Bruce Batchelder was a child when his parents moved from Island Pond to the Champlain Islands. Vermont ice fishing is a big deal in the islands, where the land is flat and surrounded by Lake Champlain. For Batchelder, ice fishing has been an essential part...
Erica and Ed McClain are working toward their dreams one doughnut at a time. The couple runs Hangry The Donut Bar, a drop-off and pop-up doughnut business based in St. Albans that opened last year. “When I got out of high school, I thought I would go to...
Deep in the woods of Brandon Gap, Angus McCusker skis the backcountry and feels right at home. McCusker, a co-founder and executive director of the Rochester & Randolph Area Sports Trail Alliance (RASTA), skis over 100 days a year. Many of those days are spent in the...
Kate McCabe’s love for maple sugaring began when she was a child growing up in New Hampshire. Her neighbors were hobby sugarmakers in the town of Moultonborough near Lake Winnipesaukee. Whenever the steam was billowing from the sugarhouse, nine-year-old Kate would walk over after school for a Dixie...
Mike Snyder is the go-to guy for Vermont fall foliage updates. As commissioner of Forests, Parks, and Recreation, Snyder is known as Vermont’s Chief Foliage Forecaster. He provides weekly foliage reports to the media and the state tourism office in September and October. Last week, Snyder hiked...
Susan Shashok can be found pedaling her cargo e-bike around town delivering jars of Caroline's Dream skin cream or tubes of lip balm to customers. Shashok, of East Middlebury, is the owner of Caroline’s Dream, a handcrafted skincare company she runs out of her home on...
Charlie Emers never planned on becoming a baker. The owner of Patchwork Farm & Bakery in East Hardwick grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. After relocating to Vermont three decades ago, his career path took a circuitous route from lamp maker to vegetable farmer to bread baker. Emers...
Beth Kennett welcomed her first overnight guests to Liberty Hill Farm in 1984. Back then, hosting visitors was a way for Beth and her husband, Bob, to start to diversify their income as farmers. Ever since, families and couples from the Netherlands, Italy, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada,...
Along a dirt road in Huntington next to Fargo Brook is where Todd Cummings lives, works and breathes inspiration. On his five-acre lot on East Street, where he shares a home with his wife and where the couple raised their two sons, it’s easy to see...
Ana Fernandez came to Vermont on a whim last year when a friend told her about a job opening at Nebraska Knoll Sugar Farm in Stowe. The Michigan native is now spending her second season sugaring at the farm, spending her days (and nights) boiling sap, changing the...
