Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1902-08-01
BEAUTIFUL LAKE CHAMPLAIN.
Julian Ralph Writes of Its Attractions The Islands Soor
be the Site of Summer Hotels
Villas and Cottages.

New York, July 22.-I was never |
more impressed by a promise of a
brilliant future than in making a
voyage from end to end of Lake
Champlain, says Julian Ralph in The
Times. He continues: 1t is never
safe to draw bold conclusions about
a matter with which one is but
slightly acquainted, yet this mighty
and beautiful lake appears to have
passed its days of extreme useful
ness as a national highway without
having come to it's supreme glory as
a seat of summer and pleasure life.
The water caravans of commerce
are still to be seen, like islands of
boats by day. like lighted towns
afloat at night, yet they count for lit
tie more than do the abandoned and
| broken-down forts of the French and
English epochs-mere reminders of
what has been. The promise for the
| future is read in the mansions and
villas. and the summer anneXes of
| the old towns seen through the foil
| age and against the mountain sides.
They are nearly all on the wrong side
of the lake at present-on the New
York side-staring across the lake
at the fiat but rich farms of Vermont.
In time there will be thousands up
on thousands of homes where those
farms meet the lakes edge, for it is
as seen from the Vermont side that
Lake Champlain presents its real
beauty and grandeur, because the
view from Vermont is view of the
green hills and purple and black
mountains of the Adirondack ranges.
Then, again, it is on the eastern shore
than GOODNESS dwells in constant
breezes.
The tide of summer folk into the
north woods has been the rush of
a great army, and its camp followers
and stragglers are these people who
have gone no further than the great
lake and there have built themselves
homes or taken summer board in the
waterside hotels.
For those who need the informa-
ton. it may be mentioned that this
water. which was a scene of white
mans activity before the first pill
grims saw Plymouth Rock, is about
1870 miles long. or nearly as long as
the Hudson between New York and
Albany. But in It's volume of water
it would make many Hudsons, for it
possesses one great reach that is
twelve miles in length, while as far
down as Ticonderoga it is threequar-
tiers of a mile wide. And it contains
depths of hundreds of feet in places.
There are three large islands at
the northern end of the lake-Grand
Isle, North Hero, and Isle La MGt,o.
The first two have been connected
with Vermont and with civilization
by a stone causeway which is the
main line of new railway connect
ing New York with Montreal. This
massive stone road causes the trains
to seem to leap from the shore above
| Burlington into the fresh-water sea-
and thus to make their way, like
some new-fangled, swift torpedo
boats. over to these islands. which
up to this time have been seen upon
the maps, but trod by very few tour
lists. They are very beautiful is
| lands of great extent and rising high
above the lake with deeply indented
and wooded shores, affording small
harbors and hotel and cottage sites
in scores, and of an atLractiveness
not easily matched even upon this ma
jestic lake.
| went to these islands eagerly eX-
pecting to find them coloniZed by
French Canadians who had been so
long isolated as to preserve the hab-
its and manners of the ancient Bre-
tons in a great deal purer form than
their brethren under the British flag.
In this | was disappointed. Even up
On Grand Isle there are only sufficient
French to support a small church,
and they are very scattered. The WIS.,
itor therefore is obliged to content
himself with the sight and pleasures
of very rich farming regions, with a
few hamlets here and there. peopled
by the old Yankee families, the new
err but abundant Irish, who overrun
Vermont, and but few "habitants."
An Impending Change.
1t is a certainty that these islands,
like the lake in which they lie, are
about to change their character. They
have been the seat of a none-tOo-re-
munerative farming industry, but the
waterside acres, the bluffs, and the
promintories are soon to be the sites
of summer hotels, summer villas, and
summer settlements. The camper
is the pioneer in such movements.
Just as the missionary used TO roam
far in the vanguard of civilization, to-
day the camper seeks places for his
tents far North in the forests of Can
ada and on our own country's bor-
ders, and here on these beautiful is
lands his tents already CLEAN among
the trees and his canoes rock in the
diminutive harbors.
He has found that from one shore
of these islands he sees the man.
moths of the Green mountains clad
with a green fur of trees, from the
other shore he looks out upon the
purple ranges of the Adirondacks,
while from the higher ground he
sees both the mountains of New Eng.
land and New York and breathes air
than which there can be none purer,
perhaps. on earth. 1t is an atmos-
phere of the blended breathings of
) an inland crystal sea, of a wilder