objects of secret significance. On the day of a circus performance, a visitor will likely see children darting under entrance gates of the little village and running between the statues while couples cast sideways glances, trying to determine whether they’re looking at an intentional creation or something totally organic. With a closer look, names and dates are legible. It will become apparent that this is a memorial ground, a commemorative space dedicated to the past members of Bread and Puppet that have held the strings and staffs, worn the masks, and drew and painted and plastered over the last 60 years.

Like the museum or the theater itself, this pantheon has grown naturally from the human tendency toward self-expression. Many ashes have been spread among the red pines, but only Elka Schumann is interred there. Peter will join her one day. But the Bread and Puppet Theater will go on, in some form or another.

Bread and Puppet Theater is itself a living remnant of the ideological morass that fueled one of the most fervent and, one could argue, the last great anti-war movement in the United States: the protests against the Vietnam War. This morass included the New Left, a broad term referring to the 1960s renewal of 1930s populist socialism, which was rejuvenated with a civil rights, anti-war bent. It’s the values of this period that continue to shape the theater and its performances today.

It takes a company of performers, puppeteers, puppet makers, musicians, and artists to put on every Bread and Puppet performance, but its artistic and political vision has always been guided by the chaotic, creative force that animates the maniacally prolific Peter Schumann.

Schumann is the son of Silesian immigrants who came to America in 1942 from the southwestern region of Poland when he was just 8 years old. The bread that comes with the puppets is not figurative; Peter learned to make the sourdough rye the troupe passes around at some of its performances from his mother, who brought it with her when the family fled war-torn Europe.

The Schumanns founded the theater in 1963 on New York’s Lower East Side in the thick of the downtown art scene, where they put on public performances of plays about “rents, rats, police, and other problems of the neighborhood” while their retinue became a fixture at antiwar demonstrations.

In 1970, the troupe decamped for Vermont, first taking up residency at Goddard College in Plainfield before settling on farmland owned by Elka’s family. Although the New York exodus coincided with the then invogue back-to-the-land movement, credited with bringing the influx of hippies and agrarian-minded liberals responsible for establishing Vermont’s strong rural-progressive tradition, the Schumanns’ reasons were simple economics: the Bread and Puppet commitment to the essen-

POWER TO THE PUPPETS Bread and Puppet Theater performers carry flags during a performance of “Our Domestic Resurrection Circus,” which sees multiple stagings during the late summer each year. Opening spread, life-size effigies of the founding fathers are among the many puppets created by the Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover over the years.

‘DON’T MOURN, ORGANIZE!’ This page, many pieces in the museum collection bear no contextual description and are left to make their own impression on the viewer. Next page, from top left, retired figures from former circuses float from the museum’s ceiling. Bread and Puppet Theater prints are affixed to the museum’s exterior. A long-sedentary bus is now parked next to the Bread and Puppet museum, but still open to visitors. A crowd assembled for a performance of “Our Domestic Resurrection Circus” sits on the back bowl of an amphitheater that was formed by a grown-over gravel pit.

tiality of cheap art made it tough to live comfortably or safely in 1970s New York. With the move north, they found the space and the lifestyle more conducive to their art-making sensibilities.

After all, they would just go out into the world, taking their act on tour every year, and the world would come to them, too. For years, Bread and Puppet held an annual “Our Domestic Resurrection Circus” event, which over time metastasized without much provocation into a puppet show with a party into a party with a theatrical show, culminating in the killing of one circus attendee by another. The nature of the circus shifted in response and, since the turn of the century, the theater has spread out its circuses across two months in late summer, deemphasizing the importance of any single performance.

depicting “The Dangerous Kitchen of Ronald Reagan,” where a figure with a Hitler mustache lurks in the corner and another holds up a sign that reads, “Don’t Mourn, Organize!”

Upstairs, in what likely was a hayloft for the first hundred or so years of the barn’s existence, the explanatory notes tell the broader story, and the museum comes into focus as the body of work of a particular political, moral, and creative force, unique in both its longevity and its singularity.

In “Fire,” an early show staged while the company was still in New York, the puppets writhed in wordless agony over the martyrs of the anti-war movement, those who had self-immolated in protest over the daily deaths in the still-early days of America’s long war.

After the move to Goddard, Peter staged a play called “The Birdcatcher in Hell” following President Richard Nixon’s pardon of William Calley, a soldier who had been convicted of murder for participating in the My Lai Massacre, in the style of Japanese Noh-Kyōgen theater. In the display, blood red gods, creatures, and suffering spirits surround a single soldier in army-fatigue green.

In the 1980s, after the war ended and Reagan’s conservative dismantling of the federal government was only just underway, Peter’s attention shifted to the atrocities being committed by U.S.-backed death squads and right-wing military juntas in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. From one such play, a massive puppet bearing the bespectacled visage of Óscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador who fought for El Salvador’s poor and was murdered by such a death squad while conducting Mass, floats over a horde of villainous looking puppets.

While there’s no such thing as an apolitical Bread and Puppet creation, there’s also the more quotidian among the fiery polemics. Cardboard bearing paintings of the New York City homeless. Garbage men puppets modeled after the janitors that served the college during the Schumanns’ stay. “Uncle Fatso,” a caricature of a cigar-munching Tammany Hall-style politician, was made and named by children in a workshop with Peter and recurred in performances until 2010 when he was retired from public performance.

The circus is the ensemble performance of an anti-capitalist fever dream, a swirling crusade of puppets and masks crying out against injustices as local as the alleged labor exploitation in Hannaford grocery markets, and as international as commentary on right-wing death squads in South America and the suffering of health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Along with the many permutations of the circus performed over the years, the theater has performed a litany of plays, often on the subject of the violence caused by U.S. foreign and domestic policies.

Even before the move to Vermont, Bread and Puppet had a nascent archive on Delancey Street, and once the barn became its home, it began to fill up almost immediately, instigated and curated by Elka, who has long been described as the “heart and soul” of the theater, as important to its operations as her husband.

On the first floor of the museum, two long connecting halls are lined with stalls bursting with thematically related puppet collections from circuses and plays long past. There are occasionally short titles or descriptive notes, but many are oblique, and the exact context for the puppets is not given. It’s also not really necessary, as many of the puppets and their political expressions are self-evident, as with the small stage of puppets

The accumulation process continues even now. The newest addition to the museum’s top floor is a great golden horse with a statistic on the hundreds of Palestinian minors detained by the Israeli government, and it was rolled out as recently as last summer for the theater’s anti-apartheid play, “University of Majid.”

Everywhere in the barn, puppets look down at visitors, laugh at them, scream at them. The puppets are endless, everywhere, but visitors also get a sense that the display just scratches the surface of the ocean of artwork that Bread and Puppet produced over the years.

Many of the puppets are worn at the edges from use. The cheapness of the theater’s cheap art ethos is evident in their homespun quality, but so is their value as art, the quality of craftsmanship evident.

“It’s maybe not the most efficient way to store things, but it’s the most aesthetic way to store them, and it’s really cool. I mean, the museum is amazing. It’s overwhelming, and the structure itself is a remarkable building,” said Paul Zaloom.

Zaloom, a professional actor and puppeteer based in Los Angeles as well as a longtime Bread and Puppet performer and member of its board, is the first to note that the current puppet and art archive in the museum is far from meeting archival standards, but the air circulation in the barn does keep the works safe, dry, and fairly well preserved.

Zaloom and Mike Romanyshyn, another Bread and Puppet board member, longtime puppeteer, and Maine-based birch sugarmaker, are both informal keepers of the theater’s history. They’ve been there for most of it, have helped build the memorials to those they’ve lost over the years, and are working to secure the Bread and Puppet legacy, preparing the ground for a future in which both founders of their radical art family are gone.

The pair recognize that the theater’s adherence to the ethics of cheap art represents a challenge to its presentation. Early papier-mâché puppets were made of wheat paste, attracting mice and other rodents, and making them difficult to preserve. For a brief period, the puppets were made of celastic, a malleable chemical material Peter was turned on to by Muppets-creator Jim Henson at a New York convention.

Eventually the theater discovered cornstarch, a wholly organic glue and inexpensive way to bind paper and cardboard, stronger than wheat paste that also holds up well over time.

Up the slope of the grown-over gravel pit that functions as the outdoor theater for summer circus performances and within the pine forest, which was planted three-quarters of a century ago as part of a public works project and now thin and towering, is the memorial village.

It started as just houses for members of Peter and Elka Schumann’s family. Over time, it grew to encompass other assemblies and sculptures, becoming a menagerie of moss-covered structures and sagging wood. Like everything else at the Bread and Puppet farm, its creation was a spontaneous creative act, the repetition of its maintenance and renewal essential to its nature.

“We’ve kind of debated whether we should let it fall apart, or whether we should maintain it, and I think we’ve sort of fallen in the middle of that, where we sort of half-assed maintain it, not to make it like this granite headstone kind of deal,” Zaloom said.

Here, community members, close friends, and fallen troupe members are memorialized in a garden that has steadily grown since the 1970s. It’s a place where collective grief is memorialized. Along with family, with a swaying house dedicated to Peter’s sister, so too are others.

A set of maples were planted for Grace Paley, the socialist writer and poet who first pressed the Schumanns to bring their puppets to the anti-

VISIONARIES Clockwise from this page, founders Peter and Elka Schumann in the memorial village where family and community members, close friends, and fallen troupe members are memorialized. (Photo by Glenn Russell) Theater attendees tour the theater’s cheap art bus. A masked performer falls to the ground during a performance of “Our Domestic Resurrection Circus.” The theater’s Óscar Romero puppet still makes appearances at performances of “The Circus.”

Vietnam protests in New York and was a constant presence in the early summers before eventually moving to Thetford.

There are tributes to Maurice Blanc, an instrumental board member, avant-garde dance performer, and occasional commercial actor; to George Dennison, who wrote the first ever review of a Bread and Puppet performance in The Village Voice about the Vietnam martyr play, “Fire,” along with his wife Mabel; and to Joel Kovel, a teacher and writer who ran for the New York Senate on the Green Party ticket.

An airplane floats above Andy Capon, who brought up a bus of Newark kids every year and is credited with discovering the cornstarch glue trick. There’s a wooden horse in memory of troupe member Katharina Balke, who died young—the horse’s tail gets replenished occasionally and its boards patched. There’s a guitar for Chuck Meese.

Puppeteer George Konoff loved “Punch and Judy” slapstick shows so much he had one written for his memorial, in which Zaloom played the role of Punch. There’s a wooden bike floating in the understory that reads: “Ride in Peace.”

“It’s organic material that just falls apart. The snow lands on it, makes it rot, it falls down, so periodically, in the summer, we’ll go and scab some of them together and fix them, but it’s not like we have to keep this going forever. It’s the act of actually going up there, the actual maintenance of it just connects you to them,” Zaloom said.

The memorial, which is the current place of internment for Elka Schumann and will one day be the final resting place for Peter, then begs the question: What is Bread and Puppet Theater without Peter and Elka?

Zaloom would like to see there be a systemic approach taken to the museum, where pieces are archived, cataloged, and preserved efficiently, but the breadth of the archive is massive and that would be an immense undertaking.

The Schumann family, which is very much involved, will have the ultimate say over the restructuring that will take place following the death of its remaining originator. The only certainty is that, in the absence of its driving creative force, change will be inevitable.

When asked what Zaloom and Romanyshyn would like their pine forest memorial to look like, they demurred.

“When I was younger, I thought, ‘I don’t know if I want to end up in the pine forest,’” Zaloom said. “But now it seems like it wouldn’t be a bad place.” n

Home brew

Shaun Hill rediscovers his long-dead relatives at the bottom of bourbon-aged barrels of beer

y the time you get there, you’re almost certain you’re lost.

Driving slowly along a dirt road, you’re without cell service and are be-ginning to question where in the heck you are. The only reason you’re able to make it there is because it’s not mud season, and you can traverse the roads without getting your car’s wheels hopelessly mired in mud.

Then a stone wall appears, lined with the Subarus and the Saabs and the GMCs tagged with licenses plates from Texas, Quebec, California, South Carolina—or any other assortment of the 50 states and Canadian provinces.

Nestled in Greensboro in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont is what many consider the holy land of beer: Hill Farmstead, a small brewery that has racked up awards year after year, has been named the best brewery in the world eight of the last 11 years, and has established itself by producing some of the most sought-after beers among Vermont’s already impressive lineup of breweries.

The brewery’s distribution is as limited as it gets. Production is capped at 150,000 gallons a year, sending kegs to a select number of restaurants and bars. It has virtually no retail distribution whatsoever—only selling limited bottles and cans to consumers who either trek to the Green Mountain State or wait for the occasional online delivery to select areas.

It’s arguably part of the brewery’s mystique. That, and the names of the beers: Madness and Civilization, a blended barrel-aged ale named after the book authored by Michel Foucault; Fear and Trembling, a Baltic porter named after Søren Kierkegaard’s famous work of philosophy; or Self Reliance, an American pale ale named after the essay by New England’s great philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson.

But more likely, the beers are named after the long-dead folks who once tended to that land the establishment sits atop—and the ones that founded the very town.

This is Shaun Hill’s brewery—“a culmination of travel and insights,” as is written on all its products—part of a “dream-vision” he had some 16 years ago. This brewery is less about his passion for beer and more about rebuilding the land that has been in his family since 1781.

“The idea wasn’t necessarily called Hill Farmstead at that time—I just knew where I was going to be,” he said. “I never absolutely loved brewing—I don’t, and that’s the difference between me and I think a lot of other, quote-unquote, brewers, is that if you ask them, they’ll say they love brewing. I don’t love brewing. I’d much rather be reading books. But I’m good at it.”

“There’s a compromise of doing something that you don’t hate as a means to an end,” he said. “Sometimes there is a vehicle, and to an extent that’s what it was for me.”

Through 10 years of existence, the brewery has exploded in popularity, built out a visitor center taproom to meet customer demand, and has drawn never-ending lines to a town with fewer than 900 people.

Yet, the brewery has resisted the urge to expand and distribute, based largely on Hill’s own personal beliefs: He’s the first to admit he’s making and selling a product that has well-documented damaging health effects—which he himself has been grappling with for most of his career.

Place and heritage

In October 1978, Edward Hill’s barn burned to the ground, seven months before his grandson, Shaun, was born.

“We grew up playing on the remnants of this foundation,” he said. “All the buildings were falling; things were quite dilapidated.”

Thirty years later, Hill was in a coffee shop in Denmark while wandering about Europe when he began to sketch out how he “would transform the landscape—planting trees here, building this here, having this set of stairs here.”

“I still have that old sketch hanging up,” he said.

Now, Edward Hill is memorialized through the American pale ale that bears his name—“dutifully crafted” from American malted barley, a plethora of American hops, ale yeast, and water from Edward’s well, reads the brewery’s website.

“My mom’s mom, Norma, and my grandfather, Edward, were the two most significant sources of love and energy in my life growing up,” he said.

If the story of Hill Farmstead is about anything, it’s been less about beer and more, Hill wrote in blogs dated 2008, about “the rebuilding of a once abundant farmstead” and a return to “the bucolic woodland and serenity of lonely Northern Vermont and Greensboro”—despite the business pressures, despite the hassles of customer service when his operation didn’t even have a bathroom, and despite the ties to alcohol embedded in the work.

TASTE TEST Opening spread: Shaun Hill of Hill Farmstead brewery in Greensboro does a taste test of one of his many award-winning craft brews. At right, discussing the beer’s “notes” with operations manager Ben Bruno in the brewery. Inset: The brewery caps production at 150,000 gallons a year, and supplies kegs to a select number of restaurants and bars.

STEEL

Products manager Michael Sardina with a batch of Vera Mae, named after Shaun Hill’s grandfather’s eldest sister, and made with Vermont organic spelt, American hops, Vermont wildflower honey, dandelion, “our farmhouse yeast and water from our well,” resulting in “an elegant, luminescent representation of spring in Vermont: lightly tart, bright, effervescent and delicate.”

CITY Hill Farmstead production facility.

Annie Volmer hands over a pour to a customer at the brewery’s visitor center taproom.

Hill Farmstead framed by the mountains of the Northeast Kingdom.

“I didn’t care telling someone, like, just go pee in the woods, and I actually thought it humorous when, you know, someone driving a Porsche off a winter dirt road was told to go pee in the woods and they almost felt like I was assaulting their character,” he said.

Hill first started home brewing when he was 18 living in Greensboro, an interest that further developed while he was in college in Philadelphia. When he returned to Vermont he worked as head brewer at both the Shed Brewery and the Trout River Brewing Company, and later landed two jobs as the head brewer in Denmark’s Nørrebro Bryghus and Fanø Bryghus.

But he was homesick.

He came home in 2010 and began construction on his own brewery on the land once occupied by Edward’s barn and dairy farm, with the logo taken from a sign that once hung outside a tavern operated by his great-, great-, great-grandfather, Lewis Hill.

As the brewery became reality, “I started to really understand my roots in this area,” he said.

Hill has been speaking to his ghosts ever since: Flora, Arthur, Anna, Norma, Peleg, Vera Mae, Susan, Mary, James—and dozens of others who once lived on the land.

“It’s not that there are a lot of stories that still exist about these people,” he said. “As time goes on, there’s just less and less of a trace left of that person. No one has any stories about Vera Mae, for example. I’ve met one person who was like, ‘I remember Vera, yeah, she was sweet.’ That’s all I have.”

Maybe you thought you had a strange relationship with alcohol. How else to connect to

the long-dead relatives you never knew than through a couple pints of beer?

Hill admits he’s had an on-and-off dependency with alcohol. Beginning in his early years, he’d go from booze in the evenings to coffee in the mornings, “recognizing that alcohol floods your brain with dopamine, which further creates a vicious cycle of craving and reward,” he said.

“It’s sometimes difficult to step outside of the vicious, constantly recycled circle, so to speak,” he said. “I’ve gone through numerous, numerous phases of sobriety, and every time that I do, I end up having extreme synchronistic experiences, prophetic dreams, much more heightened sense of purpose, articulation, awareness, conscious connection, unconscious connection—almost like spiritual awakening begins.”

As the once growing craft beer boom of the 2010s begins to slow, Hill Farmstead’s distribution model makes it uniquely positioned to endure.

“The entire industry like is just focused on profit and profit while pretending that they’re focused on quality or something, right? ... I’d love to continue to move in the direction of making as little as possible,” he said. “Like, wouldn’t it be incredible if every company that was making a toxic substance was like, ‘Oh, our goal is just to make enough because we don’t want to promote excess’?” n

COURTESY PHOTO

summer light a pictorial

PHOTOGRAPHS : Paul Rogers

jackson sei v wright

April 29, 2002 - Feb. 12, 2023

former Elmore resident and standout Stowe High School student athlete remembered by friends and fans as an ever-smiling ball of energy died Feb. 12 in a skiing accident in the French Alps.

According to French media accounts, Jackson Seivwright, 20, died Sunday while skiing in Chamonix, France. His parents said he was studying abroad in the Netherlands at the time of his death and was enjoying a “great adventure” right up until the end.

“The day before he died, Jack made a video call to his family, from the top of the Alps. He held the phone away, giving them a panorama of the stunning scenery, exclaiming he was having the best day of his life,” his family wrote in his obituary. “There is some comfort in knowing that Jack was true to form to the end, fully embracing and loving all that his young and far too short life had offered him.”

Seivwright, an Elmore native, was born in Burlington on April 29, 2002, to parents Jeff Seivwright and Kimberly Bruno. He graduated from Stowe High in 2020 and was a student at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.—the same school his mother, a Morrisville physician, attended—and was expected to graduate next year.

Described by his family as “an accomplished athlete, gifted student, stylish dresser, fabulous dancer, funny dude, and most importantly, gianthearted son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin, and friend,” Seivwright was likely best known in the community for his prowess on the soccer field, tennis court, and hockey rink.

Former Stowe soccer coach Brian Buczek said Seivwright’s demeanor was one of go-go-go and try to keep up, both with his quick wit and his quick reflexes. Buczek said the kid was equal parts passion and empathy.

“I don’t know if there’s anyone I’ve coached who had that kind of energy. He could change the energy just by walking in the room,” Buczek said. “His ability on the soccer field was probably second to that.”

Buczek said he hadn’t stopped crying since hearing the news. “They f—kin’ took one too soon,” he said, voice breaking.

Part of the Seivwright lore was his hockey origin story. He had never skated in a competitive hockey game until his sophomore year in high school and found himself the starting goalie in 11th grade, after a season as the previous goalie’s understudy.

“He absolutely worked his butt off every single practice,” coach Peter Duncan said in a 2019 feature in the Stowe Reporter. “He’s a sponge. Everything, any kind of instruction put in front of him, he immediately puts it to use.”

Heath Eiden, a videographer who owns Stowe Media Group, said his oldest son Atticus was good friends with Seivwright, and was also studying abroad in Europe, and had joined Seivwright on previous weekend adventures.

“That kid was full-on all gears, all the time,” Eiden said. “This is just such a shock for these kids, because they’re used to, like, grandparents dying, but nothing like this—a sibling, a teammate, a classmate.”

Seivwright was also a sportswriter’s delight, always ready with a zinger. In 2019, Seivwright’s tennis team won the state championship, just 20 hours after the boys’ lacrosse team did the same.

Seivwright was ready with a choice quote: “Stowe Raiders. Razzle dazzle. Welcome to Title Town. Put that on the front page.”

The newspaper did just that.

Remember Jack with a donation in his name to the Green Mountain Club (greenmountainclub.org) or Special Olympics Vermont (specialolympicsvermont.org).

Seivwright. Jack and a Vergennes player stare down the ball during a Stowe High School semifinal game in 2018. At a hockey game this winter, Stowe players all wore No. 31 in honor of Jack, a former goalie for the school.

RAZZLE DAZZLE Jackson

COURTESY PHOTO; SPORTS: GORDON MILLER

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SHOP

ARTS

EXPLORE

Artist-in-residence Júlia Pontés at The Current in Stowe during last summer’s show, “When the well is dry,” which explored how the environment, climate change, culture, and communities intersect. Inset: Pansies and Eggs, 12"x9", oil, Julie Y Baker Albright, Bryan Gallery, Jeffersonville.

EXHIBITS & GALLERIES

ARTISAN GALLERY

20 Bridge St., Waitsfield. Daily 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. (802) 496-6256, vtartisansgallery.com. Showcase of 150-plus Vermont artists.

BRYAN MEMORIAL GALLERY

180 Main Street, Jeffersonville. Summer, Wednesday to Sunday, 11 - 5. Oct. 11 to Dec. 23, 11 - 4. (802) 644-5100. bryangallery.org.

Through July 2

Nature’s Resilience

Through September 3

The Creative Process

Through December 23

Legacy 2023

July 5 - September 3

Nature’s Playground

September 6 - November 5

Nature through Abstraction

September 6 - December 23

Land & Light and Water & Air

November 8 - December 23

GEMS 2023

THE CURRENT

90 Pond St., Stowe Village. Tuesday – Friday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Saturday 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. Free, donations welcome. Visit thecurrentnow.org for monthly public events. (802) 253-8358.

See The Current, p.116.

LITTLE RIVER HOTGLASS STUDIO

593 Moscow Rd., Moscow. littleriverhotglass.com. (802) 253-0889. Nationally recognized art glass studio, features Stowe artist Michael Trimpol’s studio.

NORTHWOOD GALLERY

151 Main Street, Stowe. (802) 760-6513. northwoodgallery.com. Work by Vermont artisans: jewelry, fiber, wood, pottery, glass, sculpture, illustration, soaps, paintings, photography, more. Rotating demonstrations.

ROBERT PAUL GALLERIES

Baggy Knees Shopping Center, 394 Mountain Rd., Stowe. (802) 253-7282. robertpaulgalleries.com. Original paintings, sculpture, and photography from dozens of noted artists.

VISIONS OF VERMONT ART GALLERIES

Main Street, Jeffersonville. (802) 760-7396, visionsofvermont.com.

Works of 15 master landscape artists.

PAUL ROGERS

n ONGOING

THROUGH OCTOBER 22

Stowe Farmers Market

Enjoy breakfast, lunch, live music on the field. Take home local produce, meat, cheese, herbal products, crafts, and jewelry. 10:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. 2043 Mountain Road. stowefarmersmarket.com.

JUNE – OCTOBER

Club Racing at Stowe Yacht Club Watch Soling 1 Meter sailors in action. Monday and Wednesday afternoons, 4:30 - 6:30 p.m., weather permitting. Commodores Inn, Route 100 South, Stowe. stoweyachtclub.com.

JUNE 30 – AUGUST 18

Weekends on the Green Artisan market, music, food, movies, lawn games, more. On the village green, Spruce Peak at Stowe. Fridays, 4-7 p.m., movies at sunset. sprucepeak.com.

JULY 8 – AUGUST 12

Main Street Live Music Series

Dine picnic-style and listen to international, regional musical acts. Park and Main streets and Village Green, downtown Stowe. Saturdays, 3-5 p.m. stowevibrancy.com.

n JUNE

JUNE 17

Rattling Brook Bluegrass Festival

Regional bluegrass bands in all-day festival. 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. Admission. Belvidere Center stage, Route 109.

JUNE 22 – 25

Joe Kirkwood Memorial Golf Tournament

Amateur event honoring Joe Kirkwood, world-famous trick-shot artist who lived in Stowe. Benefits Stowe junior golf. kirkwoodgolftournament.com.

JUNE 24

Gardens of Stowe & Art in the Garden

Self-guided tour sweeps through town’s most interesting gardens. More at stowevibrancy.com.

JUNE 24

Catamount Ultra Marathon 25k & 50k courses through highland pastures and hardwood forest. Trapp Family Lodge trails, Stowe. 7 a.m. start. catamountultra.com.

JUNE 24 – 25

Vermont Renaissance Faire

Local craft vendors, fight demos, performance troupes, medieval encampment, Equus Nobilis joust team. Mayo Farm, Stowe. vtrennfaire.com.

JUNE 25

Chad Hollister Acoustic Quintet

In the famous concert meadow, the quintet returns for its third concert. Bring a picnic, chairs or blanket, and your own beverages. 6 p.m. Trapp Hill Road, Stowe. trappfamily.com.

n JULY

JULY 1 – 22

Stowe Free Library Giant Book Sale

Community book sale on the porch. New stock daily. Daily dawn to dusk. Stowe Village. stowelibrary.org.

JULY 2

Music in the Meadow—Vermont Symphony

Orchestra Summer Tour

7:30 p.m. Gates open at 5:30 for picnicking. Trapp Family Lodge concert meadow, Trapp Hill Road, Stowe. stoweperformingarts.com.

JULY 3

Spruce Peak at Stowe Independence Day

Music, entertainment, food, craft beer, fireworks at dusk. On the village green, Spruce Peak, noon - 10:30 p.m. sprucepeak.com.

Renaissance Faire.

GOINGS ON

JULY 4

Moscow Parade

World-famous shortest 4th of July parade. Starts promptly at 10 a.m. in Moscow Village. Stowe Old-fashioned Fourth of July Music by Maple Run band, food, Art on Park artisan market, and other entertainment—all in Stowe Village. 10:30 a.m. Village festivities start after Moscow Parade. Village parade starts at noon. stowevibrancy.com.

World’s Shortest Marathon

11 a.m. at the entrance of the Stowe Recreation Path in the village, run in honor of US. Marine Lt. Ryan Casey.

Stowe Independence Day Celebration & Fireworks

6 p.m. start. Enjoy live music, face painting, balloons, carnival games, ice cream, bouncy house, hay rides, popcorn, cotton candy, more. Fireworks at dusk. Free, but food and gaming fees apply. Mayo Farm events field, Weeks Hill Road.

JULY 15 – 16

Green Mountain Games Lax Tournament

Comprehensive lacrosse event. Great sport, music, special guests, non-stop fun for the entire family. On fields throughout Stowe. bitterlacrosse.com.

JULY 16

Music in the Meadow—John Pizzarelli Trio

7 p.m. Gates open at 5:30 for picnicking. Trapp Family Lodge concert meadow, Trapp Hill Road, Stowe. stoweperformingarts.com.

JULY 21 – 23

Lamoille County Field Days

Agricultural fair. Horse, pony, and ox pulling, draft horse show, gymkhana, midway, much more. Route 100C, Johnson. lamoillefielddays.com.

JULY 29

Summer Jam ’73

Celebrating 50th anniversary of Watkins Glen, the largest gathering of people in the U.S. Featuring Dead Sessions, The Peacheaters, and Caldonia Mission. Food trucks, beverages, vendors. Oxbow Park, Morrisville. Kids under 12 free. oxbowmusicfestival.com.

JULY 30

Music in the Meadow—Bela Fleck & Company

7 p.m. Gates open at 5:30 for picnicking. Trapp Family Lodge concert meadow, Trapp Hill Road, Stowe. stoweperformingarts.com.

JULY 21 – 23

FIELD DAYS

n AUGUST

JULY 29 – AUGUST 13

Phlox Fest

Dozens of varieties of phlox displayed at Perennial Pleasures. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday. Brick House Road, East Hardwick. summersweetgardens.com.

AUGUST 6

Music in the Meadow—Hot Club of Cowtown Gates open at 5:30 for picnicking. Trapp Family Lodge concert meadow, Trapp Hill Road, Stowe. stoweperformingarts.com.

AUGUST 12

100 on 100 Relay

100-mile team-based distance event along scenic Route 100. Fundraiser for youth charities. Starts at Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe. 100on100relay.com.

AUGUST 18 – 20

Stowe Tango Music Festival

U.S.’s premier tango music festival. Worldrenowned tango musicians, festival orchestra, workshops, concerts, milongas, dance. Concert Aug. 19, Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center. stowetangomusicfestival.com.

AUGUST 19

Oxbow Music Festival

Dogs in a Pile, Seth Yacovone Band, Hayley Jane, Woody & Sunshine. Food trucks, vendors, full bar. Kids under 12 free. Oxbow Park, Morristown. oxbowmusicfestival.com.

>>

Fireworks.

We Are Open - New Local Owners!

Photographer Jack Morris & Partner Alexandra Weathers Honored to continue this staple of our community into its 34th year and many more!

CELEBRATING 34 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE

Joëlle Blouin • Acrylic

Silmar • Acrylic

Jim Westphalen

• Photograph

Jack Morris • Photograph

Fred Swan • Acrylic

SEPTEMBER 15 – 17

BRITISH INVASION

AUGUST 20

The Count Basie Orchestra

With vocalist Carmen Bradford. Gates open at 5:30 for picnicking. Trapp Family Lodge concert meadow. stoweperformingarts.com. 7 p.m

AUGUST 25 – 27

A Taste of New England Region’s best chefs come together for food, wine celebration. Spruce Peak at Stowe, sprucepeak.com.

AUGUST 25 – 27

Stowe Jazz Festival

Musical acts play at eight venues around Stowe. Afro-Cuban, Gypsy, and Brazilian jazz, big band, smooth, soul, swing, more. Festival main stage is The Alchemist, Cottage Club Road. stowejazzfestival.com.

AUGUST 27

Race to the Top of Vermont

A 4.3-mile hill climb up Mount Mansfield Toll Road in Stowe—2,564 vertical feet. BBQ, music, prizes. rtttovt.com.

n FALL EVENTS

SEPTEMBER 15

British Invasion Block Party

The British invade Main Street, Stowe. From 6:30 - 9:30 p.m. dance to Joey Leone’s Chop Shop and mingle among beautiful British cars. Food court and beer garden. stowevibrancy.com.

SEPTEMBER 15 – 17

British Invasion Car Show

British classic sports car and motorcycle event. Cultural activities, crafts, auto jumble, car corral. Over 600. Stowe Events Field, Weeks Hill Road, Stowe. britishinvasion.com.

SEPTEMBER 16

Trapp Family Lodge Oktoberfest

All things Austrian, all things Trapp! Trapp Family Lodge Bierhall, Trapp Hill Road, Stowe. trappfamily.com.

SEPTEMBER 17

Trapp Cabin Trail Races

5k, 10k and half marathon to Trapp cabin. Return on single track or take a shorter but thrilling route. Party, prizes, bib raffle, food. greenmtnadaptive.org.

OCTOBER 1

Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin’ Festival

Send the pumpkins flying. Music, kids’ activities, 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. $10, free under 4. Mayo Farm events field, Weeks Hill Road, Stowe. vtpumpkinchuckin.blogspot.com.

OCTOBER 6 – 8

Stowe Foliage Arts Festival

150 artists—fine art, craft, cuisine. Wine tasting, music, craft demos. Under heated tents. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. $12. Topnotch field, Mountain Road. craftproducers.com.

OCTOBER 7

Indigenous Peoples’ Day Rock!

Native American culture, education, blessings by tribal leaders, drummers, singers, storytellers, artisans. 10:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.; concert 3:30 - 6:30 p.m. (Rain date: Oct. 8) Mayo Farm field, Weeks Hill Road, Stowe. stowevibrancy.com.

OCTOBER 15

Trapp Mountain Marathon 13.1-mile loop up Round Top Mountain, the highest point at Trapp Family Lodge. Single- and doubletrack. Trapp Hill Road, Stowe. trappfamily.com.

OCTOBER 15

Heady Trotter

Four-miler, food and music festival, 10 a.m.2 p.m. Alchemist, Cottage Club Road, Stowe.

NOVEMBER 5

Vermont 10-miler

Challenging run through Stowe countryside. Benefits Stowe Land Trust. 10 a.m. Mayo Farm Events Field. vermont10miler.com. n

PAUL ROGERS; INSET: GORDON MILLER

Pumpkin Chuckin’.

ULLA JOHNSON

FRAME

MOTHER

RAY-BAN

MOUSSY

GANNI

HERNO

L’AGENCE CLOSED

THEORY

JENNY BIRD

TATA HARPER

VERONICA BEARD

BROCHU WALKER

RAG & BONE

NILI LOTAN

HOMERS

RAILS

A.L.C.

AUTUMN CASHMERE

ZADIG & VOLTAIRE

MISA LOS ANGELES

VEJA

XIRENA

DEREK LAM

HUDSON

PRADA

PAIGE

COMMANDO

CITIZENS OF HUMANITY

LONGCHAMP

RE/DONE

KEMPTON & CO

TOM FORD

HOBO

LILLA P

THE GREAT FREE PEOPLE

Z SUPPLY

IRO PARIS

MUSIC IN THE MEADOW

Stowe Performing Arts plans sizzling summer season

Stowe has a reputation for outdoor activities—skiing, mountain biking, trail running, hiking, fishing, the list goes on. Well, move over sportsters, Stowe also has a reputation as a concert destination, and music lovers may soon outnumber sports enthusiasts. Stowe Performing Arts took note, and this year added a fifth concert to its popular Music in the Meadows series held for decades every summer outdoors at Trapp Family Lodge.

“After discussions with the board and

Johannes von Trapp, we all agreed we needed to do more,” Stowe Performing Arts executive director Lynn Paparella said. “We already had this summer’s roster well underway, and all were chosen by the end of 2022. This summer’s music is going to be a great and fun lineup.”

And what a roster it is!

In keeping with tradition, the season kicks off July 2 with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, as part of the orchestra’s Summer Festival Tour.

“We’ve been part of the VSO’s summer tour since 1976, and the VSO always draws a huge crowd,” Paparella said. “Last year we had just shy of 2,000 concertgoers for their concert in the meadow.”

This year could top that thanks to the special appearance of local jazz trumpeter Ray Vega, host

of Vermont Public radio’s “Friday Night Jazz.”

July 16 is when John Pizzarelli Trio performs with Pizzarelli’s wife and singer Jessica Molaskey. “This is the third time he’s performed with us, and he’s always been a great success. John and Jessica have a fabulous rapport on stage, we just love them,” Paparella said.

The world’s premier banjo virtuoso, Bela Fleck, makes his first appearance in Stowe on July 30. Fleck’s roots are in bluegrass, and he will be performing with his new band, My Bluegrass Heart.

According to Fleck, all the people that leave bluegrass, come back. “I had a strong feeling that I’d be coming back as well,” he said.

The concert will feature noted American bluegrass singer Sierra Hull and fiddler Michael

COMING HOME Clockwise from top left, Bela Fleck and My Bluegrass Heart. John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molaskey. The Hot Club of Cowtown. Guest Vermont Symphony conductor Michelle di Russo.

Cleveland, along with several other wellknown bluegrass musicians. If you love bluegrass, and even if you don’t, this will be a concert of epic talent, not to be missed.

Aug. 6 is when The Hot Club of Cowtown will serenade the herd of Trapps’ Highland cattle, who are rumored to already be rehearsing for a cameo appearance in the concert meadow. Acclaimed as America’s premiere hot jazz and western swing trio, the band consists of singer and fiddler Elana James, guitarist Whit Smith, and slap bassist Zack Sapunor.

“Normally we have bigger bands on stage in the meadow venue, but this group is fantastic, we had to have them,” Paparella said.

For the first time, Stowe Performing Arts has invited an opening act. Prydein, a Celtic rock group (including bagpipes), will open for Cowtown. Prydein started in 1999 in Burlington. Their discography includes five albums, and they deliver a high-energy performance. >>

| Lisa Todd | Johnny Was

Raffaello Rossi | Lilla P | Margaret O’leary | White+Warren | Tolani | Ann Lightfoot

FROM TOP LEFT: ALAN MESSER; COURTESY; VALERIE FREMIN; COURTESY

CONCERT HALL

Wrapping up the summer on Aug. 20 is The Count Basie Orchestra, with vocalist Carmen Bradford. Following his death over 30 years ago, pianist and bandleader William James “Count” Basie continues to personify the grandeur and excellence of jazz. Today the big-band, 18-member, all-male Count Basie Orchestra is directed by Scotty Barnhart. Carmen Bradford joined the Basie band in 1983 and was the bandleader’s last hire.

Folks have no excuse not to enjoy an evening of music—perhaps a spot of dancing—to arguably some of the best live music in the area, in what is undoubtedly the most scenic venue around, and it’s right here in our own backyard.

The music kicks off its season July 2 with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra’s summer festival tour with jazz legend Ray Vega and conductor Michelle di Russo. Here’s the lineup in a nutshell:

MUSIC IN THE MEADOW / STOWE PERFORMING ARTS

Trapp Family Lodge Concert Meadow, Trapp Hill Road .Bring a picnic and low chairs—or blanket. Adults 18 and over: $35 in advance, $40 at the gate; children 5-17, $25; under five free. (Kids 5-17, $10 for VSO) Meadow opens at 5:30 p.m. for picnicking. Info: stoweperformingarts.com.

July 2

Vermont Symphony Orchestra

Part of the Summer Festival Tour as guest trumpeter and jazz legend Ray Vega joins conductor Michelle di Russo in a concert of swing, jazz, spirituals, and marches., 7:30 p.m.

July 16

John Pizzarelli Trio

The jazz guitarist and vocalist performs with singer Jessica Molaskey, 7 p.m.

July 30

Bela Fleck & My Bluegrass Heart

Fleck offers selections from the band’s album “My Bluegrass Heart,” 7 p.m.

August 6

Hot Club of Cowtown

American western swing trio. Celtic rock group Prydein opens at 6 p.m.

August 20

The Count Basie Orchestra

With vocalist Carmen Bradford, 7 p.m. n

SETH CASHMAN

JAZZ MAN Ray Vega.

IMMERSION THERAPY

Fields and fields of lavendar await in Magog

Lavender has been used for centuries for its medicinal and spiritual properties. Its fragrance has a beneficial place in aromatherapy and is often associated with relaxation and peace. Can you image how wonderful it would feel to lie down in a field of lavender in full bloom and breathe in that magical scent?

Pure bliss, my friend, pure bliss.

And you can do just that, lie down in a field of lavender.

About an hour and a half north of Stowe, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, is Bleu Lavande, which welcomes you to lie down amid the lavender and no one will mind at all. You can wander through meticulously manicured rows of lavender, immerse yourself in the bouquet, and find your inner peace. Or watch bees busily pollinate the blue flowers and know those bees are well fed. Or take a guided tour, shop the boutique, and check out the chromatic field and interpretation center.

Pierre Pellerin created Bleu Lavande in Southern Quebec in the early 2000s. Pellerin was pas-

sionate about all things lavender and traveled the world studying the plant. In 2001, he installed 60,000 lavender plants on gently rolling hills in Fitch Bay. His first year was successful, but the next year 80 percent of the plants did not survive the very cold winter and minimal ground cover.

Straw can protect plants in winter, but it’s labor intensive to remove in spring, so Pellerin opted to keep his lavender warm and cozy by covering the acres of plants with horticultural thermal blankets. That technique held him over to 2012, when the business changed hands. A few years later the new owners consolidated operations and relocated all that beautiful lavender to the less-isolated town of Magog, where it has thrived for the last four years.

SEA OF PURPLE Bleu Lavande is a stone’s throw from Stowe, just over the border in Quebec’s Eastern Townships. Explore fields of lavender, a boutique, and the chromatic field and interpretation center.

Nelson Bullard is the director of tourism at

Bleu Lavande, and says they looked at many farms in the area before settling on the current site.

“Lavender flourishes in dry conditions. The site needs good drainage, and the natural contour of this land is perfect. We now have 32,000 plants in the fields.”

Bullard says the best time to visit is when plants are in full bloom, mid-July to mid-August.

“We have two lavender varieties: munstead (Lavandula angustifolia), which blooms first, and lavandin (Lavandula x intermedia), a bigger plant that blooms through August. The farm also grows Russian sage (Salvia yangii), which blooms well into September, prolonging the bloom season.”

Russian sage isn’t in the lavender family—it’s taller with little scent—but helps extend the season, and since the main attraction at Bleu Lavande is taking photographs of beautiful flowers, the sage has earned its place in keeping the fields colorful well into September.

The owners of Bleu Lavande are on a mission to use their resources to expand the site’s biodiversity. They use no pesticides or chemicals, are creating an insect hotel to aid butterflies and bees, are putting up swallow nests, and have created a pond to water the other flowering plants on site. They also have a relationship with Bee City Canada, whose mission is to inspire businesses and other organizations to take action to protect pollinators.

Once you’ve had your lie-down in the fields and your senses have had their fill, wander into the boutique, where you’ll find every possible use for lavender oil, from soap to candles to massage oil to bubble bath. Then stroll into the interpretation center and experience the chromatic field, a bit hit with the kiddos. Be sure to watch them make lavender soap, and don’t forget to take some home.

Every time you wash, you’ll be transported back to Bleu Lavande. n

ESSENTIALS: 2525 Principal West Street (Route 112), Magog. (888) 876-5851, en.bleulavande.com/en

MARKING HISTORY

Explore the past right where it happened

In addition to learning history from books and journals, a former American studies professor of mine frequently advocated the practice of what he called history on the land. Such a study of history relies on evaluating buildings, artifacts, and other objects as a means of gathering and analyzing historical information.

For lovers of the past, this type of roadside history study is possible in Vermont through the Vermont Historic Roadside Marker Program. An initiative of the state’s Division of Historic Preservation, the roadside marker program started in 1947 to recognize the places, people, and events in Vermont that have regional, statewide, or national importance.

Currently, there are 311 site markers in Vermont, with about a dozen in or near Lamoille County.

We’ve all seen them, but possibly did not appreciate their significance. Made of cast-aluminum, all the markers are green and topped with the Vermont gold state seal. You will see these signs sitting atop sign poles at various roadside locations all over the state.

“Roadside history markers are an excellent way to educate people on

history where it happens, and an easy way to convey facts,” said Laura Trieschmann, a state historic preservation officer with the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development.

Evaluating and adding to the list of historic markers is an ongoing, annual process, she said. As of February, there were 28 active, new marker applications, and past percentages indicate that about 90 percent of those will be accepted. None of the current applicants were in Lamoille County, where Stowe is located, but that can quickly change as new applications keep rolling in.

“We work with applicants to make sure the content is appropriate, readable in today’s language, that it meets criteria, and that it educates people,” Trieschmann explained. “I appreciate the excitement of applicants, towns, and anyone who appreciates Vermont history.”

Roadside markers in the greater Stowe area spotlight people of note,

ON SITE The historic Cambridge Junction Covered Bridge is described in a roadside history marker. Inset: Visitors to Smugglers Notch pass right by this informative roadside history marker, which details the history of the Notch, near the Barnes Camp Visitor Center.

an old mill, a one-room schoolhouse, train station, a covered bridge. Other roadside signs across the state commemorate founders of such organizations as Alcoholics Anonymous and Rotary International, homes of famous people, including Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost, and Norman Rockwell, and various historic events. There is even one Vermont roadside history marker that is in Virginia; it honors the service of Vermonters during the Civil War battle of Cedar Creek.

So, as you travel Vermont’s highways and country roads, keep an eye out for these informative roadside history markers that convey interesting and sometimes little-known information about the Green Mountain State. n

ESSENTIALS: For an updated, interactive list of all the state’s roadside history markers, go to roadsidemarkers.vermont. gov. To apply to have an historic marker idea accepted by the state, contact state preservation officer Laura Trieschmann at 802-505-3579 or accd.historicmarkers @vermont.gov.

SPRUCE PEAK SUMMER CONCERT SERIES

Village green opens at 5 p.m., with opening acts at 6 p.m. Featured artists at 7 p.m. Spruce Peak at Stowe Mountain Resort. sprucepeakarts.org.

June 29

Natasha Bedingfield

Singer and songwriter Natasha Bedingfield grew up in southeast London, where she and her siblings were raised around music. She has sold more than 14 million albums and collaborated with artists such as Nicki Minaj, Big Sean, Sean Kingston, Brandy, and Rascal Flatts.

July 8

Ripe

Ripe feels bullish about its new album, “Bright Blues,” a collection of songs full of sleek grooves and bold melodies that the alternative-pop quartet put together to help ride out tough times. Guest Coyote Island.

July 27

Futurebirds

Rock juggernaut Futurebirds’ celebrates the band’s 13 years together. Said singer and guitarist Carter King, “We were always too indie rock for the jam festival, too country for the indie scene, a little too psychrock to feel like we were Americana. The music over the years just kind of created its own weird little ecosystem—it’s thriving and it feels great.”

August 12

Wild Rivers

Indie trio Wild Rivers—Khalid Yassein, Devan Glover, and Andrew Oliver— has a gift for penning introspective lyrics and genre-fluid melodies that transmit wisdom beyond their years. Special guest Hans Williams.

August 31

The Brook & The Bluff

Expertly crafted songs and sublime musicianship from this Nashville-based band, which showcases intricate harmonies and inventive arrangements.

STOWE ART ON PARK

Thursdays through July and August on Park Street in Stowe village. Market features food from local vendors, agriculturally-based products, and a broad selection of art from fine artists and artisans. Music. 5-8 p.m. stowevibrancy.com.

July 6 Scott Forrest

July 13

July 20

July 27

Satta Sound

Lesley Grant

Cooie Sings

August 3 The Thirsty Brothers

August 10 David Karl Roberts

August 17 Deadbeats

August 24

STOWE JAZZ FESTIVAL

Josh Panda

Musical acts play at various venues around Stowe and on the festival main stage is The Alchemist, Cottage Club Road. stowejazzfestival.com.

August 25 – 27

Afro-Cuban, Gypsy, and Brazilian jazz, big band, smooth, soul, swing, more.

Natasha Bedingfield plays Spruce Peak June 29.

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Display Gardens

Afternoon English Teas

Gift Shop specializing in summer hats for women and men

Hardy Perennials, Herbs & Shrubs

STOWE: MAIN STREET LIVE

Saturdays from July 8 to August 12, live music on Stowe’s village green. 3-5 p.m. stowevibrancy.com.

BREAD & PUPPET THEATER

Route 122, Glover. Tickets at breadandpuppet.org.

June 13 - August 29

Shape Note Sings: Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m.

June 4

Museum opening accompanied by a performance with Concordia students.

June 11 - July 2

Performances of Mother Dirt: Preeminent Victor over Genghis Khan: Sundays, 3 p.m. Ticketed.

July 15 - August 19

Performances of Mother Dirt: Preeminent Victor over Genghis Khan: Saturdays, 5 p.m. Ticketed.

July 9 - August 27

Circus & Pageant: Sundays, 3 p.m. Ticketed.

CRAFTSBURY CHAMBER PLAYERS

World-class musicians with music director Frances Rowell. At the Hardwick Town House and on Craftsbury Common. craftsburychamberplayers.org.

Free.

FRANK SUCHOMEL MEMORIAL ARTS CENTER

Summersweet Gardens

NURSERY & TEA ROOM

63 Brick House Road, East Hardwick, VT 802.472.5104 | summersweetgardens.com

At QuarryWorks in Adamant. Free. Directions and reservations at fsmac-quarryworks.org.

June 24

Champlain Trio

Violinist Letitia Quante, cellist Emily Taubl, and pianist Hiromi Fukuda, 7:30 p.m.

July 15

Michael Avitabile and Adam Tendler Flute and piano, 7:30 p.m.

August 5

Heliand Consort

The Consort plays, speaks, and shares stories. Bassoon, piano, and oboe, 7:30 p.m.

August 26

Adam Tendler in concert Washington Post says a “relentlessly adventurous pianist,” 7:30 p.m.

LAMOILLE COUNTY PLAYERS

Hyde Park Opera House, 85 Main Street. Adults $20, seniors/students $15. Thursday through Saturday, 7 p.m.; Sunday matinees, 2 p.m. (802) 888-4507. llcplayers.com.

July 20 - 23 & July 27 - 30

Let it Be: A Musical Celebration of the Beatles Lyrics and music take center stage, without confines of a traditional book musical.

October 6 - 8 & October 13 - 15

Haunting of Hill House

Four strangers visit Hill House and are soon jolted by strange and eerie occurrences.

December 1 - 3 & December 8 - 10

The Foreigner

At a fishing lodge in rural Georgia, things go uproariously awry for the bad guys and the good guys emerge triumphant.

Seth Yacovone Band, Oxbow Musical Festival, August 19.

MUSIC & MIXED

MUSIC AT THE OXBOW

Oxbow Park, Portland Street, Morrisville. Food trucks, full bar, vendors. Kids 12 and under free. oxbowmusicfestival.com

July 29

Summer Jam '73

Fifty years ago more than half a million people gathered to hear three of the greatest bands of all time, The Band, Grateful Dead, and Allman Brothers. This tribute to that legendary show at Watkins Glen in 1973 will feature the Dead Sessions, The Peacheaters, and Caledonia Mission.

August 19

Oxbow Music Festival

With featured artist Dogs in a Pile, local legends Seth Yacovone Band and Hayley Jane, and traveling from the Deep South, the jamduo Woody & Sunshine. Oxbow Park, Morrisville.

MUSIC IN THE MEADOW

Stowe Performing Arts summer music in the Trapp Family Lodge Concert Meadow, Trapp Hill Road, Stowe. stoweperformingarts.com for times and tickets. Meadow opens at 5:30 p.m. for picnicking. (See p.102 for more)

July 2 Vermont Symphony Orchestra

July 16 John Pizzarelli Trio

July 30 Bela Fleck and Company

August 6 Hot Club of Cowtown

August 13 The Count Basie Orchestra

RATTLING BROOK BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL

10 a.m. - 8 p.m. Admission. Belvidere Center stage, Route 109.

June 17 Regional bluegrass lineup

ROCKTOBERFEST

Portland Street, downtown Morrisville. Most events free. morristownvt.org.

September 30

All-day street festival featuring live music, food, games, shows, crafts, vendors, pumpkin bowling, face painting, more. Who let the dogs out? Fun and furry walk/run and parade.

RUSTY PARKER

PARK CONCERTS

Waterbury Rotary Club concerts, Rusty Parker Park, Main Street, Waterbury.

Free, Thursdays 6 p.m.

June 15 Michelle Fay Band

June 22 Still Kickin'

June 29 Corner Junction Bluegrass Band

July 6 Bob and Sarah Amos Band

July 13 Maple Run Band

July 20 Guagua

July 27 Tim Brick Band

August 3 Lewis Creek Band

August 10 Prydein

August 17 Mirage

WEDNESDAY NIGHT LIVE AT THE OXBOW

Wednesdays at 5:30. Weekly music at Oxbow Park, downtown Morrisville. morristownvt.org.

June 14 - August 16. n

COURTESY PHOTO

INDOOR + OUTDOOR

Stowe art center spotlights public monuments, ancestral stories

THE CURRENT IS YOUR CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART.

Exhibitions of acclaimed international and Vermont artists and public programs, adult and children’s art classes and private lessons, school tours, student shows, and summer art camps. The Current is made possible through the generous support of the town of Stowe, its members, and sponsors.

THE CURRENT

90 Pond St., Stowe Village. Tuesday – Friday 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Saturday 10 a.m. - 3p.m. Free, donations welcome. Visit thecurrentnow.org for monthly public events. (802) 253-8358.

June 24 – October 21

Indoor + Outdoor Group Exhibition

Artists whose work questions public representation and reclaims ancestral stories to represent history through monuments and memorials. Public programs will question what we choose to remember through monuments and how this defines our past; the intentionality of placemaking; the creation and purpose of

monuments and memorials; and how that helps to define our values moving forward. Opening, Saturday, June 24, 4-6 p.m.

November and December

Members’ Art Show + Sale

Members of The Current exhibit their artwork for sale.

Spring 2024

The Gala

The Current’s popular spring gala and Stowe’s most popular party. Lodge at Spruce Peak. Tickets: thecurrentnow.org.

Woody De Othello, Some Time Moves Fast, Some Time Moves Slow, cast bronze. Above, a scene from this spring’s gala, Wild

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND JESSICA SILVERMAN GALLERY; INSET: ELISABETH

n George Sawyer’s The Wayward Bench, an art installation at the Kent Museum in Calais, Vt. Shaker dining chair. m

the first thing I notice—and smell—when I walk into chair-maker George Sawyer’s workshop in South Woodbury is the floor. Like the ground outside, which is covered in several inches of newly fallen leaves, the maple wood floor of this 150-year-old former barn is layered with piles of curled, sweet-smelling butternut, cherry, maple, and oak shavings.

Sawyer, a tall, lanky, 41-year-old with a neatly trimmed beard and a shock of thick black hair, is using a custom-made hand adze to rough out a chair seat from a two-inch thick plank of butternut. As he scrapes away at what will eventually become an elegant Windsor chair, cascades of inch-long wood shavings fall to the floor. He stops, looks up and greets me with a smile and says, “Sorry for the mess. But it’s almost always like this in here.”

Watching Sawyer work, especially as he is surrounded by the age-old hand tools of his trade—calipers, adzes, drills, chisels, planes, iron wedges, and more—I feel as if I have stepped into a time machine. Like his father David before him, Sawyer prefers to build his much-praised, much-prized Windsor chairs in the traditional manner that skilled craftsmen have been using for centuries—by hand.

“I like to feel that I am part of a long line of chair makers who have used time-tested methods to build these classic designs in small shops like this one,” says Sawyer, as he takes a break from working on a special-order Windsor chair. “If I want to continue that tradition, I need to do it by hand. Besides, it’s more fun, more challenging, than using machines.”

George Sawyer in his workshop in South Woodbury.

sawyer’s love affair with the Windsor chair began during the 1980s, as he grew up watching his father handcrafting the chairs that were first designed in England around 1720, then later modified and perfected by New England craftsmen.

Says George, “I was basically raised in my father’s chair-making shop. Woodworking is in my blood.”

While David Sawyer didn’t start making Windsor chairs until 1982, the same year George was born, his reputation grew quickly, and his elegantly crafted pieces were soon in high demand. They sold locally and throughout the country and were even acquired by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He regularly taught chair making and was known as a perfectionist, producing his own finely detailed blueprints or renderings. “Fine Woodworking” magazine eventually dubbed the MIT mechanical engineering grad “a giant of U.S. Windsor chairs.”

After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design, George worked as an industrial designer. However, when he learned that his father was thinking of retiring in 2013, he was lured back to Vermont.

“I just couldn’t grasp the idea of this shop being empty,” he says.

George quit his freelance designing gigs and returned to South Woodbury to learn all he could from his dad. “My father had proven that you could build a life around chair making and I’d long been attracted by the art and challenge of making Windsor chairs. So, I came home.” >>

n Shaping a chair leg. The Hunter Lounge Chair comes in maple, ash, pine, milk paint, and natural oil. Photo by Sawyer Made. m

Elliptical Bench was custom built to fit a client’s curved wall. Photo by Steven Underberger. Butternut settee. Photo by Oliver Parini.

aThe family business, which George eventually christened “Sawyer Made,” was in good hands. Thanks to George’s skilled craftsmanship and his father’s help, it would survive and prosper.

s George takes me on a tour of his recently refurbished workshop, he explains how his fascination with the Windsor chair first blossomed and then grew over the years. He picks up a recently completed chair that has yet to be painted with thick, rich milk paint and explains, “Windsors are a wonderful combination of elegance, delicacy, and strength.”

He caresses the chair’s pencil-thin spindles and explains, “We hand split these from moist green wood, making sure we cut along—not across—the grain so they maintain their full strength and flexibility. That gives us a lot of flex without breaking.”

He tells me that a factory-made Windsor chair might ignore the grain direction and it could break. “But we don’t compromise,” he continues. “I want to build a chair that will last for 200 years and be passed down from generation to generation.”

A traditional Windsor chair typically takes him about a week to complete. About 25 percent of his output are custom jobs and he regularly works on commissions with architects, interior designers, and homeowners.

While Sawyer enjoys adhering to rubrics of the traditional Windsor chair design, he confesses that it is the chair’s “infinite amount of variability” that excites him. “People have been building these chairs for hundreds of years, following a set of what I call ‘vernacular engineering’ rules, but that doesn’t mean you can’t experiment,” he says.

>>

0039 ITALY

25 Main St, Stowe, VT 05672 802-242-0448 info@archeryclose.com

Tues - Sat 11 - 5:30 Sun 11 - 3

Closed Mondays

ALEX MILL BAUM UND PFERDGARTEN

BEEK

BELLA KAI PEARLS

BEVY FLOG

CHRISTY LYNN

COTELAC

DEMYLEE

EMERSON FRY

FRANCES VALENTINE

HOLZWEILER

LAMARQUE

MANOUSH

MARINE LAYER

OOFWEAR

OLIPHANT

PENELOPE CHILVERS

RACHEL COMEY

SMYTHE

STINE GOYA

SUNCOO PARIS

VILAGALLO

ALEX MILL

BARBOUR

BENSON

BILLY REID

FAHERTY

FREENOTE CLOTH

HIROSHI KATO

MAC JEANS

MARINE LAYER

MOUSSY DENIM

OLIVER CABELL

PREMIATA

RED WING HERITAGE

RELWEN

STONE ROSE

TED BAKER

Rodback rocker. Photo by Sawyer Made. l

He recently turned the traditional Windsor design on its head—literally—by creating for a museum show what he called the Wayward Bench, a long Windsorinspired bench that swoops radically up in the air, almost daring anyone to sit on it.

“This was an art piece and an experiment,” says Sawyer. “I wanted to show potential customers that we can do whatever they dream up.”

George Sawyer’s father David died in 2022 but his legacy lives on, thanks to his son’s successful continuation of the family business. George admits he is indebted to his father’s devotion to the craft.

He has earned national recognition, as his father did, for his expertise in—and innovation of—this centuries-old trade. Indeed, as the New York Times has noted, “In the world of Windsors, the Sawyer family is royalty.”

More at sawyermade.com

Old woodworking mallets and other tools decorate a shelf in Sawyer’s shop. k

m The Sawyer Made logo.

PACT WITH GOD

Werner von Trapp builds a chapel in the woods

People sometimes find religious inspiration or comfort in unexpected places. In Stowe, one such place is a chapel nestled in a secluded section of woods on Luce Hill behind Trapp Family Lodge.

Building the chapel was a labor of love, thanks, and devotion by Werner von Trapp, the fourth child of Captain Georg von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe. After the von Trapp family’s arrival in the United States, Werner was drafted into the U.S. Army, and he later volunteered for service in the famous 10th Mountain Division, the alpine fighting unit deployed to the mountains of Italy during World War II.

During one particularly fierce battle in Italy, Werner made a pact with God, promising that if he lived, he would build a chapel in God’s honor once he returned home to Stowe.

Werner survived, and being a man of his word, built his chapel to God. Sandwiched in between his regular work, Werner took time when he could to work on the chapel. It took him four years, but in 1950, he finished it and dedicated it to Our Lady of Peace.

According to Bob Stafford, a tour guide at the Trapp Lodge who regularly brings visitors up the fairly steep hillside to the chapel, Werner became a self-taught mason. Using fieldstone from what was then an open pasture, he created a beautiful stone chapel about the size of a large living room. He built it to face toward the rising sun and designed the chapel to resemble chapel styles he had often seen built on mountainsides in Europe. Being an act of devotion for Werner, he turned down others’ offers to help, saying that this was something he had to build and finish by himself.

Today, forest has reclaimed the land around the chapel. It is a rustic looking structure, but still in very good condition, and exudes a special sense of peace and devotion for all who visit. Many people leave items of devotion on the chapel’s altar, and you never know what you will find there.

In addition to being a place of quiet worship in the woods, the chapel is occasionally used for small wedding ceremonies or other special events. While tours of the chapel are regularly provided through the Trapp Family Lodge’s Outdoor Activities Center, it can also be very nice to grab a daily lodge pass and spend some time there alone. In the woods, at an elevation of about 1,400 feet, it is easy to sense the feeling of peace and gratitude that Werner von Trapp must have felt amid the quiet and solitude of the woods near his family’s home. n

FAMILY HISTORY From top: In the silent woods, the chapel’s bell can be heard from far away. A prayer box collects requests for help and prayers from people from all over the world. The two eldest sons of the musical von Trapp family, Werner and Rupert von Trapp, in U.S. Army uniforms, reading sheet music, Jan. 24, 1946. Inset: Werner von Trapp. Previous page, the von Trapp family chapel sits on a hillside in a peaceful wooded area above the family’s lodge.

MADE WITH LOVE

Patrick Lewis is the man behind Purely Patrick. He packages dry ingredients neatly layered in reusable water bottles, you add the wet ingredients, turn on the oven, and voila—delicious cookies, bars, soups, teas, and the classic Grandma Jo’s Snickerdoodles. He even makes treats for the birds and dogs in your life. Patrick has cerebral palsy and spends most of his time in a wheelchair—when he isn’t skiing, paddleboarding, or swimming with Green Mountain Adaptive Sports—but is able to make these amazing products with the help of assistive technology. The process brings joy to his life, and he hopes the products will make you happy, too. Patrick participates in craft fairs and farmers’ markets and $2 of every purchase supports the Vermont Walk to End Alzheimer’s.

INFO: purelypatrick.com

WEARABLE ART

Self-taught artist and jewelry designer Gina Petteys—a native Vermonter who now lives in Morristown—gives a blank metal canvas a whole new life as wearable art. Her subtle patinas are achieved through a process that results in deep, rich colors that contrast with a metal’s natural hue. Metals include brass, nickel silver, and copper. Her collection includes earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, each custom made by Petteys in her studio. Find her jewelry at Rock Art Brewery in Morristown, Northwood Gallery in Stowe, Artisans’ Gallery in Waitsfield, Stowe Street Cafe in Waterbury, Front Street Coffee in Hardwick, and many other locations.

INFO: ginapetteysdesign.com

NO TWO ALIKE

For all the snow lovers out there, you can have Vermont snowflakes in your home yearround, thanks to Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley, the man who proved that no two snowflakes are alike. Bentley was born in Jericho in 1865, and by 20 had become the first person to photograph a single snow crystal. He would go on to photograph over 5,000 snow crystals, never finding two the same. You can see many of them at the Snowflake Bentley exhibit at the Old Red Mill in Jericho, along with snowflake jewelry made by Danforth Pewter, notecards, ornaments, prints, suncatchers, and more. All are officially authorized by the Jericho Historical Society.

INFO: snowflakebentley.com

WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE?

Nonna Filomena was in 1895 in southern Italy, emigrated to the U.S. in her early 20s and settled in Brooklyn. As with most Italian mamas, cooking food was how she showed love for her family. The love and care Filomena put into her sauces became a family tradition, and in 1986 her offspring began bottling her signature marinara under the name Dell’Amore (of love). Now based out of Colchester, the 37-year-old company continues to produce sauces that would impress any Italian nonna, including Filomena. Dell’Amore sauces are found in most grocery stores.

INFO: dellamore.com

SHEEP SHOP

If you love all the amazing byproducts that woolies produce, then head right over to the Sheep Shop, a small family business specializing in sheep products, all of which are handcrafted in small baaaatches using highquality, all-natural ingredients. Their goods—soaps, scrubs, fizzies and soaks, bath teas, beeswax candles, and caramel sauces—are all made with milk from East Friesian sheep. The Sheep Shop also has sheep throw pillows, dryer balls, and sheep-shaped cutting boards. Available in at Green Envy Boutique, and in Wolcott at Horn of the Moon Apothecary. n

INFO: sheepshopvt.com

COMPILED BY KATE CARTER

PERIOD PIECE

Stowe couple’s home subs as 19th-century movie location

There’s an old Vermont folktale of uncertain origin concerning 19th century mountain dwellers so desperate to conserve food during the harsh North Country winters that they would drug their elders into an extended coma before placing them in a frozen “human hibernation” out in the snow.

Montpelier-based filmmakers Sarah Wisner and Sean Temple drew on this folktale inspiration for their new horror short film, “The Thaw,” and when looking for a location to embody the historic aesthetic, the couple looked no further than Lyndall Heyer and Scott Dorwart’s painstakingly period-authentic Mountain Road home in Stowe.

Heyer actually first encountered the human hibernation story for the

first time through an old collection of folk stories she picked up at an estate sale around the time she was first approached by Wisner and Temple about hosting their week-long film production, giving a feeling of kismet to the partnership.

The movie, which throws a horror twist over the classic tale in which a January thaw disrupts a family’s slumbering elder and the hibernation process with terrifying results, was shot at Heyer and Dorwart’s home in March, and stars budding genre actors Emily Bennett and Toby Poser.

The filmmakers’ crew of professionals, some flown in from Los Angeles and others sourced locally, took over the house for a week, requisitioning not just the Stowe couple’s home but made their whole life into a film set.

With a wardrobe and production design set up in the home’s basement and the ground floor taken over with catering and other essentials, Heyer also was tasked with chasing her long-haired tabby into a closed bedroom to prevent her dander from setting off Bennett’s allergies.

Heyer and Dorwart’s house is the result of joining three separate historic structures. Dorwart’s commitment to a historically accurate 19thcentury home is essentially boundless, complete with occasionally

HORRORS! Emily Bennett films a scene from the movie, “The Thaw,” shot partly in Stowe this winter. Inset: Action!

hand-smithed nails, recovered antique glass window panes, and electric sockets built into the floor so they’re not visible on the walls.

In other words, a historic film production’s dream.

“They just gave the film such outrageous production value,” Temple said. “All those little details that Scott did, just to fit the period better, were hugely beneficial. For us making the movie, we had the old glass that we could shoot through, we didn’t have to try to hide light switches, we didn’t have to try to hide light fixtures. From a technical perspective, it was hugely helpful, but creatively it was just incredible.”

The house was picture perfect for “The Thaw,” which has been in production for years. It was first scheduled to start filming in March 2020, and the production team was preparing to meet in Stowe when the world shut down.

Though it at first seemed like a major setback, Wisner credited the delay with allowing the script to be tightened while its stars gained higher profiles.

Wisner and Temple grew up in separate corners of Vermont but met in Boston while they were finishing film degrees at separate universities. Citing influences like Robert Eggers, whose movie “The Witch” is clearly felt in “The Thaw” with its colonial setting and black and white cinematography, the couple has built a steadily rising reputation for thoughtful horror flicks.

“Our approach to horror films is usually taking some kind of story that we think would work without horror elements, and then heightening the themes and anxieties for those characters through horror elements. To us, they’re usu-

ally some kind of metaphor for a very personal or socially conscious theme that we’re interested in exploring,” Temple said.

The filmmakers made waves on the indie horror festival circuit with their 2019 short film “Water Horse,” which played at festivals throughout the country and won best horror short and cinematography at the Arizona Underground Film Festival.

With “The Thaw,” the couple is hoping to capitalize on their budding success and showcase their talents to the extent that it could help them reach their eventual goal of making a feature-length film, as they are once again joined by Darren Bailey, an actor and producer, and cinematographer Demi Waldron.

A thaw is not quite what the filmmakers got when they came to Stowe to shoot, however, as production began immediately following several inches of heavy wet snowfall. Filming in the woods behind the historic house, the crew shot multiple takes of even the most minute moment in the 15-minute movie, with Bennett’s nose growing realistically red by the time a scene where she checked a hunting trap wrapped.

The titular thaw can be jerry rigged through movie magic, but Wisner and Temple believe that the realism of Heyer and Dorwart’s home is what made the shoot truly unique.

“The house itself is a work of art, so the fact that we can showcase Dorwart’s art in our film is deeply meaningful to us,” Wisner said. n

ESSENTIALS: To read a feature about Heyer and Dorwart’s home, go to bit.ly/3Zo3jTl. More on “The Thaw” at seanrtemple.com/ thethaw.

COURTESY PHOTO

MOVIE STILL

SI P

STAY

SU P

INDULG E

The Stowe area boasts a variety of cuisines and dining atmospheres, from swanky bistros that embrace the local food movement to fine-dining establishments featuring award-winning chefs and busy pubs with the latest microbrews—and everything in between! Check out the area’s great places to stay, as well, from full-service resorts to quaint country inns. Our guide to dining and lodging outlines the myriad choices from which to choose.

Farm to Table Cuisine

Vermont’s First Certified Green Restaurant

#1 Most Romantic Restaurant in Vermont - TripAdvisor, MSN.com & Delish.com

Best Restaurant, Best Steak & Best Wine List in Stowe - Forbes Traveler

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

Best Chefs America

Most Outstanding Farm to Table Restaurant 2023 - Northeast USA - Lux Life Restaurant & Bar Awards

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SEE FOOD?

Cajun’s Snack Bar brings bayou to the Kingdom

The alligator vendor was skeptical when Jason Boutin placed an order for another hundred pounds of tail meat to be delivered to—checks map—some town called Lowell, Vermont.

Eventually, after a few weeks of deliveries, it became clear this was no fluke. The folks who visit Cajun’s Snack Bar really, really like their gator.

“We sell a lot of alligator, much more than I would have ever anticipated, because it really started off as a novel-

ty,” snack bar owner Jason Boutin said. “We had some issues sourcing it last year for a while, and it amazed me how many customers coming in from all over northern Vermont would show up and they would see the sign saying ‘No Alligator,’ and it was devastating.”

Cajun’s loyalists are legion. After seven months of social media silence, the April 27 Facebook post announcing the eatery was going to open a week later might as well have been Phish announcing new tour dates.

“I’ve had a lot of customers over the years tell us that this kind of signifies that spring is truly here,” Boutin said.

Who’s your crawdaddy?

Cajun’s Snack Bar is located at 1594 Route 100 in Lowell, although the street address might not be that necessary, because once you spot the large parking lot packed with cars and motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles and bicycles and people milling about, you know you’re there. It’s about 30 miles north of Stowe on the same road—Route 100 is

RAGIN’ CAJUN’S Cajun’s kitchen is a non-stop flurry of activity, with owners Jason and Amanda Boutin surrounded by a loyal army of summertime helpers.

Vermont’s longest highway, stretching 217 miles between the Massachusetts state line and just a few miles short of the Canadian border.

The place was opened in 2000 by Jason’s father Leo Boutin, a Vermont transplant from Louisiana who everyone took to calling Cajun when he arrived up in these parts. Under Leo, the place quickly developed a fan base with its burgers, fried clams, and hand-cut French fries.

Jason and his wife, Amanda, bought the place in 2009 and decided to really lean into the southern roots, resulting in an amalgam of New England lobster and clam shacks and Deep South bayou roadside stands. For the Nor’easters, the lobster roll is all knuckle and claw and served either hot with butter or cold with mayo; the clam bellies are plump and funky; the scallops firm and sweet. For the Big Easies, the gator is tender and flaky and the breading on the catfish and crawfish is slightly spicy—the heat level is significantly lower

than one might find while sweating in the swamp, but it also serves to underscore the freshness of the delicate meat.

In an area where you’re more likely to pass farms with cows, chickens, and pigs, those farmland proteins ride shotgun with the reptiles, amphibians, crustaceans, and whiskered bottom dwellers of the American South and the bivalves of the New England coast.

Amphibians are included in that list because Cajun’s does occasionally serve frog legs, although it’s an off-menu special that can be tough to find. And there ain’t no shame in Cajun’s landbased game. The burgers are ground daily in house using local product and are big and largely inflation resistant. The burger menu is also one of the best places for snack bar vegheads to find some non-meat options—veggie burgers are available wherever there’s beef. Salads as presented may be directed at carnivores, but snack bar loyalist and part-time

Cajun’s menu features roughly 90 items, from fresh seafood and hand-cut fries to

employee Amy Olsen said the restaurant packs a ton of veggies into its green offerings. Her favorite menu item is the steak tip salad, which comes with fried green beans and blue cheese.

“You don’t always associate a snack bar with salads, but they make excellent salads, and they don’t skimp,” Olsen said.

The dessert menu is ice cream prominent with several different sundaes, ice cream sandwiches, and numerous chunky flurries and smooth milkshakes and floats. There’s bacon on the dessert menu, too, as part of the selfexplanatory maple bacon pecan sundae. There’s even a bacon-forward “doggie sundae,” with a dog bone on top.

Made to order

A hallmark of the summertime snack shack is the voluminous 90-item menu that begs repeat visits to try everything on it. Olsen said part of her family’s summer ritual is making it to Cajun’s enough during the fleeting season to get everything they like.

Boutin said everyone’s like that. He and Amanda last summer contemplated trimming >>

FRESH FRIED

alligator. And it’s all made from scratch and to order.

it down, but they just couldn’t think of something someone didn’t like.

“I kind of have a face for every menu item and I feel like I can’t take away people’s favorite item,” he said. “Amanda and I know, without exaggerating, thousands of customers, if not by name, then by what they drive or what their favorite item is or whatever modifications they might have.”

The food is far from the freezer-to-fryer shacks that dot plenty of American roadways, and the Boutins and crew make everything from scratch. Take that gator, for instance.

“We put a lot of love into that item, between hand tenderizing, a slow marinade, and hand-breading,” he said.

Watching the Cajun’s crew at work on a busy day might make Henry Ford proud, with each worker—both Boutins and a crew of young adults and older teenagers—scurrying to complete tasks and contribute their components for a from-scratch product over and over again.

It’s a dance frequently seen in busy high-end restaurants that use the brigade de cuisine model but here performed by high schoolers on summer break wearing black T-shirts festooned with smiling alligators.

The crew makes the food to order, so it can take a while to get it, especially on a nice summer evening or pretty much any weekend between May and September.

HEAD HONCHOS

Culinary couple

Amanda and Jason Boutin bought Cajun’s from Jason’s dad Leo, who lent his Louisiana-bred nickname to the joint.

Even on the penultimate day of the Cajun’s season last summer, a food delivery truck from Black River rolled up to make a last-minute delivery.

“We have only”—Boutin checked his watch— “15 hours left, but I want it fresh for tomorrow.”

Love shack

There’s a community vibe to the place just hanging out in the parking lot and the spacious lawn area, which has walking trails and picnic tables near the action and in quiet nooks and crannies. Because all the food is made from scratch and because of the sheer volume of people packing the parking lot, customers’ food can sometimes take a while to cook—45-minute waits for food aren’t infrequent.

But hanging out is part of the fun. Neighbors chatting up neighbors and newbies rubbing shoulders with long-timers, conservatives and progressives laughing together, kids running around chasing dogs, folks walking the grounds with a cigarette in hand.

“It’s funny how eclectic the customer base is,” Boutin said, noting the same can be said about the Northeast Kingdom in general. “At any point, you’ll look out in the parking lot and there’s six motorcycles, and a couple of Mazda Miatas, some jacked-up trucks and, of course, a dozen side-by-sides.”

On one visit last summer, there seemed to be more ATVs than streetlegal vehicles.

One ATV rider, Shaun Griffith, was hanging out with his buddy, using their muddy machines as a table to balance their plates.

“The upper northern trails are way better because they all connect,” Griffith said. “This is right off the trail, and it’s like a mom-and-pop store. Those are usually the best places to stop.”

If Cajun’s is that type of place, then Amanda and Jason are the mom and pop, and their workers are all part of their extended family. Boutin

worked there when he was a teenager—“there was a lot of hand-cutting French fries and learning to count back change,” he said—and he and Amanda make sure the current crop of teens also has that opportunity.

“That’s something we really have prided ourselves on and our retention has certainly been great over the years,” he said, noting he and Amanda hire kids around 15 to 16 years old and they come back every summer through high school and, often, college.

“The kids age out around 20 or 21 and they kind of move on from us, he said. “But I feel that we’ve really helped kind of build a work ethic, now going on a couple of generations.”

Olsen said both of her daughters—Janie and Laura, now in their 20s—worked at Cajuns when they were in school. It was the perfect location for kids in a small town, when Newport and Morrisville, the two closest population centers, are inconveniently far away for a teen without a car.

Olsen said she started working there on something of a lark. With Janie and Laura putting so many hours in during the summer, Olsen joked the only way she’d be able to see them was to go work with them at Cajun’s.

“My kids moved on but I’m still there every Sunday,” she said. n

ESSENTIALS: 1594 Vermont Route 100, Lowell. cajunssnackbar.com.

FULL TANK

Cajun’s is a popular spot for hungry off-road enthusiasts as well as anyone traveling Route 100, Vermont’s longest highway.

IT’S A SHAKEDOWN!

Stowe Cider brings in barbecue to its popular bar

When Stowe Cider first sought permits to open a restaurant at its Mountain Road production facility and spacious indoor-outdoor drinking area, it came as little surprise.

After all, the decade-old cidery has built itself into one of the most recognizable brands in the New England market. In eight years at its cavernous Stowe facility, where they turned a former art gallery and sculpture garden into a hospitality hub, Stowe Cider has become one of the premiere places for familyfriendly partying in the region.

They churn out a constant stream of special edition ciders while keeping a tentpole offering. For those looking for conspicuous beverage consumption but not into—or allergic to—Vermont’s ample craft beer offerings, they’re the destination for those who just say “no” to gluten.

In the winter, there’s the après ski crowd. In summer, parents sip in Adirondack chairs while their kids run through the back lawn. Bachelorette parties are ferried to its doors in black vans and taken away once they’ve had their fill of fermented apples. Amplified music on the back lawn hit a snag with some irked neighbors over the last couple years, but they’ve worked around it by installing a new indoor stage.

The only thing missing from the party was reliable food service. In the summer, a retinue of food trucks filled the gap, but during Vermont’s long, cold winters cider drinkers had to leave the premises once they got hungry.

So while making room for a permanent food fixture was expected, the only question that remained was what kind of flavor would it be?

SMOKING!

Head chef Lindsey Ehrhard pulls barbecued pork from the smoker. Inset: Spicing up the fries.

It had to appeal to all of Stowe Cider’s wideranging demographics, pair well with cider, and satisfy their sizable number of gluten-free patrons.

The solution, unveiled in January, should have been obvious: Shakedown Street. Never anything else but barbecue.

Black Diamond BBQ is popular and wellestablished just up the road in Morristown Corners, but Mountain Road might as well be its own separate region, so, argued Mark Ray, a Stowe Cider owner, they’re essentially the only barbecue game within the town’s borders.

“I think it lends itself well to what we’d like to do here and bring the community together and share it and see if what we do fits. We give you an opportunity to try a lot of different things,” he said.

Like everything else at Stowe Cider, including its foundational product, the menu at Shakedown is the product of an organic process, according to food and beverage director Bri Wilson. The menu is primarily the cooperative invention of Ray, Wilson, and executive chef Lindsey

Ehrhard, but there’s plenty of the menu that sprang from the minds of sous chefs as well. Both Wilson and Ehrhard migrated to Shakedown Street from Idletyme Brewing Company, just up Mountain Road, along with their experience in steady execution and serving a crowd.

For Ray, building a barbecue restaurant wasn’t necessarily a step into the unknown. He has a family history of smoking meat and cousins who smoke critically acclaimed ribs in New York. Shakedown Street’s ribs make a strong impression. Even a half rack has the heft of something Fred Flintstone might pick up on the way home from work—plenty of meat on the bone.

Could the restaurant’s signature barbecue sauce be anything but Kansas City-style and maple based, a little on the sweet side of the classic sweet and vinegary flavor profile? If that’s not your jam, there’s Golden Road— tangy Carolina-style—or the differently sweet Memphis-style Tennessee Jed. If you’re feeling especially bold, Fire on The Mountain re-envisions the house sauce with an addition of apple and jalapeño.

TRAY SERVICE

Ordering by the tray allows for a sampling of sides. The barbecue comes in four styles to satisfy any palate.

EDIBLES

Ray wasn’t kidding about giving diners an opportunity to try a lot of things. Shakedown’s broadsheet menu appears expansive, but it’s more manageable when you think about the entrées in particular as in a choose-your-ownadventure book.

The menu revolves around the main meats: ribs, pulled pork, barbecue, and grilled portobello, an attempt to throw the vegetarians among us a bone. From there, the diner can take it on a tray with a couple sides or get the non-rib meats between two buns or packed into tortillas as tacos. The tray option allows for a sampling of sides and comes with a thick slab of jalapeño, which is buttery and crumbly but—crucially—not too dry.

“We do our best to pay homage to a lot of traditions and also provide a variety that can fit for any group, so we’ve taken some inspiration from different barbecue styles from throughout

the United States,” Ray said.

The appetizer menu is Shakedown at its most multi-faceted in an attempt to thread the needle between the dine-in crowd and those who came for the cider but decided they wanted a small bite to eat, too. There’s cracklings and even maple-glazed bacon strips, for the tipsy and shameless. A loaded potato is on offer on the far side of the apps list from a locally-sourced charcuterie board, boldly out of place. The perfectly serviceable nachos and chips and dip make a little more sense as a starter for a party preparing to eat a barbecue meal.

Any way you want it, that’s essentially how you can get it on Shakedown Street. n

ESSENTIALS: 17 Town Farm Lane, Stowe. (802) 253-2065, stowecider.com.

SHAKE, SHAKE SHAKE

It’s not all cider at Shakedown Street as Brianna Wilson mixes a drink at the bar.

Molly and Katie Pindell of Sage Farm Goat Dairy. Sterling, their French Valençay-style cheese.

The Lamoille Valley and surrounding area is a bread basket of brews, agriculture, and artisan food, specifically the cultured curd variety.

Four of the Vermont Cheese Council’s members in north central Vermont—Mt. Mansfield Creamery, Sage Farm Goat Dairy, Jasper Hill Farm, and Sweet Rowen Farmstead—are leaving their mark on the cheese world in very different ways, challenging the notion that the artisan market is overgrown. Some focus on food access, animal husbandry and family, others have joined the curd nerd herd and wax poetic on microbes and cheese crystals.

I’ll be honest: as a lover of this ancient milk alchemy, I was happy to hang out with local cheese-heads and baby farm animals on a mini cheese tour, and unsurprised to be reminded of the innate goodness of the latter. I was surprised, however, by how distinct each cheesemaker’s process, craft, and end product turned out to be. Who knew cheese could be so multifaceted? Guess I was just uncultured.

Sage Farm Goat Dairy, Stowe

The first day of spring in Vermont always smells a little different. This day smelled bright, like mist settling on a muddy patch of garlic shoots and wriggling earthworms, like tiny purple crocuses, rain, and baby goats.

It was a special day for Krill who waddled around the winter barn at Sage Farm Goat Dairy, pawing and pushing hay around with her nose, her bulging pregnant belly nearly touching the dirt floor. She was born in the year of sea creatures, according to Sage Farm’s sister duo, Molly and Katie Pindell—the year all their kids were named after critters of the deep.

Krill’s kids, born a few hours later, would join the three bumbling yearlings born just days before and be granted names in line with this year’s theme: Star Wars planets.

“This one is Tatooine, this is Teth and this is Takodana,” said Molly Pindell, smiling and pointing to each soft, bumbling babe as they fell over each other, trying to get the hang of legs and walking and gravity—earthly gravity that is.

The Pindells and their one employee handle all the kidding, milking, farm chores, cheesemaking, and business, with a little family help sprinkled in. They are a small but locally beloved operation with a solid list of retail, restaurant, and farmers market clients. In 2016, they also opened a farmstand at their 2346 West Hill Road location, which is open April through November, seven days a week.

“We want to keep it small; we like doing everything ourselves,” said Katie Pindell as she and Molly chuckled at the yearlings in the cold barn.

They have about 16 milking goats, plus two bucks and four-to-six kids in total that spend winters in the barn until it’s warm enough to rotationally graze around the 26-acre farm. The sisters started the farm in 2008 with seven goats, built a cheese room by hand with help from

their dad—framing, sheetrock, the whole nine—then dove into growing the cheesemaking biz, mixing Molly’s professional experience in cooking, food journalism, and animal husbandry, with Katie’s in wildlife biology and conservation.

Though they have enough momentum and popularity to expand the operation, the Pindells aren’t really in it for the money (at the risk of sounding cheesy). They’re in it for the rhythm and hands-on nature of farm life, the curiosity and personalities of their little goat family, and the half-science-half-art process of cheesemaking.

Like that first day of spring, Sage Farm cheeses taste slightly sweet, how I imagine fresh grass tastes to rabbits or deer. It’s the kind of cheese you want to eat on a rainy day, wearing fuzzy socks and sitting on your living room floor with an old friend. Best eaten with fridge-pickled red onions and your friend’s homemade ube jam, or your mom’s strawberry jelly that she sent in the mail, wrapped safely in dish towels.

Unwrapping the delicate paper around their Flower chèvre, a plump wheel the size of a ball of yarn, reveals a burst of orange, red, and dusty rose-colored petals sprinkled on top, a little floral surprise. The creamy, delicate cheese offers a buttery tang—a soft flavor that fades evenly across the tongue.

Some of the farm’s other offerings include crumbly feta, camembert, washed rind stinkers, and some bloomy soft cheeses.

Many of their creations have won awards, including but not limited to Spruce, which took home a first-place prize from the American Cheese Society in 2019. It’s a bloomy round rind made in the fall that has “a surprisingly mellow taste with an unmistakable woodsy zing,” according to the Pindells. The Lightning Knoll, a gooier, stinkier round washed with local beers and ciders, including The Alchemist’s Heady Topper, won a second-place award from the American Cheese Society last year.

>>

Black Madonna. Dancing goats. Daily cheese board.

Jasper Hill Farm, Greensboro

Few artisan cheesemakers in Vermont can boast they have a microbiologist, a special sensory evaluator, and a cheese flippin’ robot on their staff. Compared to many of their counterparts in the Lamoille Valley and Northeast Kingdom, Jasper Hill Farm is a juggernaut in the artisan cheese world.

In the last 20 years since Jasper Hill’s first wheel, Constant Bliss, rolled out in 2003, the operation has expanded exponentially, growing from a dairy farm in Greensboro to a campus of sorts, with cheese cellars, creameries, barns, a tasting-room-to-be, and an array of cheese-related businesses across Greensboro, Craftsbury, Glover, and Hardwick.

I met the staff robot, Turnie Sanders, on a cold but sunny March day in vault five of Jasper Hill’s cheese cellars as Turnie moved and spun large cheddar wheels. The vault resembled an ancient library or bank with its towering shelves and soft lighting. A faint ammonia-like aroma hung in the air—a byproduct of proteolysis, the breakdown of proteins during the cheese ripening process—different from the more humid, yeasty fragrances in other vaults. Turnie is one of the keys to this ergonomic success, explained content creator (and my tour guide) Samuel Rheaume, clad in a funky cardigan underneath a knee-length white lab coat, work boots, and a hair and beard net.

Classic rock flowed through the facility, Toto’s “Hold the Line” mixing with Rheaume’s dive into the nitty-gritty chemistry of cheese

microbes and his chit-chat with similarly robed and hair-netted employees.

The farm’s origin story begins with founding brothers Andy and Mateo Kehler who grew up in Columbia and spent summers visiting Caspian Lake in the Northeast Kingdom. They bought a plot of hillside in Greensboro, which locals called the “old Jasper Hill farm,” in 1998, a dark period in the dairy industry when prices tanked, and many small farms were going under.

“They wanted to see the place they loved growing up flourish again,” said Rheaume, adding that a driver of their business plan since the beginning has been to reverse economic flow from urban centers

back into rural landscapes and communities. A turning point for Jasper Hill came in 2006 when its popular clothbound cheddar, made in partnership with Cabot, won Best of Show at the 2006 American Cheese Society, catalyzing the Kehlers’ dreams of expansion.

“They’re driven to make the most delicious cheese possible—if

>>

Andy and Mateo Kehler. The farm.

Bayley Hazen. Clothbound cheddar. Winnimere. Oma.

you build it delicious, they will come,” added Zoe Brickley, director of communications and e-commerce. When I visited her and Rheaume’s Hardwick office, at the center of the loose cubicle structure was a gooey round of cheese being shared among fellow funky-cardigan-wearing coworkers.

Jasper Hill’s Winnimere variety knows that it’s delicious—everything from the strip of spruce bark meticulously wrapped around its rind, to the wheel’s soft buttery hue, to the instructions on the packaging to break it open with a spoon, crème brûlée style. For those whose mouths water at an expensive stinky cheese, the Winnimere goes whey above and beyond.

While the Winnimere is only available in special seasonal batches, Jasper Hill’s Harbison is a similar year-round alternative. This melty creation is on the saltier, woodsy side of the taste profile, carrying hints of mushroom and mustard—a first date, butterflies-inyour-belly kind of cheese. Harbison is named after Anne Harbison, affectionately known as the grandmother of Greensboro.

Jasper Hill’s online shop features many other raw milk cheeses, as well as curated packages paired with other Vermont-brand products like maple syrup, crackers, and charcuterie.

Clothbound cellar.

Jasper Hill photos courtesy of Jasper Hill.

Mt. Mansfield Creamery, Morrisville

I didn’t know my soul had the capacity to crave blue cheese for breakfast until I tasted Mt. Mansfield Creamery’s Patrolman’s Blues, a creamy, sharp swirl of raw milk fromage hand-crafted by Stan Biasini, frequently in tie-dye and sporting small gold hoops, whose fondue fountain of knowledge on curds and happy molds he declaims with some of the chillest cheese-related joy I’ve ever seen.

Like so many, Biasini moved to Stowe in 1979 to ski. A trained chef, he got a job managing the Little Spruce Cafeteria and Stuberl, a German restaurant at the ski resort. He spent nine years as a ski patroller there, where he first saw Debora Wickart, his wife and co-owner of Mt. Mansfield Creamery, and he has continued teaching skiing and snowboarding for the last 20 years. While Wickart managed the family’s small dairy farm, Biasini ran his own floor-covering business for most of his career—a far cry from his current day job.

“At age 50 I’m like, I gotta do something different. So that’s what I did,” said Biasini, recalling their humble start in 2009 and their second year of cheese production when Inspiration, a washed rind semi-soft wheel that’s mild and

nutty in flavor, won second place at the American Cheese Society. That’s when business started churning.

“Making cheese is really just getting back into the kitchen and reading a recipe and experimenting. Some cheeses come out better than others,” Biasini said grinning. “Hopefully you keep good enough records, so you know where it’s good and where it’s not good.”

Now Mt. Mansfield Creamery has established itself a faithful, local following through its online store, collaborations with local retailers and businesses, and presence at farmers markets around the state. They also continue to sell milk to the St. Albans Co-op.

Twelve feet below the hectic but charming office space are the creamery’s dimly lit cellars where a cast of semi-soft raw milk cheeses age and bloom. Almost all are named after ski trails or other features—past and present—at Stowe, including Forerunner, Chin Clip, and Halfpipe, but others like Miss Maeve have more personal stories behind them.

“My granddaughter is named Maeve, and we wash it with the Miss Maeve red wine from North Branch Vineyards. They’re good friends of mine and the wine and cheese go well together,” Biasini said.

>>

Stan Biasini of Mt. Mansfield Creamery.

He washes and brushes each rind to keep the entire wheel edible, often using local brews from neighbors like Rock Art and Lost Nation in Morrisville, and the Alchemist in Stowe, among others.

Biasini tries to keep prices affordable—something he might buy for himself at a farmers market. It’s a fancy cheese for the ski bum and the mountain biker. A cheese best eaten on a blanket at the Oxbow in Morrisville as Seth Yacovone’s earth-shaking blues reverberate into the twilight, families dance, shimmy and laugh, the sky fades into deep purple and fireflies blink on and off.

Mansfield Creamery cheeses.

Paul Lisai. Taste test. Farmstead products. Red Sky cheese.

Sweet Rowen Farmstead, West Glover

Paul Lisai is a different kind of cheesemaker than some of his curd-nerd neighbors in Vermont. Founder and owner of Sweet Rowen Farmstead in the Northeast Kingdom, Lisai’s passion for cheesemaking has little to do with winning blue ribbons (although several of his cheeses have won awards), and more to do with his ability to make a cheese that everyday families love and can afford to eat on the reg.

“Our focus has been more on reinventing commodities, making products that people here want to eat and that feeds them,” Lisai explained. “We’d like to have people know what to expect when they buy a product. They’re not going for it because it’s a super crazy, stinky cheese. They’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, that feta tastes the same as the time I bought it before, and I can count on it being something good and local.’ ”

A cheese you can count on, one that’s always got your back.

Lisai has ventured into artisanal cheesemaking, but he seems more interested in food access, caring for the ecology, the overall health of his farm, and creating a sustainable product. Like the Hot Farmer cheese—a fresh, spreadable concoction that balances mild saltiness with a warm, peppery kick, perfect for adding to some macaroni for a reality TV date-night or into a mess of scrambled eggs, whipped up at 7 a.m. by a scruffy dad in his pajamas and devoured in seconds before the school bus arrives.

Sweet Rowen sells to local restaurants, general stores, farmstands, the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, and Sterling College—Lisai’s alma mater—as well as schools through Green Mountain Farm Direct, a nonprofit focused on food access. Almost all their accounts are within a 75-mile radius of the farm, adding to the local sustainability aspect of their mission. >>

Lisai is a seventh generation Vermonter but a first-generation dairy farmer, somewhat of a rarity in the Green Mountain State where the dairy industry’s volatility has pushed out small producers for decades and where the cost of land makes one’s farming dream nearly impossible.

“I guess I kind of fell in love with the romance of dairy farming and the tradition of it, especially in this area,” Lisai said. But breaking into farming is a tough gig.

Lisai recalled they started out small and had to make sacrifices in the beginning to make ends meet. Plus, learning the chemistry and art of cheesemaking, experimenting and homing in on what works (and what doesn’t) proved a process.

“As a cheesemaker, when you’re learning, especially in the beginning, when it’s very much so live or die financially, you basically will sell anything that’s edible. I shouldn’t say that, but that’s how I operated,” Lisai recalled, laughing. “I made one called Jacuzzi Thunder. It was this, like, Alpine blue cheese, crazy-ass thing. I just kind of made up a name and I just rolled with it.”

Jacuzzi Thunder isn’t on Sweet Rowen’s list of regular products anymore but in the 11 years since he started the operation, his teenage-boy-with-mentos-and-coke approach to experimentation has more than paid off in demand for the farm’s plethora of fresh and aged cheeses, including spreadables like Hot Farmer, an aromatic herb cheddar, a crumbly feta, and some bloomy rind soft cheeses, among others.

Lisai’s favorite is Freedom Heights, their alpine cheese, which he described as a “nice balance between a cheddar and a Swiss cheese, very accessible but it has some deeper flavor profiles rooted in this place.” The name refers to some history behind the location of their hilltop farm and the first farmers

ESSENTIALS

Sage Farm Goat Dairy

2248 W Hill Rd, Stowe (802) 760-0943

Mt. Mansfield Creamery

120 Pleasant St, Morristown (802) 888-7686

Jasper Hill Farm

884 Garvin Hill Road, Greensboro (802) 533-2566

Sweet Rowen Farmstead

538 Lafont Road, West Glover (802) 755-9960

to settle there, who were referred to as “Freedom Heights Farmers.”

Although Sweet Rowen no longer submits cheeses for awards, both the Nettle Farmer’s Cheese and Mountain Ash bloomy soft cheese have taken home first place prizes from the American Cheese Society. n

Avalon Styles-Ashley is a domestic violence advocate in Morristown, a freelance writer for Stowe Magazine and a friendly alum of the Stowe Reporter and News & Citizen. On your average Sunday, you might find this California native hiking Camel’s Hump, quilting poorly, or canning dilly beans.

Sweet Rowan bloomy rind soft cheese. 802.253.4525

‘SIMPLE, YET SPECIAL’

Butler’s Pantry brings the breakfast to Stowe’s Main Street

Butler’s Pantry on the corner of Main and School streets in Stowe Village has upped the ante on eggs and biscuits, house-made sausage, French toast and pancakes. Airy and fluffy, buttery and sweet, the pancakes are just one of the many items that keep patrons waiting for a table.

Even the bacon seems unusually, well, bacon-y.

This comfortable, country-chic breakfast joint, located in an historic inn, opened in 2016 with chef Zoe Biron at the helm. Biron, who grew up in Stowe and graduated from Stowe High School in 2009, studied culinary and French cooking techniques at New England Culinary Institute, graduating in 2014.

“It was my dad’s idea to do the restaurant,” Biron said. “He owns the building and there are vacation rental units on both floors. He had other restaurants over the years, but it was too noisy for any of the rooms over

the restaurant, so we decided to just do breakfast.”

Built in 1830, Butler House was originally the home of Orion W. Butler, one of Stowe’s first and most prominent lawyers. The building, most recently renovated in 2009, was for several decades home to Restaurant Swisspot, a well-loved joint that specialized in fondue. Today, the renters upstairs from the restaurant can have a quiet night’s sleep and wear their PJs to breakfast the next morning.

“We try to keep things simple, yet special,” Biron said, who took over ownership of Butler’s Pantry from her father in 2022. “We did a lot of trial and error to perfect our dishes. We haven’t changed our menu over the years, except for a few additions, and we don’t have daily or seasonal specials. People know exactly what they are going to get when they come in. I want people to have a good experience. We put out good food and we have great servers.” >>

BREAKFAST JOINT

Chef Zoe Biron in the kitchen of her restaurant, Butler’s Pantry, where she takes the classic breakfast up a notch.

Take Biron’s juice master, for one. Every morning, server George McGown freshly squeezes two cases of oranges. McGown will not only entertain you with descriptions of the pulp-free juice, but also of the light and fluffy biscuits and homemade sausages, and he’ll do it in a grand Irish brogue, rolled R’s and all. McGown has worked at many restaurants up and down Stowe’s Mountain Road, but he feels most at home at Butler’s Pantry. “It’s a friendly, laid-back vibe. I really enjoy working with the other servers and the customers.”

In the kitchen, it’s just Biron and her domestic partner, Frank Ferrante doing the cooking. The couple recently introduced the world to their first child, Nicoletta Beatrice Ferrante, who often comes to work in her baby basket. The number of front-of-house employes fluctuates with the seasons.

Ferrante is responsible for one of the two additions to the menu that are not typical of a bacon-and-eggs breakfast joint. The breakfast salad has two poached eggs and a sauce of hot bacon and onion over a bed of baby spinach. And it’s delicious.

The cheddar jalapeno pancakes, one of the more popular items on the menu, is a contender for Pancake of the Year. It helps that the batter is made fresh every morning, as are the biscuits, French toast batter, and that glorious fresh-squeezed O.J.

Other popular dishes are eggs benny on a biscuit, the pantry breakfast, and the fat and fluffy pancakes, voted best in Vermont in 2020

by insider.com and Most Popular Breakfast in Vermont in 2018 by People magazine.

Biron says the most difficult part about running the restaurant is managing the staff. “I don’t have a lot of experience with people. I do my best and try to keep our standards. Also, finding staff is difficult. Cooks are really hard to find, it’s like people don’t want to do it anymore, especially after COVID-19.”

Butler’s Pantry closed for most of the pandemic, and when it reopened it was with a different business structure. Pre-pandemic, the restaurant was open seven days a week, but now it’s five. “It’s so much more relaxing now,” said Biron.

October is the busiest month, and the wait can be two hours, with a line that goes out the door. “We use the Yelp Wait List. Customers can sign up ahead or they can sign up when they arrive. We text them with a 10-minute heads-up when their table is ready. We have found it’s the best way to handle the volume,” Biron said.

So if you’re craving a satisfying culinary start to your day, hop on the wait list, get your seating time, and go for a walk.

Did we mention the bottomless coffee? n

ESSENTIALS: Open Thursday through Monday, 8 a.m. to noon. butlerspantrystowe.com.

GOOD EGGS Biron tops her eggs benedict with a perfect hollandaise, and it’s served on a freshly baked, grilled biscuit, a slice of tomato, and a choice of housemade sausage, bacon, ham, or spinach. (Hint: The sausage is perfection.)

REAL ESTATE LIFESTYLE &

Are you searching for the perfect home or vacation getaway? Looking to update your 1970s kitchen, add a great room, or find a stone mason to redo your uneven terrace? Well, the search is over. Our guide to real estate and homes is your one-stop shop to find a new home or connect with the finest architects, interior designers, builders, and other craftsmen and suppliers for everything home-related. Our newspapers and websites—Stowe Reporter (stowetoday.com, and stowereporter.com, and vtcng.com) and News & Citizen (newsandcitizen.com)—are great community and real estate resources.

HOW SWEET IT IS!

For this issue we present three single-family homes for sale in Stowe, whose addresses give a nod to Vermont’s maple syrup industry. Go ahead, call us sappy.

STOWE / $2,295,000

Village living could not be sweeter on Maple Street

3,674 square feet, .4 acres • Built in 1850 • Taxes: $18,332 • Agency: Meg Kauffman, LandVest Inc.

LLocated on historic Maple Street, this luxury 5-bedroom, 4-bath home is a stone’s throw from the heart of Stowe Village. The antique home has been recently renovated and is in mint condition. The gourmet chef’s kitchen opens to a large living room and informal dining area. The main floor also has a den, formal dining room, and formal living room with a wood-burning fireplace. The second floor has all 5 bedrooms, including a private primary suite. This is a beautiful, turnkey home in an ideal village location.

Outside: The large, private backyard is unique for Maple Street. Shopping, restaurants, library, elementary school, and recreation path are all within walking distance.

STOWE / $1,150,000

Aptly named Maple Lane

2,632 square feet, 5 acres • Built in 1980 • Taxes: $7,933 • Agency: Grant Wieler, Element

This 4-bedroom home on 5 acres includes roughed-in accessory apartment above the garage. The main house features an open-concept living area with vaulted ceilings, a wood-burning stove, and an adjoining sunroom leading to the hot tub, deck, and backyard. The main floor also includes 2 bedrooms and a full bathroom, while the lower level has another living space, bedroom, and additional sleeping spaces. The attached garage has a landing with laundry hookups and a half bath, while upstairs is the accessory apartment, ready for your finishing touches.

Outside: Maple Lane is a dead-end road that hooks up with the Sterling Forest trail system, offering year-round recreational opportunities. >>

STOWE / $1,235,000

This way to one sweet house — Sugar House Road

2,760 square feet, 1.8 acres • Built in 1965 • Taxes: $9,414 • Agency: Alison Beckwith, Beckwith Real Estate

Recently refurbished, this typical ski chalet is privately located on Sugar House Hill, and is a short drive to the ski resort. The multi-level layout has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths, and a great room that envelops a central fireplace. A modern kitchen and dining area are adjacent to a deck that overlooks a pond. Downstairs is a recreation room. A large, detached 2-car garage is steps from the house. House comes fully furnished and is in pristine condition.

Outside: Pond for swimming, mature forest, two streams, close to cross-country and downhill skiing, hiking, and mountain biking. n

AN OLD HAND

Landscape architect wants to connect people and place

Tom Hand owns SiteForm Studio, a landscape architectural firm in Stowe. He designs outdoor spaces for a mix of project types—residential, commercial, municipal, resort, and public. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, he is a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the President of the Vermont Chapter of ASLA. He is also a member of the Stowe Development Review Board. He lives in Stowe with his wife, Megan Cassella, and their two children, Griffin, 9, and Abigail, 6.

>>

Why did you choose landscape architecture as a career path?

It started in the Boy Scouts. I got an architectural landscape badge and loved it. As an Eagle Scout I designed a public park for a retirement community. At the time I was thinking about college and considering both architecture and landscape architecture. I realized the tolerance for architecture is vast. With landscape architecture I’m never in total control. Plants will do what they want, and that lack of control was appealing. I really like that aspect, and I also like being outside.

How did you end up in Stowe?

Megan’s family has had a house in Stowe for four decades. She basically grew up in Stowe and we found ourselves spending a lot of time here, so we moved from Boston in 2012. In Boston, I had worked in high-end residential landscaping, then I got more into commercial projects with Carol R. Johnson Associates, working in the U.S. and internationally for 20 years. When we first came here, I worked with the SE Group for eight years doing resort planning and design on various Spruce Peak projects.

What made you decide to start SiteForm Studio?

I’d gotten to a point where I have my own values. I launched SiteForm a year ago and continue to work to get my name out there.

What is your approach to designing a project?

I strive to design site specific and resilient landscapes that elevate the design and function of human experience and site ecology to enhance people’s connection to place. I don’t try to have a style or a look. Each project, from site to architecture to client, is different, and each deserves an individual style. Budget is always a big factor that must be considered. >>

DRAMATIC APPROACH Landscape architect Tom Hand says, “everything in our designs is choreographed and considered, such as relationships between hardscape materials and paving patterns, plant combinations, and the framing of space.

SPOT LIGHT

DIVINE EXECUTION Clockwise from top left: The upper terrace is generously sized and acts as both lounge seating and a large family dining area near a built-in grill. Amenity spaces such as terraces were purposely sited away from the house to capture roof and patio runoff in a rain garden. The plants here were specifically chosen to suit a native woodland palette, including sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina) and hayscented fern (Dennstaedtia punctilobula). Successful design can appear subtle and simple, even if technically complex to execute, like this reclaimed granite plank paving in the front driveway that blends into the existing monolithic slab and stacked stone steps. Pops of color along the entry drive contrast against a white farmhouse while not distracting from views of Mt. Mansfield.

How does your process work?

It starts with a conversation with the client. I go to the site, walk around, notice where the sun is, where the shade is, how the wind blows. I do a site analysis, consider issues and constraints as well as opportunities, and we discuss options. Then we come in and clear the area, but leave woodlands for natural habitat. There needs to be a slow transition from open spaces to woods. Not all landscaping has to be up close to the house. I want people to see the value of good design and doing good for the environment. Every individual has the opportunity to do a part, no matter how small. I try to help people recognize that there are ways to do things for the ecology that can be integrated into an overall design from the beginning. I want them to think about sustaining a yard like they would their house. I like to merge and balance the human space with the environment and natural site feel. Design to final install is an investment and 8 percent to 25 percent of the value of a home can be landscaping. A budget will drive a project, and I deal with a lot of sticker shock. Then we peel things back and find out what the client really wants. I also encourage clients to use native Vermont species.

What are you currently working on?

I have five residential installations projects in Stowe and two conceptual designs on new projects, one in Waterford, overlooking the Comerford Reservoir, and one in Derby overlooking Lake Memphremagog. Current commercial and municipal work includes the new building next to Stowe Community Church, the upcoming Memorial Park with Black River Design and Engineering Ventures, and the redevelopment of a commercial marina in New Hampshire on Lake Winnipesaukee.

What do you like the best about your work?

I like working with homeowners and clients and helping them work through decisions. I’m a guide and advisor. My training and experience help. The best part is seeing the client’s joy when the project is complete, and that they are sharing it with friends and family.

Do you do any pro bono work?

My kids go to Bishop Marshall School and I donated a residential conceptual design plan that we raffled off for a school fundraiser. I will also be helping plan renovations to the school playground.

What do you do in your spare time?

You mean when I’m not chasing the kids? We love to get outside to ski, mountain bike, camp, and paddle, and work in our yard and gardens. n

COURTESY PHOTOS

UP AND DOWN MANSFIELD—TWICE

Mozo Double Up goes to every other year

The Mozo Double Up—so named to recognize Mozodebiwajo, the Abenaki name for Mount Mansfield—is not Vermont’s longest race. But it is the most technical, least supported, most bare-bones, most dangerous, and most difficult running event in the state.

The Mozo scales Mansfield and descends the other side—twice. If two times up and down Vermont’s highest peak isn’t grueling enough for you, the Double Up doesn’t stick to the main hiking thoroughfares. Rather, in places, it follows Mansfield’s rockiest, most exposed, least runnable trails. In places where the course isn’t uneven and rocky, it is miserably soggy.

“There is no question that this is one of the hardest events that is being run, certainly on the East Coast,” race organizer and director Will Robens, an accomplished ultra and trail runner, said. “I would argue it stacks up to some of the toughest trail races run anywhere in the country. The amount of elevation gain over a short distance and on such rugged trails make it a beast.”

These characteristics—and the idea that a gimmick-free race can be the hardest-core athletic challenge—led me to write about the Double Up for Stowe magazine in 2021. The Double Up, founded by RJ Thompson in 2016, had been canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic but was slated to make a triumphant return that summer.

The 2021 running was also going to be the debut of the Double Up under Robens and his Ironwood Adventure Works, an outfit that organizes ultras in Vermont and New York, including the local Catamount Ultra and the Trapp Lodge Mountain Marathon.

“I have been a big fan of this race since RJ started it,” said Robens, who served as a volunteer each year Thompson held the event. “Most of the events I put on are quite a bit bigger, so it is a lot of fun to host a more intimate event that allows me to interact with almost all of the runners individually.”

ROCKY SCRAMBLE Mansfield’s terrain—and the Mozo Double Up route—is varied and can be dangerous.

The Double Up is limited to 70 runners.

Greg Popa, Stowe magazine editor and publisher, picked up on the event’s difficulty, intimacy, and uniqueness when he read my write-up. “You should run this and write about it,” he said off-handedly.

An avid skier, I had not run much that winter, and I had not participated in an organized running event since my daughter’s birth six years prior. “Great idea!” I said. I had been trail running, so I was confident that, without too much alteration of my running regimen, I could respectably compete.

There was one problem, however. While I felt I could run the Double Up, getting race organizers to feel the same way is another matter. Because the Double Up is held on challenging and remote trails on Mount Mansfield, a priority for both Robens and Thompson has always been to ensure runners are experienced and capable of doubling up. Therefore, Robens told me, runners have to qualify.

“Qualify?” I said.

That’s right. He explained that I needed to provide him with a race result where I ran a half-marathon in under one hour and forty-five.

“In the past two years,” Robens added.

My excitement screeched to a halt. I hadn’t run for a time in six years.

“RJ set some pretty good loose standards and I basically take it on a case-by-case basis to decide if I feel each runner has the capacity to run our course in a safe, relatively timely manner,” Robens said. “I assess every runner based on the prior run experience they show me through race results, Strava, or other GPS tracks they send me when they register.”

While I felt good about a run-hike up and down Mansfield twice, qualifying felt daunting. I wondered: could I run a half-marathon in 1:45 anymore? As a test, I ran the length of my dirt road—3 miles. Throughout April, I worked up to 6 miles at an 8-minute-per-mile pace—the pace I would need over 13 miles to qualify. It wasn’t easy.

Still, I registered and continued training. In June, I called my former marathon training partner, and we ran 13 miles in 1:43. (The time I sent

NAVIGATING MANSFIELD A competitor scrambles across a trail on the mountain during the Double Up.

Robens said 1:46 because, in six years, I had forgotten how to stop my GPS watch.) I kept running and training on hills and trails, and felt confident as race day approached.

Then came the rain.

“It is essential we have as little impact as possible on the fragile environment where the course happens,” said Robens, who works closely with the state of Vermont and the Green Mountain Club that are stewards of the trails. “Wet terrain can really amplify the impact, as well as increase the risk that runners are taking on the rocky terrain.”

For an entire week before race day,

>>

GAR AAGGE DOO R R S

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GREG MAINO

the weather wasn’t rainy, it was a deluge. Fortunately, Mozo Double Up organizers are wise, and they routinely schedule a rain date.

The rain did not let up, and Robens made the difficult decision to cancel for the second consecutive year. “It was just really wet up there,” he said.

I opted to defer a refund and ran the Mozo Double up in 2022 despite a much lower level of conditioning and preparedness—and I paid for it. The scene at the start was quiet: the sun rising over the Worcester Range, a couple of volunteers, and a handful of runners. Starting in waves of about eight runners each, Robens chatted us up, gave a quick safety briefing, and then said “Go!”

We went straight up the Haselton Trail, through the woods of South Link Trail to the Forehead of Mansfield. Then down Maple Ridge Trail to the CCC Road toward Underhill State Park. Because I appreciate brutal uphills, I loved power-hiking up Sunset Ridge (the double “up” part) with other runners ahead of and behind me—just specks across the hulk of Mansfield. At the ridgeline, we encountered members of Stowe Mountain Rescue.

“We are lucky to have a highly skilled and unique mountain rescue team in Stowe that are extremely responsive and capable of accessing folks in high terrain when needed,” Robens said.

From the ridge, we turned back down the Haselton to the Stowe ski trails—squishy Rimrock, Perry Merrill, and the gravel work road of Switchback. This glorious final descent was grueling for me, as my lack of adequate training and an earlier knee sprain began to throb painfully. Throughout my running career, I have always felt that being fast made it easier—“the faster you go, the sooner you’re done”—I slowed to a walk as jubilant runners, enjoying being carried by gravity, passed me.

But the sun was shining and the sky was blue, so I suffered and limped through the downhill and finally joined fellow runners on the porch of Midway Lodge for drinks, snacks, and raffles. The Mozo Double Up is not for the faint of heart—or body. The race will not run in 2023—it’s now an every-otheryear affair—but is set for a return in 2024. If you love mountain running and an unorthodox trail route, count yourself in. n

Mark Aiken, author of the guidebook

“Hiking Fire Lookouts New England,” is an award-winning outdoors writer and photographer. He has run 21 marathons, for most of which he trained with his distance-running wife Alison. His time on the 11-mile Double Up was longer than his slowest marathon ever. Mark teaches skiing at Stowe, and lives in Richmond with Alison, two kids, dog, two cats, and 12 chickens.

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Toby Merk Broker | Rich Drill Broker Associate | Zoe Bedell Broker Associate Susi Benoit, Realtor | Jaime Moses Realtor | KC Chambers Realtor Lynn Davis Realtor | Terrie Wehse Realtor | Nick Wilder Realtor Cheryl DeMinico Office Manager

Modern nod to the past

Energy efficient home provides best of both worlds

“A perfect partnership.” That’s how these new homeowners, recent arrivals to Stowe, and Stowe-based architect Harry Hunt describe the way they worked together to create this elegant, all-electric, net-zero, low-maintenance home that’s won a slew of fans and awards.

“It certainly helps when you’re on the same page,” says the owner as he escorts me through the three-bedroom, two-bath, 3,532 square-foot-home that’s just a few miles from the center of Stowe. “Harry just got it. He knew exactly what we wanted.”

The couple had been living for years in an 1850s-vintage, “somewhat tumbledown” farmhouse in rural, eastern Pennsylvania when they made up their minds to move to Vermont. “We’d had it with drafty, tiny windows, a leaky roof, and all the maintenance and headaches that come with running an older home,” says the homeowner.

THREE SEASON

LIGHT FILLED

LIVING SPACE

SQUARED AWAY

OPEN PLAN

WALK-IN

Ryan Bent Photography

SLEEP QUARTERS

TRANSITIONS

The couple, who have three children, had a specific wish list. They wanted a passive house, an energy-efficient residence that was also low maintenance. And they wanted a modern, minimalist design, but one that would blend in with the environment.

“We hoped to find a house that was in harmony with its surroundings and also fulfilled all our needs,” the husband explains.

They looked at scores of homes throughout Vermont, but none met all their requirements. So, they eventually decided they’d have to buy land and build. After looking at almost 60 lots from Warren to Elmore, they found a 14-acre lot in Stowe. And they found Hunt. “When we saw Harry’s website and eventually his own home,” remembers the husband, “we realized we had found the perfect partner: A designer who spoke our language.”

Hunt, an award-winning architect and a native Vermonter who specializes in sustainable residential architecture, met with the couple, visited their new lot and eventually drew up a project plan. “They were very hands on, knew what they wanted but were also very trusting,” says Hunt. “The design we came up with was a result of marrying Vermont vernacular architecture with cutting-edge, energy efficient design.”

On a site visit to their partially wooded lot, Hunt was pleased to discover that the house could take full advantage of large, south-facing windows, which would bring in lots of light, a perfect condition for passive solar design. Also, solar panels on the south-facing section of the roof would help with energy efficiency. With superior insulation, airtight construction, triple-pane windows and doors, and electric heat pumps, Hunt was confident his team could deliver a net-zero, all-electric residence.

“In other words, this home could produce >>

all its own energy requirements,” says Hunt. “We call it a house for the future.”

When designing the home, Hunt took a cue from the classic Vermont barns that feature large open interiors with a loft space above. The home’s main floor is open to the smaller loft-like second floor. As he explains, “These old barns actually featured a fundamentally energy-efficient design. Energy loss happens at corners or dormers or angles of a structure, so their basic 30-foot by 40-foot shape helped preserve energy. So, echoing that simple shape also works today and helps keep energy costs down.”

Another nod to classic Vermont vernacular design is the shed-roofed garage with a covered passageway to the main house. This is reminiscent of classic barn forms that often included shed-roof additions, says Hunt. The home and the garage are mostly clad in lowmaintenance, sustainable black corrugated steel. However, Hunt used Vermont-sourced scorched wood—shoi sugi ban larch—at the front of the home, to give a warmer, softer, more elegant look to the entryway.

Inside, with the help of interior designer Flor Diaz Smith, Hunt and the owners opted for a clean, minimal look. “We wanted to use as many natural materials as we could to give the home a warm feeling, but, at the same time, keeping it simple and clean,” says the husband.

Kitchen counters are granite. The floors are polished concrete in light gray and brown. Here and there throughout the floor are impressions or outlines of pine needles and leaves that blew in during the building process. “We decided to leave them in place while the floors dried and they make for nice, natural surprises in the floor,” says the husband. “They were a happy accident.” >>

Locally sourced, clear-finish ash was used throughout the house and the double-height walls were coated with plaster to give them texture and help diffuse light. In keeping with the home’s minimal design theme, the massive, triple-pane, high-efficiency windows in the living room were not trimmed with wood. “This gives us a cleaner, more elegant detail,” says Hunt.

A woodstove provides back-up heat if needed and adds to the room’s coziness.

Walking throughout the home, it’s clear that Hunt put a lot of thought into orienting the rooms to take best advantage of the light for both heat and comfort. For example, the bedrooms and three-season porch are on the east side of the house so the light streams into those areas in the morning while the south facing living room is filled with light during much of the day. An outside porch roof is angled to help block some of the summer sun, while allowing the lower, winter sun to fill the living room with light and warmth.

Just off the ground-floor, main living area is a small library that was designed, as Hunt explains, as “a place of refuge.” It’s a combination TV and game room and can be closed off from the rest of the house. Diaz Smith chose to paint the room in a dark gray green to contrast it with the neutral, minimal design of the rest of the home and make it feel warm and cozy.

One of the home’s most interesting features is invisible to visitors. That’s the intricate framing and insulation systems that make this house so amazingly energy efficient. The 11inch-thick walls are essentially sandwiches of insulation and a high-performance shell that give the home an R-value of about 50 (the higher the R-value, the greater the insulating effectiveness), which is more than double that of most homes being built today.

After almost two years in their new home the owners are quick to praise Hunt, Diaz Smith, builder Shelterwood Construction, and everyone who made, as they explain, “Our dreams come true.”

The home, too, has also been praised by others. It earned an AIA Vermont Excellence in Architecture Design Award last year. Jurors noted, “The house is a nod to the Vermont vernacular, but elevated to a different, higher level. Overall, it’s very well done.” n

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ANTIQUES

BITTNER ANTIQUES

Third-generation Vermont antique dealer Brian Bittner: broad experience with pocket and wristwatches, jewelry, silver, artwork, coins/paper money, historical/military, older collectibles, heirlooms. Free house visits. 2997 Shelburne Road, Shelburne. (802) 489-5210, bittnerantiques.com.

ARCHITECTS

ANDREW VOLANSKY, AIA / VOLANSKY STUDIO ARCHITECTURE & PLANNING

The term studio speaks to an open process of collaborating with our clients and general contractors who execute our designs. This respectful approach has proven to contribute significantly to project success. (802) 793-4999, volanskystudio.com.

BROWN AND DAVIS ARCHITECTS

We are a small architecture firm dedicated to the belief that good design matters. We specialize in thoughtfully crafted and energy-efficient residential design throughout Vermont. (802) 899-1155, brownanddavis.com.

ELD ARCHITECTURE

Creating thoughtful, site-specific designs with an emphasis on custom residential projects throughout New England. We utilize state-of-the-art software to help our clients envision their home before construction begins. eldarchitecture.com. (802) 521-7101.

HARRY HUNT ARCHITECTS

Modern green homes—true to the spirit of Vermont. Member American Institute of Architects. Certified passive house designer. harryhuntarchitects.com, (802) 253-2374.

J. GRAHAM GOLDSMITH, ARCHITECTS

Quality design and professional architectural services specializing in high-end residential development. Member Stowe Area. (800) 862-4053. jggarchitects.com. Email: vt@jggarchitects.com.

LEE HUNTER ARCHITECT, AIA

Stowe-based architectural firm offering a personal approach to creative, elegant design. Residential, commercial, and renovations. leehunterarchitect.com. (802) 253-9928.

MAD MOOSE ARCHITECTURE

Mad Moose Architecture was founded on a commitment to provide a more thoughtful way of designing shelter, with reverence for the environment and respect for the earth and its inhabitants. madmoosearchitecture.com. (802) 234-5720.

METHOD ARCHITECTURE STUDIO PLLC

A Stowe-based architectural studio specializing in energy efficient, modern timber frame, custom home designs. View our process, portfolio, and client stories at methodarch.com. 259 Summit View Drive, Stowe. (802) 585-3161.

SAM SCOFIELD, ARCHITECT, AIA

Professional architectural services for all phases of design and construction. Residential and commercial. Carlson Building, Main Street, Stowe. samscofieldarchitect.com. (802) 253-9948.

TRUEXCULLINS ARCHITECTURE & INTERIOR

DESIGN

Designing luxury-custom homes that connect with their natural setting and meet the desires of our clients. View our homes at truexcullins.com. (802) 658-2775.

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

CUSHMAN DESIGN GROUP

Architectural, interior, and landscape design featuring beauty, craftsmanship, and excellent energy efficiency. Creative, intuitive, functional, efficient. (802) 253-2169. cushmandesign.com.

ART GALLERIES

ARTISANS’ GALLERY

Celebrating 28 years. An inspired collection of fine art and craft from Vermont’s established and emerging artists. A must-see destination. Gifts and cards for every occasion. 11-6 daily. Historic Bridge Street, Waitsfield. (802) 496-6256. vtartisansgallery.com.

BRYAN MEMORIAL GALLERY

Vermont’s premier gallery for landscape painting features over 200 artists in a year-round exhibition schedule. Visit bryangallery.org for more information and hours and programming. 180 Main St., Jeffersonville. (802) 644-5100.

THE CURRENT

A center for contemporary art and art education, established in 1981. Exhibitions of acclaimed artists. Art classes. Cultural events. Schedule: Tuesday-Friday 10-5, Saturday 10-3. 90 Pond St., Stowe. (802) 253-8358, thecurrentnow.org.

NORTHWOOD GALLERY

Gallery exclusively featuring Vermont artisans. Jewelry, pottery, prints, and more. We host artist workshops, live demonstrations, and provide custom woodwork. 151 Main St., Stowe. info.northwoodgallery@gmail.com. (802) 760-6513.

ROBERT PAUL GALLERIES

An outstanding selection of original paintings, sculpture, and glass by locally, nationally, and internationally acclaimed artists. Celebrating 34 years with new local ownership. 394 Mountain Road, Baggy Knees Shopping Center, Stowe. robertpaulgalleries.com. (802) 253-7282.

VISIONS OF VERMONT

We feature Eric Tobin, Aldro Hibbard, Thomas Curtin, Emile Gruppe, Alden Bryan, and many more. A century of painting history is made on the Jeffersonville side of Smugglers Notch. (802) 644-8183. visionsofvermont.org.

ART SOURCING

AXEL’S FRAME SHOP & GALLERY

Inspiration to installation—comprehensive consulting and sourcing services to help you shape your space. Let us help you in your search. Discover the hundreds of artists we’ve worked with. 10 Stowe St., Waterbury. (802) 244-7801. axelsgallery.com.

AWNINGS

OTTER CREEK AWNINGS

Expand your outdoor living space with the help of Otter Creek Awnings. Providing custom outdoor shading solutions since 1976. Free onsite estimates. Showroom at 19 Echo Place, Williston, or othercreekawnings.com. (802) 864-3009.

BIKE SHOPS & INSTRUCTION

MOUNTAINOPS

High-quality bikes and best location guarantee—exclusive access to the Stowe Recreation Path across from Topnotch Resort. Hiking information, trail maps and accessories, extensive line of camping gear. Daily at 9 a.m. (802) 253-4531. mountainops.com.

PINNACLE SKI AND SPORTS

Full-service bike shop. New bike sales (Specialized, Giant, and Intense), friendly professional service, casual rentals, ebike and MTB demos. Whatever you need, we have something for the whole family. Open everyday. Reserve now at pinnacleskisports.com, (802) 253-7222.

TRAPP FAMILY LODGE OUTDOOR CENTER

Over 25 miles of mountain biking trails in woodlands and meadows with spectacular mountain views. Trails to von Trapp Bierhall. Private, group instruction, rentals, retail shop. (802) 253-8511.

BOOKSTORES

BEAR POND BOOKS

Complete family bookstore. NY Times bestsellers and new releases. Children and adult hardcovers, paperbacks, Vermont authors, daily papers, puzzles, greeting cards. Open daily. Depot Building, Main Street, Stowe. (802) 253-8236.

BREWERIES & CIDERIES

THE ALCHEMIST

A family-owned brewery focused on using our business as a force for good. Powered by solar, The Alchemist specializes in fresh, unfiltered IPA. Beer garden open Wednesday to Sunday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Retail beer sales open 7 days. alchemistbeer.com. 100 Cottage Club Road, Stowe.

ROCK ART BREWERY

Brewing beers we love for you to enjoy. Visit our brewery tasting room and Vermont artisan gallery. Come over and celebrate our 25th anniversary with us. (802) 888-9400. rockartbrewery.com.

VON TRAPP BREWING & BIERHALL

Located at Trapp Family Lodge, the von Trapp Brewing Bierhall is situated on the lodge’s cross country and mountain bike trails. Fresh lagers and a selection of freshly prepared Austrian lunch and dinner selections. (802) 253-5750. vontrappbrewing.com.

BUILDERS & CONTRACTORS

DONALD P. BLAKE JR INC.

Handcrafted quality in building, offering experienced and reliable contracting services since 1985. Specializing in custom home new construction, renovations, commercial construction, construction management, property services. (802) 888-3629, stowebuilder.com.

GORDON DIXON CONSTRUCTION, INC.

Fine craftsmanship, attention to detail, integrity, and dependable workmanship. 32 years of award-winning experience. Custom homes, additions, renovations, design/build, project management. Stop in at 626 Mountain Rd., Stowe. (802) 253-9367 or visit gordondixonconstruction.com.

GRISTMILL BUILDERS

Incorporated company 25 years, Gristmill Builders specializes in unique details and net-zero construction. You dream it, we can build it. (802) 279-2000. More builders l

S TOWE GUIDE & MAGAZINE BUSINESS DIRECTORY

GYLLENBORG CONSTRUCTION

Recognized for high-quality craftsmanship. Our priority is to encourage and promote environmentally friendly living. Individualized customer service and attention to detail for custom homebuilding, renovations, and additions. Established 1995. gyllenborgconstruction.com. (802) 888-9288.

MOUNTAIN LOGWORKS, LLC

Handcrafted log homes. Specializing in Scandinavian Full Scribe and Adirondack-style log structures with log diameters up to 30 inches. In-house design service available. (802) 748-5929. mountainlogworks.com

PATTERSON & SMITH CONSTRUCTION, INC.

Custom builder, remodeling firm, and general contractor in Stowe. Our mission is to provide each customer and their designer/architect with the highest degree of customer service, management, and craftsmanship. (802) 253-3757. pattersonandsmith.com.

RED HOUSE BUILDING

Full-service, employee-owned building company with an emphasis on timeless craftsmanship. Meeting the challenges of unique and demanding building projects, from contemporary mountain retreats to meticulously restored historic buildings and high-efficiency homes. (802) 655-0043. redhousebuilding.com.

SISLER BUILDERS INC.

Custom home building, remodeling, woodworking, home energy audits and retrofits, quality craftsmanship, resource efficient construction, modest additions to multi-million-dollar estates. 40 years in Stowe. References available. sislerbuilders.com. (802) 253-5672.

TIM MEEHAN BUILDERS

Building excellence, exceptional homes, professional project management, and creative remodeling. 30 years plus in Stowe. Tim Meehan, timmeehanbuilders.com. (802) 777-0283.

WINTERWOOD TIMBER FRAMES, LLC

Hand-crafted, custom-designed timber-frame structures and woodwork, SIPs insulation, sourcing local timber and fine hardwoods, building in the Vermont vernacular. Cabinetry, flooring, butcher-block tops, and staircases. (802) 229-7770. winterwoodtimberframes.com.

BUILDERS & ROOFERS

PROSPECT CONTRACTING LLC

Recognized for our attention to detail, quality, and craftsmanship, we specialize in standing-seam, slate, EcoStar, and copper roofs. Offering long-lasting roof replacement, repairs, fabrication, and installation for new or existing construction. 25 years of experience. prospectcontracting.com. (802) 582-8669.

BUILDING MATERIALS CAMARA

SLATE

National supplier of roofing slate, slate flooring, flagstone, countertops, and other structural components. Committed to delivering a standard beyond our competitors’ abilities with excellent service and quality-valued products. Fair Haven, Vt. (802) 265-3200, camaraslate.com, info@camaraslate.com.

LOEWEN WINDOW CENTER OF VT & NH

Beautifully crafted Douglas fir windows and doors for the discerning homeowner. Double- and triple-glazed options available in aluminum, copper, and bronze clad. Style Inspired by You. loewenvtnh.com, (802) 295-6555, info@loewenvtnh.com.

RK MILES

Founded in 1940, rk Miles is a family-owned company providing services and materials for all types of building and design. Six locations serving Vermont and western Massachusetts, including Stowe and Morrisville. rkmiles.com.

CANOEING

VERMONT CANOE & KAYAK

Rent canoes, solo and tandem kayaks and paddleboards at one of three launch locations on the Lamoille River. Shuttle with us or join us for one of our many guided tours tailored to your spirit of adventure. vtcanoeandkayak.com, vtcanoes@gmail.com, or (802) 644-8336.

CERAMICS

STEPHANIE GRACE CERAMICS

Born and raised in Vermont, Stephanie, owner and artist at Stephanie Grace Ceramics, is inspired by organic forms in nature. Handmade from porcelain, every piece is unique. Email to schedule a studio visit: stephanie@stephaniegraceceramics.

CHURCHES & SYNAGOGUES

BLESSED SACRAMENT CATHOLIC CHURCH

Mass schedule: Saturday, 4:30 p.m., Sunday, 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. See bulletin for daily masses. Confession Saturday 3:30-4 p.m. Father John Schnobrich, Pastor. 728 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 253-7536.

JEWISH COMMUNITY OF GREATER STOWE

For information regarding services, holiday gatherings, classes, and workshops: JCOGS, Stowe, Vt. 05672. 1189 Cape Cod Road, Stowe. (802) 253-1800 or jcogs.org.

ST. JOHN’S IN THE MOUNTAINS EPISCOPAL

At the crossroads of Mountain and Luce Hill roads in Stowe. Holy Eucharist Sundays at 10 a.m., in person and online. St. John’s is wheelchair friendly, visitors and children welcome. Office open Tuesday and Thursday. Rev. Rick Swanson. stjohnsinthemountains.org. (802) 253-7578.

STOWE COMMUNITY CHURCH

The iconic church on Stowe’s Main Street is multi-denominational, inclusive, and welcoming. Services are held every Sunday at 9:30 a.m., in person and livestreamed, and the building is home to many public and private events, including weddings. Please join us. stowecommunitychurch.org or (802) 253-7257.

UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST FELLOWSHIP

Sunday services at 4:30 p.m., St. John’s in the Mountains Episcopal Church, Mountain and Luce Hill roads, Stowe. Weekly September to June. All welcome. For information: UU Fellowship of Stowe on Facebook, or bit.ly/stoweuu.

WATERBURY CENTER COMMUNITY

Route 100 next to the Cider Mill. We warmly welcome visitors. (802) 244-6286. Sunday worship 10:30 a.m. Handicapped accessible. Church is a National Historic Place. Pastor Shirley Nolan.

CLOSETS

INSPIRED CLOSETS

Vermont largest and most experienced custom closet company. Our professionals will help you to transform any space in your home. Visit our showroom, 17 Echo Place, Williston. (802) 658-0000, inspiredclosetsvt.com.

CLOTHING & ACCESSORIES

ARCHERY CLOSE

Clothing boutique with a curated collection of emerging designers, trend-setting styles, and cult brands. Women’s downstairs and men’s upstairs. 25 S. Main St. Stowe. archeryclose.com, @archeryclose @archeryclosemens. (802) 242-0448.

BOUTIQUE AT STOWE MERCANTILE

Fabulous contemporary fashion for women. From casual to professional, Boutique can make you feel beautiful any time. Lingerie, dresses, skirts, tops, jeans, sweaters, more. We’ll dress you for any occasion. Depot Building, Main Street, Stowe. (802) 253-3712.

FORGET-ME-NOT-SHOP

Treasure hunt through our huge selection of famous label off price clothing for men, women, and teens at 60 to 80 percent off. Route 15 Johnson, just 1.5 miles west of Johnson Village. Open 10-7.

GREEN ENVY

On-trend luxe clothing, shoes, handbags, accessories. Veronica Beard, Ulla Johnson, Rag & Bone, Tata Harper, Ganni, Mother, The Great. Over 250 brands. Premium denim. 1800 Mountain Road, Stowe. Also find us in Burlington and Manchester, and Providence, R.I. (802) 253-2661, shopgreenenvy.com.

HELLY HANSEN BURLINGTON

Making professional-grade gear to help people stay and feel alive for more than 140 years. Come in to shop our latest selection of hiking, sailing, ski, and mountain lifestyle apparel. 66 Church St., Burlington. (802) 651-7010.

IN COMPANY CLOTHING

Celebrating 23 years. Specializing in personalized service and top designer labels. Come see what’s in. 10-5 daily, noon-5 Sunday. (802) 253-4595. incompanyclothing.com, @incompanyclothing. 344 Mountain Road, Stowe.

JESS BOUTIQUE

Jess Boutique pairs an extensive, uniquely curated collection with exceptional, personalized service for women seeking the perfect ensemble for any special occasion or event, including bridal parties, mothers, and guests. jessboutique.com.

JOHNSON WOOLEN MILLS

Home of famous Johnson Woolen outerwear since 1842, featuring woolen blankets, and men’s, women’s and children’s wool and flannel clothing. Great selection of Pendleton. Route 15, Johnson. (802) 635-2271, johnsonwoolenmills.com.

MOUNTAIN

ROAD OUTFITTERS / MALOJA (MAH-LOW-YA)

FLAGSHIP STORE

Made for the mountains. A European outdoor sport, lifestyle, apparel, and accessories brand. Winter: Nordic and alpine ski. Summer: mountain and road bike. 409 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 760-6605. mountainroadoutfitters.com.

NEON WAVE: A DARKSIDE ALLIANCE

Snowboarder owned and operated. Specializing in hard and soft goods to support you through all four seasons. We look forward to moving you forward. Opening in August at 2160 Mountain Road, Stowe. thisisneonwave.com @thisisneonwave.

ROAM VERMONT

Adventurous footwear and apparel for men and women. Explore in style with Patagonia, Kuhl, Birkenstock, Prana, Dansko, and Blundstone. Located on historic Langdon Street in downtown Montpelier. Open Monday to Saturday. (802) 613-3902. roamvt.com.

VERMONT FLANNEL

Discover the comfort of Vermont Flannel in Johnson. Shop the finest flannel pants, shirts, blankets, and more, handcrafted in America with organic cotton flannel and brushed beyond reason for ultimate softness. 162 Vermont Route 15E, Johnson. (802) 635-3682. vermontflannel.com.

WELL HEELED

Sophisticated collection of shoes, boots, clothing, and accessories for an effortlessly chic lifestyle. Stylish interior combined with personalized service and by appointment shopping available—a #mustdoinstowe. Daily 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. (802) 253-6077, wellheeledstowe.com.

YELLOW TURTLE

Clothing, toys, baby rentals and gifts for your baby, kids, and teens. 1799 Mountain Road, Stowe. yellow-turtle.com, ow-turtle.com @yellowturtlevt.

COFFEE HOUSES

BLACK CAP COFFEE & BAKERY OF VERMONT

Locally roasted coffee. Lattes, smoothies, teas, chais. Fresh pastries, breakfast, lunch. Gluten-free/vegan options. A fun place to work, meet, or hang out. Open daily. Stowe Village, Morrisville downtown, Waterbury Train Station. blackcapvermont.com.

STOWE STREET CAFÉ

Discover our community-oriented cafe featuring local coffee, food, and art, including breakfast, lunch, and weekend brunch. Shop our unique collection of art and gifts made in Vermont and beyond. 29 Stowe St., Waterbury. stowestreetcafe.com.

VERMONT ARTISAN COFFEE & TEA CO.

Stop by our state-of-the-art coffee roastery and coffee bar. Delicious coffee espresso drinks, whole bean coffees, and premium teas. 11 Cabin Lane, Waterbury Center, vtartisan.com.

DELICATESSEN

THE BAGEL

Bagels boiled and baked daily. Breakfast and lunch sandwiches, baked goods. Gluten-free options. Seasonal specialties. 394 Mountain Rd, Stowe. (802) 253-9943. 6:30 a.m.- 2 p.m. daily.

EDELWEISS MOUNTAIN DELI

Farm-to-table prepared foods. Delicious deli sandwiches, salads, baked goods. Craft beer, wine, and local spirits. Daily 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. 2251 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 253-4034. We are all about the local.

DENTISTRY

STOWE DENTAL ASSOCIATES

Christopher P. Altadonna DDS, and Jeffrey R. McKechnie DMD. (802) 253-7932. stowedentalassociates.com. stowedentist@gmail.com.

STOWE FAMILY DENTISTRY

Creating beautiful smiles for over 40 years. Always welcoming new patients. 1593 Pucker St., Stowe. (802) 253-4157.

DISTILLERIES

GREEN MOUNTAIN DISTILLERY

Vermont’s No. 1 organic distillery. Vodkas, gin, maple liqueur, and small-batch whiskey. 171 Whiskey Run. Route 100 between Stowe and Morrisville; turn on Goeltz Road. (802) 253-0064, greendistillers.com.

SMUGGLERS’ NOTCH DISTILLERY

Come taste our award-winning vodkas, gins, bourbon, rums, maple bourbon, and rye whiskey. Tasting rooms in Jeffersonville, Waterbury Center, and Burlington for samples, sales and more. Daily. (802) 309-3077, smugglersnotchdistillery.com.

E-BIKE TOURS

LAMOILLE VALLEY BIKE TOURS

E-bike, regular and gravel bike rentals for riding the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, 93 miles of car free riding. Unique half-, full-, and multi-day bike tours. New and used e-bike sales and a new rail trail bike shuttle. In Johnson, about 20 minutes from both Stowe and Smugglers’ Notch. lamoillevalleybiketours.com.

EDUCATION & COLLEGES

VERMONT STATE UNIVERSITY

With cross-campus collaborations and hybrid and online options, our students are connected to a network of learning opportunities across the Green Mountains. Beginning July 1. vermontstate.edu.

ENGINEERS

MUMLEY ENGINEERING INC.

Civil engineering services for residential and commercial land development, including subdivisions, site plans, wastewater and water systems, and stormwater management. Permitting for local zoning, state, and Act 250. Contact tyler@mumleyinc.com, (802) 851-8882.

EXCAVATING

DALE E. PERCY, INC.

Excavating contractors, commercial and residential. Earthmoving equipment. Site work, trucking, sand, gravel, soil, sewer, water, drainage systems, and supplies. Snow removal, salting, sanding. Weeks Hill Road. (802) 253-8503.

FARMERS MARKET

STOWE FARMERS MARKET

Every Sunday, May through October, 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Enjoy breakfast, lunch, live music on the field. Take home local produce, meat, cheese, herbal products, crafts, and jewelry. 2043 Mountain Road. stowefarmersmarket.com.

FISHING & HUNTING

FLY ROD SHOP

Vermont’s most experienced guide service. Guided fly fishing, ice fishing and family tours. Weekly taste of Vermont tours. Fly tackle, fly tying supplies, spin and ice fishing tackle. Route 100 South, Stowe. flyrodshop.com, (802) 253-7346.

FLOORING

FLOORING AMERICA

Customize your home with flooring that compliments your space while honoring your style. Choose from our leading collection of hardwood, carpet, tile, laminate, vinyl, and rug selections. Williston, (802) 862-5757, flooringamerica-vt.com.

PLANET HARDWOOD

From our world-class showroom and our warehouse in Saint George, Vt., Planet Hardwood has provided wood flooring for homeowner, corporate, high-rise, chain store, celebrity, and architectural clients throughout North America. (802) 482-4404, planethardwood.com.

FURNITURE

BURLINGTON FURNITURE

From modern and contemporary to classic and Vermont traditional, we are passionate about bringing the perfect style to your home. Sofas, dining, lighting, and rugs—our design team can help you pull your space together. Showroom: 747 Pine St., Burlington. burlingtonfurniture.us, (802) 862-5056.

NOVELLO FURNITURE

The area’s largest selection of beautiful furniture and mattresses, combined with professional home design and decorating services to give your home that special touch. 1021 Route 302, Berlin. (802) 476-7900. novellofurniture.com.

STOWE LIVING

Welcome to your new favorite store. Unique home décor and take-home furniture for the entire home. Gourmet kitchenware, gadgets, specialty foods, bedding, bath, clothing, jewelry, gifts. Ship and deliver. 1813 Mountain Rd. (802) 253-8050. Shop online at stoweliving.net.

GARAGE DOORS

SIMPSON SALES UNLIMITED INC.

For all your garage door needs since 1991. Sales, service, installation, and more. Showroom: 250 Depot St., Hyde Park. (802) 888-3997. simpsonsalesvt@comcast.net. simpsonsalesvt.com.

GENERAL STORE

WILLEY’S STORE

Groceries, hardware, clothing, convenience, deli, fishing supplies, fuel, gifts, kitchen and bath, natural foods. Shipping. Pet supplies, specialty foods, sporting goods, toys and games. Wine and beverages. In scenic Greensboro village.

GIFT & SPECIALTY SHOPS

BLACK CAP COFFEE & BAKERY OF VERMONT

Fun selection of gifts and cards within Stowe’s favorite coffee shop and bakery. A fun place to work, meet, or hang out. Open daily. Stowe Village, Morrisville downtown, Waterbury Train Station. blackcapvermont.com.

THE BODY LOUNGE

A natural body and bath shop with an additionally large selection of whimsical gifts, cards, beautiful artisan jewelry and local art. Red Barn Shops, 1799 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 253-7333. bodyloungevt.com.

BUTTERNUT MOUNTAIN FARM & MARVIN’S COUNTRY STORE

A country store focused on all things maple. Shop a thoughtfully curated selection of celebrated local products including specialty cheeses, honey, jams, Vermont-made products, crafts, and gifts. (800) 899-6349, marvinscountrystore.com.

GREEN MOUNTAIN DRY GOODS

A well-curated collection of Vermont-designed, Vermontmade, Vermont-inspired gifts for all ages. We’re the gateway to your Waterbury-Stowe Road shopping experience. 132 Waterbury-Stowe Road, Waterbury.

MOSS BOUTIQUE

Artist-owned boutique featuring contemporary Vermont oil paintings by Jennifer Hubbard alongside crafts by other independent designers, as well as beautiful and unique home furnishings, decor, gifts, and jewelry. Portland Street, downtown Morrisville. (802) 851-8461, mossboutiquevt.com. More gifts l

S TOWE GUIDE & MAGAZINE BUSINESS DIRECTORY

STOWE MERCANTILE

Fabulous old country store, Vermont specialty foods, penny candy, clothing, bath and body, wine, craft beer and cider, and toys. Play a game of checkers or a tune on our piano. Depot Building, Main Street. (802) 253-4554. stowemercantile.com.

STOWE STREET CAFÉ

Discover our community-oriented cafe featuring local coffee, food, and art, including breakfast, lunch, and weekend brunch. Shop our unique collection of art and gifts made in Vermont and beyond. 29 Stowe St., Waterbury. stowestreetcafe.com.

TANGERINE AND OLIVE

Independent makers from across North America. Clothing, jewelry, letterpress cards and stationery, maple syrup, and inspired gifts for the outdoor lover. Downer Farm Shops, 232 Mountain Road. tangerineandolive.com, (802) 760-6692.

TRAPP FAMILY LODGE GIFT & SPORT SHOPS

Trapp Family Lodge books, music, clothing, and food. Austrian specialty gifts, gourmet products, Vermont-made products, and maple syrup. Visit our two locations or shop online: trappfamily.com. (802) 253-8511. trappfamily.com.

HARDWARE

STOWE HARDWARE

Unique hardware store providing North Country necessities and quality products. Craftsman tools, Cabot stain, complete selection of fasteners, housewares, home-care products. Open 8-4 Monday-Saturday, Sundays 9-3:30 p.m. 430 Mountain Road. Established since 1829. (802) 253-7205.

HEALTH CARE

COPLEY HOSPITAL

Exceptional care. Community focused. 24-hour emergency services, The Women’s Center, Mansfield Orthopaedics, general surgery, cardiology, neurology, diagnostic imaging, laboratory, oncology, pulmonary and sleep disorders, tele-health services, and rehabilitation. Morrisville. (802) 888-8888, copleyvt.org.

LAMOILLE HEALTH FAMILY MEDICINE, STOWE

Providing routine and urgent medical care for all ages. Walk-ins welcome and Saturday hours for your convenience. (802) 253-4853. lamoillehealthpartners.org.

MANSFIELD ORTHOPAEDICS

Orthopaedic surgeons and podiatrists. Comprehensive orthopedic care, sports medicine and foot care. Nicholas Antell, MD; Brian Aros, MD; Ciara Hollister, DPM; John Macy, MD; Joseph McLaughlin, MD; Kevin McNamara, DPM; and Bryan Monier, MD. Morrisville and Waterbury. (802) 888-8405, mansfieldorthopaedics.com.

SANA AT STOWE

Sana guides individuals with substance use disorders through the process of recovery using evidence-based practices combined with impeccable service and compassionate care in a beautiful, serene environment. Call (866) 575-9958 today. sanastowe.health.

HEALTH & FITNESS CLUBS

CURATED PILATES + MOVEMENT

Boutique Pilates studio. Small group classes and private sessions on all Pilates apparatus. Regain ownership over your health and well-being and gain strength, energy, and resilience to pursue your passions. 1880 Mountain Road, Stowe. curatedpilates.com, (802) 304-0480.

ELEVATE MOVEMENT COLLECTIVE

Multi-sport training facility promoting health and wellness through physical education and community engagement. Camps, classes, and open gyms for kids and adults to train parkour, trampoline, climbing, ninja warrior, and much more. Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 585-0579, elevatemovementcollective.com.

THE SWIMMING HOLE

Nonprofit community pool and fitness center. Olympic-sized lap pool, toddler pool, waterslide. Learn-to-swim classes, masters swimming, aqua-aerobics, personal training, group fitness classes, yoga. Memberships, day guests, and dropins. (802) 253-9229, theswimmingholestowe.com.

INNS & RESORTS

FIELD GUIDE LODGE

Field Guide Lodge is a stylish basecamp, centrally located in the heart of downtown Stowe, featuring pet-friendly rooms, an outdoor pool, hot tub, and onsite bar, and tasting room. 433 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 253-8088, larkhotels.com.

SMUGGLERS’ NOTCH RESORT, VERMONT

America’s Family Resort. Mountainside lodging. Award-winning kids’ programs. Zipline tours. Summer: 8 pools, 2 hot tubs, 4 waterslides, disc golf, mountain bike park. Winter: Three interconnected mountains, 2,610 vertical. FunZone 2.0 entertainment complex. (888) 256-7623, smuggs.com/sg.

TÄLTA LODGE, A BLUEBIRD BY LARK

Tälta Lodge is designed with the adventurer in mind. Featuring plenty of gear storage, a pump track, indoor heated pool, outdoor hot tub, yoga room, and sauna. 3343 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 253-7525. bluebirdhotels.com.

TOPNOTCH RESORT

Stowe’s only luxury boutique resort wows with contemporary rooms, suites, one-to-three-bedroom resort homes, an airy bar and restaurant, world-class spa and tennis center, and indoor/outdoor pools. topnotchresort.com.

TRAPP FAMILY LODGE

Mountain resort in the European tradition. 96 rooms and suites, panoramic mountain views and over 28 miles of biking/hiking trails. European-style cuisine, fitness center, shops, climbing wall, yoga, von Trapp family history tours. (800) 826-7000. trappfamily.com.

INSURANCE

HICKOK & BOARDMAN INSURANCE GROUP

Providing superior service and innovative solutions for all your insurance needs. Since 1821. Our history helps to protect your future. 618 S. Main St., Stowe. (802) 253-9707.

STOWE INSURANCE AGENCY, INC.

Stowe’s premier multi-line insurance agency since 1955. Our pricing and service is second to none. Glenn Mink, Teela Leach, Robert Mink, and Renee Davis. (802) 253-4855.

INTERIOR DESIGN

BRENNA B INTERIORS

Our mission is to help transform your space into one you can’t wait to get home to. Bringing client inspirations into functional, comfortable, and beautiful interior design.

Monday to Saturday, 10-5, Sunday, 12-5. 132 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 760-6499, brennabinteriors.com.

DESIGN STUDIO OF STOWE

Creating beautiful interiors from classic to modern with respect to client’s taste, property, budget, deadline. New construction, renovations, and updates to existing spaces. Residential to light commercial projects. Allied Member ASID. 626 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 253-9600. designstudiovt.com.

STOWE LIVING

Complementary interior decorating services offering unique, affordable, hand-curated furniture and décor for your home. Specializing in take-home furniture, bedding, rugs, lighting, cookware. In-home consultations, delivery. 1813 Mountain Rd., Stowe. Book a meeting at design@stoweliving.net. (802) 253-8050.

TINA’S HOME DESIGNS

Hunter Douglas blinds, shades and shutters at discount prices. Draperies, over 1,000 area rugs, stair runners, custom cushions, unique home furnishings. Free measuring, installations, and in-home consultations. 21 Church St., Burlington. (802) 862-6701, tinashomedesigns.com.

JEWELRY

FERRO ESTATE & CUSTOM JEWELERS

Stowe’s premier full-service jeweler since 2006. We specialize in estate jewelry, fine diamonds, custom design, jewelry repair, and appraisals. In-house repair studio. American Gem Society. 91 Main St. (802) 253-3033. ferrojewelers.com. @ferro_jewelers_stowe.

VON BARGEN’S JEWELRY

A second-generation family business with five locations in Vermont and New Hampshire, including a jewelry making studio. Specializing in ideal cut diamonds, fine handmade artisan jewelry, and custom jewelry creation. (802) 253-2942. vonbargens.com.

KITCHENS & BATHS

CLOSE TO HOME

Vermont’s only independent luxury plumbing showroom since 1999. Specializing in bath fixtures as well as architectural hardware. Now under new ownership. Located in the Burlington arts district. 257 Pine Street, Burlington. (802) 861-3200, closetohomevt.com.

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

KNAUF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

We transform landscapes into beautiful outdoor living spaces that ignite the senses and seamlessly connect inside and outside with balance and harmony. Member ASLA. (802) 522-0676. cynthiaknauf.com.

LANDSHAPES

Serving Vermont’s residential and commercial landscapes with design, installations, and property maintenance. Projects include unlimited varieties of stonework, gardens, water features, and installation of San Juan pools and spas. (802) 434-3500. landshapes.net.

SITEFORM STUDIO

Landscape architect who combines an understanding of people, place, and the environment to craft resilient, sitespecific landscapes for projects throughout New England that blend the user, site, architecture, and ecology. Member ASLA. (617) 458-9915, siteformstudio.com.

WAGNER HODGSON LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

The process of uniting program, context, form and materials provides the basis for our work, crafting modern sculptural landscapes expressing the essential inherent beauty of natural materials. (802) 864-0010. wagnerhodgson.com.

LAWYERS

BARR LAW GROUP

Complex litigation and commercial transactions, including class actions, securities litigation, EB-5 fraud, arbitrations, trials, appeals, criminal defense, corporate mergers/acquisitions, Native American/tribal matters, real estate, aviation, personal injury/wrongful death. Licensed in Vermont, New York, and Massachusetts. Offices at 125 Mountain Road, Stowe, (802) 253-6272; 100 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y., (212) 486-3910. barrlaw.com.

DARBY KOLTER & ROBERTS, LLP

General civil practice: commercial and residential, real estate, environmental, estate planning/administration, personal injury and worker’s comp, mediation services, business formation, family law. Stowe: 996 Main St., Unit 1A, (802) 253-7165; Waterbury: 89 S. Main St., (802) 244-7352.

LAJOIE GOLDFINE, LLC

General practice including family law, civil litigation, personal injury, real estate, corporate, estate planning/estate and trust administration. Located in Stowe’s lower village, 638 S. Main St. (802) 760-6480. lglawvt.com.

OLSON & SEABOLT, PLC

General law practice: commercial and residential real estate, business representation (formation, maintenance, and asset purchases/sales), estate planning and LGBTQ matters. 188 S. Main St., Stowe. (802) 253-7810, olsonplc.net.

STACKPOLE AND FRENCH

Litigation: plaintiff and defendant representation, real estate, timeshares, corporate, utility, trust and estate planning and administration, probate, and general counsel services. Offices in Stowe, Jeffersonville, Waterbury, and Shelburne. (802) 253-7339. stackpolefrench.com.

MARKETS

THE BUTCHERY

Butcher shop, fishmonger, fromagerie, sourcing prime beef, all-natural pork, free-range chicken and game, domestic and international sauces and spices. Artisan sandwiches, housemade soups, prepared foods. Catering, concierge services. 504 Mountain Rd., Stowe. (802) 253-1444. butcheryvt.com.

COMMODITIES NATURAL MARKET

Best market 2015-2019. One-stop grocery shopping featuring organic produce, groceries, artisanal cheeses, bread, local meats, craft beer and wine, bulk, gluten-free, wellness, CBD products. Open daily. (802) 253-4464. commoditiesnaturalmarket.com.

MASSAGE & BODYWORK

BRAD HIGHBERGER, LMT, RCST

Specializing in chronic pain and injuries. Twenty-five plus years of experience working with neuromuscular therapy, myofascial release, and biodynamic cranio-sacral therapy in Stowe. vtpaintreatment.com. (802) 730-4955.

KATE GRAVES, CMT, BHS

Relaxation, deep tissue, moist heat, facilitated stretching, IASTM, crystal singing bowls, Thai, energy work (Brennan Healing Science graduate 2000). In practice over 35 years. Competitive rates. Stowe Yoga Center, 515 Moscow Rd. stoweyoga.com. kgravesmt@gmail.com, (802) 253-8427.

TRAPP FAMILY LODGE FITNESS CENTER

Massage therapists use a blend of techniques including Swedish, deep tissue, acupressure, and Shiatsu. Other treatments include reflexology, salt glows, and hot stone therapy. Appointments available daily. trappfamily.com.

MATTRESSES

BURLINGTON MATTRESS

Restorative sleep is crucial for your health and well-being. Visit our store and talk to our sleep experts for guidance to a more restful night of sleep. Your wellness journey starts here. Visit us at 747 Pine St., Burlington. (802) 862-5056. burlingtonmattress.us.

MULTI-SPECIALTY CLINIC

ADAM KUNIN, MD AND MICHAEL HAYES, MD, CARDIOLOGISTS

Personalized cardiac care. Board-certified in cardiology, nuclear cardiology and internal medicine. Providing general cardiology, advanced cardiac tests, and imaging. Morrisville. (802) 888-8344. copleyvt.org.

DONALD DUPUIS, MD; COURTNEY OLMSTED, MD; AND SARAH WATERMAN MD, GENERAL SURGEONS

Board-certified general surgeons. Specializing in advanced laparoscopic procedures. Providing a wide spectrum of inpatient and outpatient surgical care with a special interest in breast health. Morrisville. (802) 888-8372. copleyvt.org.

JEANMARIE PRUNTY, MD, NEUROLOGY

Board-certified through the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Dr. Prunty offers comprehensive, compassionate care for patients with neurological disorders and diseases. Morrisville. (802) 888-8260.

THE WOMEN’S CENTER (OB/GYN)

Board-certified specialist William Ellis, MD, and certified nurse midwives Kipp Bovey, Mary Lou Kopas, Erinn Mandeville and April Vanderveer. Specialists in women’s health. Comprehensive gynecological care and obstetrics. Morrisville. (802) 888-8100, copleyvt.org.

NURSERIES

SUMMERSWEET GARDENS AT PERENNIAL PLEASURES NURSERY

Stroll through beautiful display gardens, shop for flowers and herbs. Enjoy English cream tea in the tea room, browse for hats in the gift shop. Free Sunday garden tours at 1 p.m. East Hardwick. (802) 472-5104. summersweetgardens.com.

PERSONAL CHEF

SWEET & SAVORY PERSONAL CHEF SERVICES

Sweet & Savory’s goal is to prepare and deliver high-quality, healthy, and delicious meals to locals and visiting out-oftowners. Personal chef services, weekly meals, catering for all occasions. Easier than takeout. (802) 730-2792, sweetsavorystowe.com.

PHYSICAL THERAPY

COPLEY REHABILITATION SERVICES

Therapies include physical, occupational, hand, speech, aquatic, pediatric, cardiac, and pulmonary, work conditioning, brain injury program, and other comprehensive rehab services. Clinics in Hardwick and Morrisville (Tamarack Family Medicine and Copley Hospital). (802) 888-8303, copleyvt.org.

PINNACLE PHYSICAL THERAPY

Skilled physical therapy for orthopedic and neuromuscular conditions, sports, family wellness, pre- and post-surgery. Personal, professional care. 1878 Mountain Road, Stowe. Appointment within 24 hours. Monday to Friday. info@pinnacleptvermont.com, pinnacleptvermont.com, or (802) 253-2273.

PHYSICIANS

VERMONT REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

Regenexx clinic offering non-surgical procedures using a patient’s own cells for treatment of joint, tendon, and ligament problems, instead of surgery. Board-certified and fellowship-trained physicians. Winooski, Vt. (802) 859-0000, vermontregenerativemedicine.com..

PICTURE FRAMING

AXEL’S FRAME SHOP & GALLERY

Offering art sourcing services and custom picture framing for 40 years within a contemporary art gallery in the heart of downtown Waterbury. Free design advice coupled with incredible customer service. (802) 244-7801. axelsgallery.com.

PRINTING

THE UPS STORE

From blueprints and banners to business cards and brochures, we print it. Shipping, scanning, and every other business service you can think of, we are your locally owned business partner. 998 S. Main St., Stowe. (802) 253-2233.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

RURAL RESOURCES

Comprehensive property and household management services. Full-service professional management team specializing in the details of preserving your investment. Concierge/ housekeeping, vendor management, design/remodels, much more. (802) 253-9496, admin@ruralresourcesvt.com.

REAL ESTATE & RENTALS

COLDWELL BANKER CARLSON REAL ESTATE

Real estate services representing Stowe and surrounding communities. Our talented team leads the industry in technology, innovation, and expertise. Located at 91 Main St., Stowe (802) 253-7358, and 74 Portland St., Morrisville, (802) 521-7962. cbcarlsonrealestate.com.

ELEMENT REAL ESTATE

Element Real Estate is a boutique firm out to transform the real estate experience from one of sales to one of service, one transaction at a time. Please visit us on Stowe’s Mountain Road, at realestatevt.com, or call us at (802) 253-1553.

FOUR SEASONS SOTHEBY’S INT’L REALTY

Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty strives every day to exceed our clients’ expectations. To learn how we can put the power of our brand to work for you, visit us at fourseasonssir.com or (802) 253-7267.

LANDVEST

LandVest, an exclusive Christie’s International Real Estate affiliate, is a leading provider of real estate services to clients in Vermont and beyond. Discover the LandVest difference: (802) 318-6034, mkauffman@landvest.com.

LOVE2LIVEINVT TEAM

Award-winning Realtors passionate about VT. Helping buyers open doors to the Vermont lifestyle and guiding sellers every step of the way. Let us help you navigate the market with ease. love2liveinvt.com. Brooke, (802) 696-2251, and Karen, (802) 793-2454.

RED BARN REALTY OF VERMONT

An office of dynamic professionals, each with a unique love of Vermont. We look forward to helping you fulfill your real estate sales and rental needs. 394 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 253-4994. redbarnvt.com. More real estate l

S TOWE GUIDE & MAGAZINE BUSINESS DIRECTORY

STOWE COUNTRY HOMES

Locally owned and operated, we offer a curated collection of short-term and seasonal rental homes, unique for their individual character, each home is privately owned, immaculately maintained, and well-stocked. (802) 253-8132, stowecountryhomes.com, info@stowecountryhomes.com.

STOWE RESORT HOMES

Luxury vacation homes for the savvy traveler. Book some of Stowe’s best resort homes—online. Well-appointed, tastefully decorated homes at Topnotch, Spruce Peak, and throughout Stowe. (802) 760-1157. stoweresorthomes.com.

RESTAURANTS & NIGHTCLUBS

ALFIE’S WILD RIDE

Full bar. 24 taps. Authentic Mexican street food. Live music. 150-foot projection screen. 22-foot shuffle puck. Darts. Cornhole. Arcade. Indoor-outdoor. 8,200 square feet. Après every day. 942 Mountain Rd., Stowe.

ALLADIN

A taste of the Middle East. Sourcing traditional and original recipe to create the most diverse and authentic vegetarian dishes. A cuisine Stowe has been longing for. 1880 Mountain Road. aladdinstowevt.com. (802) 760-6383.

BENCH

Unique to Stowe, wood-fired comfort food including pizza. Local ingredients in a relaxed, rustic modern Vermont atmosphere. Enjoy après ski or dinner with family and friends. 28 taps, craft beer, cocktails, and extensive wine list. Daily. 492 Mountain Rd., Stowe. benchvt.com or (802) 253-5100.

BLACK CAP COFFEE & BAKERY OF VERMONT

Serving breakfast and lunch. Breakfast burritos and sandwiches, quiches, lunch sandwiches. Gluten-free/vegan options. A fun place to work, meet, or hang out. Open daily. Stowe and Morrisville downtowns, Waterbury Train Station. blackcapvermont.com.

BLACK DIAMOND BARBEQUE

Black Diamond Barbeque is located just five miles from Stowe, outdoor dining, craft beer and cocktails. Thursday through Saturday. blackdiamondbarbeque.com, (802) 888-2275.

HARRISON’S RESTAURANT

Located in historic Stowe Village serving elevated takes on American dishes with wine, craft beers ,and cocktails in a unique, parlor-like space. Patio dining in summer and fall. Reservations accepted. (802) 253-7773, harrisonsstowe.com.

IDLETYME BREWING COMPANY

Small-batch craft lagers and ales. Lunch and dinner daily from 11:30 a.m. Innovative cocktails, extensive wine list, family friendly, fireplace dining. Outdoor patio. Perfect for special events. Beer to go. 1859 Mountain Road, Stowe. (802) 253-4765, idletymebrewing.com.

MICHAEL’S ON THE HILL

Enjoy the ultimate Vermont dining experience in a relaxed, warm atmosphere with spectacular views from our 1820 farmhouse. Award-winning, Swiss chef-owned, events. Wine spectator award. Dinner from 5-9 p.m. Closed Tuesdays. 5 minutes from Stowe. Route 100, Waterbury Center. (802) 244-7476. michaelsonthehill.com.

PIECASSO PIZZERIA & LOUNGE

New York-style pizza, eclectic music, great vibes. A local favorite. Creative entrees, craft beer, gluten-free menu, online ordering, takeout, delivery. (802) 253-4411, piecasso.com.

THE RESERVOIR RESTAURANT

In the heart of downtown Waterbury. We specialize in local Vermont based comfort food and some of the best beers available. Private second floor events space for up to 50 people. Dinner daily, lunch Saturday and Sunday. (802) 244-7827, waterburyreservoir.com.

THE ROOST AT TOPNOTCH RESORT

The Roost has long been one of Stowe’s best tables— whether inside or fireside—where the local food and drinks are as inspiring as our views of Mt. Mansfield. topnotchresort.com.

ROUND HEARTH CAFÉ & MARKETPLACE

Breakfast and lunch daily, with shopping while you wait. Check seasonal hours at roundhearth.com. Located at 39 Edson Hill Road, Stowe. (802) 253-7223.

THE SKINNY PANCAKE

Locally sourced sweet and savory crepes, coffee and espresso, burgers, beer and wine. Takeout and dine-in. 454 Mountain Road, Stowe. skinnypancake.com.

STOWE CIDER

Stowe Cider is excited to celebrate its 10th year in business with the opening of a newly expanded, family friendly taproom, event space, and kitchen on Mountain Road. (802) 253-2065, stowecider.com.

10 RAILROAD STREET

10 Railroad Street offers the hungry traveler American comfort food and drink with a twist. Morrisville, 10railroadstreet.com, (802) 888-2277.

TRAPP FAMILY LODGE KAFFEEHAUS

Offering a variety of European pastries, soups, salads, sandwiches, wine, and our von Trapp lagers. Open daily. For hours call (800) 826-7000. trappfamily.com.

TRAPP FAMILY LODGE—LOUNGE & DINING ROOM

Our dining room offers seasonal menus for breakfast and dinner reflecting both Austrian and Vermont traditions, featuring farm-to-table cuisine. Lounge has great seasonal lunch offerings. Daily. Reservations: (802) 253-5733. trappfamily.com.

TWO SONS BAKEHOUSE

Hyde Park location offers a carefully crafted breakfast and brunch menu from local farms and ingredients. Fresh bread and pastries available daily, specialty orders welcome upon request. 246 Main St., Hyde Park. twosonsbakehouse.com. (802) 851-8414.

RETIREMENT COMMUNITY

WAKE ROBIN

A vibrant non-profit life-care community located on 136 acres just south of Burlington in Shelburne. Residents enjoy independent living in cottages and apartments and comprehensive, on-site health care for life. wakerobin.com, (802) 264-5100.

THE WOODLANDS AT STOWE

Come home to Stowe, where retirement living is easy. Spacious condos, fine dining, activities. Available for adults 55+. The Woodlands at Stowe, 125 Thomas Lane, Stowe. (802) 253-7200. copleywoodlands.com.

SHOE STORES

WELL HEELED

Unique collection of shoes, boots, handbags, belts, clothing, and jewelry in a chicly updated Vermont farmhouse halfway up Stowe’s Mountain Road. Shoes are our specialty and effortlessly chic our motto. Daily 11 to 5 and private appointments. Insta: wellheeledstowe. (802) 253-6077, wellheeledstowe.com.

SPA

TOPNOTCH RESORT

Bring mind, body, and soul into better balance. Enjoy fitness classes, a selection of over 100 treatments, indoor/outdoor pools with a cascading waterfall, and men’s and women’s lounges. Memberships. Mountain Road, Stowe. topnotchresort.com.

SPECIAL ATTRACTIONS

ARBORTREK CANOPY ADVENTURES

AT SMUGGLERS’ NOTCH

Family-friendly, treetop adventures including an award-winning zip line canopy tour, treetop obstacle course, and climbing adventure. Adventures from serene to extreme. Ages 4 and up; Good to moderate health. Reservations recommended. (802) 644-9300. arbortrek.com.

BRAGG FARM SUGARHOUSE & GIFTS

8th generation sugarhouse, using traditional sugaring methods. Free daily tours and tastings, walk the maple trail. World’s best maple creemees, farm animals, large gift shop, mail order. 1005 Route 14N, East Montpelier. (802) 223-5757, (800) 376-5757.

CHURCH STREET MARKETPLACE

“America’s No. 1 Best Public Square,” USA Today 2022. Explore 100-plus local shops and restaurants, enjoy live music, and feel the magic of the Marketplace—the heart of Burlington, Vt. churchstmarketplace.com.

LAUGHING MOON CHOCOLATES

Handmade chocolates and specialties in the heart of Stowe Village. Laughing Moon Chocolates is located at 78 South Main St., Stowe Village. (802) 253-9591. laughingmoonchocolates.com.

LITTLE RIVER HOTGLASS STUDIO

Walk into the studio and experience the art of glassblowing up close. Adjacent gallery features work of resident artist Michael Trimpol. Thursday to Monday 10-5. (802) 253-0889. littleriverhotglass.com.

MONTPELIER ALIVE

American’s No. 1 small town for shopping is just a half an hour’s drive from Stowe village. Visit downtown Montpelier and experience the joy of shopping. Exit 8 off Interstate 89.

SPRUCE PEAK PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

The Stowe region’s premier, year-round presenter of music, theater, dance, film, education, and family programs on stage, on screen, and across the community. Visit sprucepeakarts.org for information. (802) 760-4634.

SPRUCE PEAK SUMMER CONCERT SERIES

June 29, July 8, July 27, August 12, and August 30. Celebrate the summer with amazing music by world-class artists in a magical outdoor setting. At Spruce Peak at Stowe. sprucepeak.com.

STOWE HISTORICAL SOCIETY & MUSEUM

Preserving Stowe’s rich history. Museum at the West Branch and Bloody Brook Schoolhouses, next to Stowe Library. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, 1-4 p.m., and when the flags are out. (802) 253-1518. stowehistoricalsociety.org, info@stowehistoricalsociety.org.

STOWE PERFORMING ARTS

Great music in beautiful settings. Classical, jazz, Americana, orchestral, vocal, country, and chamber music. Music in the Meadow and Noon Music in May, May through October. stoweperformingarts.com.

STOWE VIBRANCY

Dedicated to boosting social, recreational, and cultural activities in Stowe Village, this non-profit also produces four signature events annually: Old Fashioned 4th of July, Art on Park, British Invasion Block Party and Traditional Christmas in Stowe. stowevibrancy.com.

A TASTE OF NEW ENGLAND

August 24-27: The region’s best chefs come together for a weekend of amazing food, world-class wines and spirits, camaraderie, and more. At Spruce Peak at Stowe. sprucepeak.com.

VERMONT GRANITE MUSEUM

Explore history, art, science, technology, and people of Vermont’s granite industry. Create a clay sculpture, climbing wall, pedal cars to explore the grounds. May to October, Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 7 Jones Brothers Way, Barre. (802) 476-4605. vtgranitemuseum.org.

SPECIALTY FOODS

LAKE CHAMPLAIN CHOCOLATES

What the New York Times calls “some of the best chocolate in the country.” Made from fair-trade certified chocolate, Vermont cream, honey, maple syrup. Caramels, truffles, clusters, ice cream, factory seconds. (802) 241-4150. lakechamplainchocolates.com.

SPORTING GOODS

UMIAK OUTDOOR OUTFITTERS

Let the adventure begin with Umiak. Offering kayaks, canoes, and SUPs for purchase or rent. If you’ve never paddled before, join our staff for a lesson or demo boats at our store. 849 S. Main St., Stowe. (802) 253-2317, umiak.com.

TENNIS

TOPNOTCH RESORT

Vermont’s premier tennis resort featuring over 30 tennis and pickleball programs perfect for aficionados, beginners, the young and young at heart. Six seasonal outdoor and four indoor hard courts, as well as a USPTA-certified international staff. Mountain Road, Stowe. topnotchresort.com.

TOYS & GAMES

ONCE UPON A TIME TOYS

Make every day a play day with our amazing Airfort®. Test your agility on a ninjaline. Traditional toys like Lego® to eclectic ones like loveable monsters. Vermont’s most exciting store for 46 years. Birthday? Get a free balloon. (802) 253-8319, fun@stowetoys.com, stowetoys.com.

TOURS & TOUR OPERATORS

SAVOR VERMONT

Savor Vermont brings guests around to taste the region’s best beers, hard ciders, wines, spirits, and foods. We take you from one tasting to another or sightseeing to the area’s waterfalls, covered bridges, and more. (802) 917-6656, info@savorvermonttours.com.

WEDDING FACILITIES

EDSON HILL

Edson Hill offers you private weekend access to a picturesque 38-acre estate, 22 elegant guestrooms, and a talented culinary team to help create the wedding of your dreams. edsonhill.com, (802) 253-7371.

STOWE COMMUNITY CHURCH

The iconic church on Stowe’s Main Street is multi-denominational, inclusive, and welcoming. Services are held every Sunday at 9:30 a.m., in person and livestreamed, and the building is home to many public and private events, including weddings. Please join us. stowecommunitychurch.org or (802) 253-7257.

TRAPP FAMILY LODGE

From intimate ceremonies in our lodge to grand receptions under a tent with spectacular mountain views, we tailor to individual tastes and budgets. European-style cuisine and accommodations. (800) 826-7000. trappfamily.com.

WINE, BEER, & SPIRITS

DEDALUS

Dedalus is the best place to discover great wines made by real people, delicious cheeses, charcuterie, tinned fish, and more to pair with them. Come in and experience what one of the best wine shops in the U.S.A. can do for you. 1031 Mountain Road, Stowe. dedaluswine.com.

FINE WINE CELLARS

Fantastic wine selections from around the world. Great prices. From the rare to the exceptional value. Under $10$100-plus. We’re nuts about wine. Please see our ad on page 2. (802) 253-2630. finewinecellars.us.

STOWE BEVERAGE

Full-service wine, beer, liquor, mixers, snacks. Stowe’s best wine and beer selection. Best price in town on Vermont maple syrup. Cigars. Free local paper with wine purchases. Monday through Saturday 10-7; Sunday 11-6. (802) 253-4525.

STOWE PUBLIC HOUSE

Over 700 craft beers, cider, mead, and wine. Mix and match in any quantity. Curated selection of Vermont cheeses and specialty foods. Bar open daily. 109 Main St., Stowe. (802) 585-5785, stowepublichouse.com.

YARN

YARN

Yarn offers a wide selection of yarns from near and far as well as needles, accessories, gifts, inspiration, classes, and a friendly fiber community. 80 S. Main St., Suite 3, Waterbury. (802) 241-2244. yarnvt.com.

YOGA

PEAK YOGA

Peak Yoga classes help to build strength in body and mind. We provide grounding and uplifting classes for all levels in our beautiful and bright Stowe studio. Located in The Swimming Hole, 75 Weeks Hill Road, Stowe. Book a class at peakyogastowe.com. Follow us on Instagram: @peakyogastowe.

STOWE YOGA CENTER

Practice in a beautiful space with natural light and high ceilings. Beginner friendly, weekly schedule online. Specials: Stowe sound immersion, chakra art, prenatal, chair yoga, meditation. Privates available. Kate Graves, 515 Moscow Rd. kgravesmt@gmail.com, (802) 253-8427, stoweyoga.com.

HOUSES OF WORSHIP

Cambridge Christian Fellowship, Main St., (802) 335-2084

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Johnson, 635-2009

Church of the Nazarene, Johnson, 635-2988

Elmore United Methodist Church, Elmore, 888-7890

First Congregational Church of Christ, Morrisville, 888-2225

Grace Bible Church, Stowe, 585-3343

Grace Brethren, Morrisville, 888-3339

Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jeffersonville, 644-5322; Morrisville, 888-5610

Living Hope Wesleyan Church, Waterbury Center, 244-6345

Morrisville Baptist Church, 888-5276

Most Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church, Morrisville, 888-3318

New Beginning Miracle Fellowship, Morrisville, 888-4730

United Community Church of Morrisville, 888-2225

Second Congregational Church, Hyde Park, 888-3636; Jeffersonville, 644-5533

Seventh-Day Adventist, Morrisville, 888-7884

St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Cambridge, 644-1909

Trinity Assembly of God, Hyde Park, 888-7326

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Stowe, (617) 835-5425

United Church of Johnson, 635-7249

Waterbury Alliance Church, 244-6463

Wesley United Methodist Church, Waterbury, 244-6677

Wolcott Mennonite Church, 888-5774

See more, page 218