Champlain's heritage draws tourism debate

Vermont Business Magazine, Mar 01, 2000 by Barna, Ed

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Lake Champlain was the superhighway for the region that now includes Vermont, New York and Quebec. Military campaigns in particular followed the same waterways that Native Americans had used for centuries.

In the 19th century, Lake Champlain's role as a connector continued, briefly for military purposes in the War of 1812 (with one climactic battle being fought on the water between Vergennes and Plattsburgh), but mainly for commerce. This was the era when interlocking directorates controlled an iron industry that crossed the lake both for production and sales purposes, when wool from Vermont's Merino sheep traveled southward through the Champlain Canal and northward through the Chambly Canal, and when Burlington was for a time the world's third most active lumber port.

In the 20th century, this sense of Lake Champlain as a connector faded, and as often as not the lake was perceived as a border or barrier. But as that century ended and new one began, a movement to reconnect began in all three regions bordering the lake.

The Lake Champlain Basin Program, from the start of the 1990s, has focused mainly on environmental issues, notably toxic and nutrient (eg, phosphorus) pollution, though with recreational and preservationist agendas as well. The Lake Champlain Byways Program, started in 1992 in New York and 1997 for the region, has helped several regions identify recreational and cultural resources that could be promoted more effectively to visitors.

Now, Senator James Jeffords has set in motion a process to consider whether the region should receive formal federal designation as a Heritage Corridor, similar to other historic regions in New England and around the country. Advocates of this approach say it would not only help coordinate promotion of the region's attractions, but would also bring federal funding from the Department of the Interior (via the National Park Service) and could leverage other federal spending.

"Where a goat can go, a man can go; and where a man can go, a cannon can go," said a British general, watching through his telescope Mount Defiance (as it was later named), the height from which there is a commanding view of Port Ticonderoga below, Mount Independence across the lake, and Vermont's Champlain Valley. Where military forces have gone, tourists follow, and a National Park Service study has suggested that as many as 70,000 more of them would come if the unique historic value of the areas on all sides of the lake were given better interpretation and promotion.

But Jeffords' suggestion has proven controversial, especially in upper New York State. There, bitter memories of how the state Adirondack Parks Agency has choked off development and growth have set most of relatively impoverished Clinton -and Essex Counties against the idea of having another bureaucracy protect and preserve them.

How, ask the critics, would localities come up with the 50:50 match envisioned in the NPS approach to promoting the region? How would tourist infrastructure that is already strained, especially in upper New York, meet such a surge in demand? And would it be worth 10 years of federal funding to have federal controls permanently in place?

But official federal designation as a Heritage Corridor is not the only option for coordinating the area's attractions. A counter-plan being drafted in New York, which would focus on economic development rather than preservation and which would include an 80:20 federal/state/local/private match, has already created interest on both sides of the lake.

Perhaps just as importantly, Jeffords has acted as a catalyst for the development of contacts and networking that seem to have a life of their own beyond the Park Service concept. Increasingly, the Basin, Byways and Corridor projects are linking up, along with efforts to create business organizations and visitor opportunities in the region.

THE SPECIAL RESOURCE STUDY

The current process of gathering public input on the Park Service's study had it origins in Jeffords' attempt in 1995 to put through S1225, the Champlain Valley Heritage Corridor Inventory Act. Though it didn't win Congressional approval, it did get support from the Clinton administration during negotiations over the Omnibus Parks and P ubl ic Lands Management Act of 1996.

At the end of the 1997 fiscal year, the Parks Service made funds available for administration of the study, and the Parks Service Boston Support Office began the project. The 141-page 1999 study report, recently released, states in its overview that "The purpose is not to convince Congress or Champlain Valley, residents that a heritage corridor or some other option should be pursued. Rather, it is to provide Congress and interested citizens with the information they need to consider what role the National Parks Service should have in shaping the future of the Champlain Valley heritage resources."

The study area included five counties in New York (Saratoga, Warren, Washington, Clinton and Essex) and five in Vermont (Rutland, Addison, Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle). At a public forum on the study in Middlebury, Bennington publisher and historic preservation activist Tordis Isselhardt objected that leaving out Bennington County, which played such a role in the conflicts of New York and Vermont and in stopping a British invasion, was a major omission. Parks Service consultant Philip Huffman and Jeffords aide Thomas Berry pointed out that the final Corridor boundaries, legislatively designated, would not necessarily follow those of the study.