By Lindsay Warner
As a kid, I spent hours paddling my grandparents’ canoe around the small pond in their backyard in Eastern New York. They had more than 150 acres of rolling pastures and deep, old-growth woods that I loved walking and cross-country skiing through, but it was the pond—a little murky, often occupied by a territorial flock of geese—that I loved most.
My boat of choice was an old green canoe that left streaks of chalky moss-colored paint on everything it touched. I’d launch from a little patch of sand that we called the beach, sometimes coaxing our affable black Lab to act as second mate. (Once I even convinced my grandparents’ water-loving cat to join me, although she bailed before we got beyond the shallows.) Mostly though, it was just me, paddling around in circles for hours on end.
But after my grandparents moved to Pennsylvania, I didn’t touch a canoe for decades. So when my husband Chris and I got the opportunity to take a two-hour guided tour with Vermont Canoe & Kayak through Spruce Peak Outfitters, we jumped on it.
Vermont Canoe & Kayak is headquartered on Route 15 in Jeffersonville, right on the Lamoille River. Hundreds of watercraft are stacked neatly on racks and in rows on the grass outside a large post-and-beam pavilion when we arrive, and I identify canoes, kayaks, and stand-up paddleboards. A red Old Town canoe that’s no doubt retired from the fleet has been turned into a flower box overflowing with fall blooms: red, purple, and rust-colored zinnias and marigolds, as well as trails of cheery yellow nasturtium. Each seems to be reveling in the mid-September sunshine that makes me instantly regret forgetting my sunscreen as we sign waivers and gather paddles and life jackets. Our trip is one of the last few before they close up for the season on September 15, but today’s sunshine makes it feel more like late August.
Vermont, like many states, recognizes the concept of the public trust doctrine, which gives people the right to use the water for recreational purposes. However, most rivers flow through private land, which means that we need to drive to a public access point to unload our canoes from the trailer and carry them down to the sandy shore where we’ll launch, four and a half miles above headquarters. That means our entire trip will be assisted by the natural flow of the river. Perfect.
I’m delighted to see that our two-seater canoe is green, just like the one I loved as a child. This time, however, Chris is in the stern, steering our boat, and I can enjoy all the benefits of having two able-bodied people to paddle. The water is calm, with a gentle undercurrent that naturally propels us forward, but Chris employs a few draw strokes to move the canoe away from the shallows, reaching out over the water and planting his paddle to literally draw the boat toward him—then settles into a J-shaped stroke that keeps the boat mostly straight, even if I’m paying more attention to the scenery than paddling.
And there’s plenty to soak in once we reach the middle of the river and start moving downstream. The trees are still mostly green, but many are touched with gold and red tips that hint at the peak foliage vibrance to come.
This stretch of the Lamoille is rated Class I, carving wide, easyto- navigate turns through the landscape with no rapids in sight. The shoreline is undeveloped, maples, ash, and poplar rising up all around us. Japanese knotweed—undeniably invasive, but with a pretty white flower at this time of year—creeps down toward the river banks, which alternate between sand and rocks.
Like riding a bike on a slight downhill, the current is flowing fast enough to make everything a bit more relaxed—and a lot more fun. It’s easy to chat while paddling, or to put a paddle down entirely to take a sip of water or eat a piece of the homemade beef jerky we’ve brought. The sun is warm, lulling us into a relaxed, semi-torpid state as we gaze up at the reds, oranges, and yellows that are just starting to appear in the trees overhanging the river.
We’ve booked a two-hour tour, and our guide, Allison Pineault, regales us with tales of river trips past (her description….particularly vivid!). Her description of sheparding more than 100 school kids in kayaks and canoes is particularly vivid, she mentions several themed tours that appeal to me: the popular Water & Wine Tour (featuring a short paddle paired with flights of wine and spirits from Boyden Valley Winery, just down the river); Kayaks and Cocktails with Smugglers’ Notch Distillery; ice-cream floats; boat-and-bikes adventures; maple tours; s’mores tours; and even a multimodal hike, climb, and paddle excursion. You can also pick your own adventure with a self-guided tour.
A graphic designer by trade, Allee is relaxed and fun, and we pepper her with questions about life as a guide, and about the river itself. The Lamoille flows west from its source in Greensboro, winding 85 miles across some of Vermont’s most scenic landscapes before trailing into Lake Champlain. Its upper headwaters are in the Northeast Kingdom, where small tributaries house pockets of brown trout and brook trout.
As the river flows toward Lake Champlain, warmwater fish like yellow perch and white or longnose suckers start to take over, with pickerel, smallmouth bass, and rainbow trout among the species that lure fishers to the water. Chris and I both love to fish, though we haven’t brought our rods with us today. Still, I can see Chris scanning the river as we drift, assessing the current and looking for spots where a smallmouth or pickerel might hide. Fish tend to congregate under bridges, but we both look up toward the sky— rather than down into the water—as we pass under the Cambridge Junction Bridge, a covered bridge built in the Burr arch truss style.
Combining the idea of an arch bridge with what’s called a Kingpost truss, the Cambridge Junction Bridge is, at 135 feet, one of the largest Burr arch truss spans in the U.S. It was built in 1887 to connect the town with the railroad, the foundations of which parallel the river in many places as what’s now the Lamoille Valley Rail trail, a multi-purpose trail I’ve pedaled many miles on.
Not wanting the day to end, we extend our tour by pulling over to a sunny riverside beach. From its sandy, pebbled shores we can see an old railroad trestle bridge spanning the banks above. We put our feet in the water while skipping stones and swapping tales about people and places we have in common with Allee. Next time I’ll pack a picnic lunch; I can imagine unfurling a blanket and enjoying a delicious spread with the river as a backdrop, particularly on a warm day like this.
As we paddle the remaining miles back to Vermont Canoe & Kayak, the three of us chat about other boat launches and river adventures. Tipping my head back, I look up at the clouds, half expecting to see some kind of raptor or a great blue heron wheeling across the sky. We haven’t spotted any of the animals that I know frequent this area of the river, like beaver, otters, deer, or even bears. But I suspect that’s because we’re making our own noise as we paddle not-so-silently down the river. And I grin, thinking back to those days circling my grandparents' pond. That was great. But this is even better. For a moment, I feel like a kid again—except this time, with a much bigger territory to explore.
