A few times a year, offerings of tobacco are left on the rock so that Odziozo can have a good smoke while he takes in the rolling ridge of the Green Mountains to the east, or the rising sun as it glints off the lake to the west and sets the Adirondack mountains ablaze. Today, long after the Abnaki lost their ancestral land, the valley has been transformed. The lush forests of pine and maple have been logged and replaced by counterpane fields of cropland and pastures, which are now being criss-crossed by paved roads and overtaken by sprawling suburbia. While it was the seemingly limitless amounts of fertile soil and the potential to create acre after acre of open pasture which first attracted farmers to the valley, it is the sweeping vistas which today beckon the new wave of settlers to Vermont. But as houses and cars proliferate, the open land that drew them dwindles.
New houses crowd the hilltops and swarm on ridgelines.
Not to mention, of course, the animals who find refuge from the roar of sport utility vehicles and the crunch and grind of bulldozers in the shelter of protected marshes, hills and trees. Sensing the imminent loss of the rolling fields and scattered stands of trees which form the traditional Vermont landscape, Rockefeller became determined to acquire some of what land remained undeveloped on the southern outskirts of the city. Although the fund owns land in Charlotte on either side of Route 7, so far only the western half has been designated a park. While the purchase and preservation of this parcel has protected a significant section of the spectacular view of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks available from Route 7, the town has taken further steps to make the land accessible to pedestrians. To reach this enclave of non-development, travel north on Route 7.