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A Kayaker’s Guide to Lake Champlain: Exploring the New York, Vermont & Quebec Shores- (Book Review)

A Kayaker’s Guide to Lake Champlain:

Exploring the New York, Vermont & Quebec Shores

(Book Review)

A Kayaker's Guide to Lake Champlain: Exploring the New York, Vermont & Quebec Shores

A Kayaker’s Guide to Lake Champlain is not just a guide for kayakers, or for canoers or boaters; it’s a great all-around guide for anyone to Lake Champlain. Although the book is a perfect companion for any level kayaker, as it explores Lake Champlain; it will benefit anyone interested in this beautiful Lake Champlain that we are fortunate to share. Featuring Lake Champlain’s treasures and history from a lake-level view, the book’s personal stories and descriptions come to life, delighting the reader.

The book offers fifty chapters, each a one day’s paddle, and is broken into eight sections:  the Champlain Islands, the Inland Sea, Missisquoi Bay, Broad Lake North, Malletts Bay, Broad Lake East, Broad Lake West, and South Bay. Each chapter describes the day’s trip- the weather, encounters with wildlife and the scenic beauty, while history and natural history are featured in separate breakouts. Each trip provides a very personal exploration of Lake Champlain.

Historically, A Kayaker’s Guide to Lake Champlain traces and describes of Samuel de Champlain’s 1609 visit to the lake that bears his name. It features the battles of Valcour Island and Plattsburgh, describes Lake Champlain’s importance in the French & Indian wars, the Revolution and the War of 1812. It shares a history of Native Americans, heroes, smugglers, shipwrecks and lighthouses, and a fossil history from the world’s oldest coral reef, when Lake Champlain was actually part of the sea. Present and future concerns are also addressed-  issues like algae blooms, runoff, Eurasian milfoil, zebra mussels and endangered species.

A Kayaker’s Guide… is well-organized, and filled with information that even those of us who are not paddlers, but who love lakes, history, and wildlife, can appreciate. It offers a well-rounded overview of Lake Champlain, and added appendices include information about Lake Champlain’s environmental organizations, museums & historical places, wildlife areas, state parks, and launch sites. The book includes 54 maps, 93 photographs, and 9 original drawings.

A Kayaker's Guide to Lake Champlain. Exploring the New York, Vermont & Quebec Shores

About the Authors:

Cathy Frank is a former instructor at the Community College of Vermont, and is currently an independent computer consultant and Web-site designer. She has served as a member and chair of numerous nonprofit boards locally and regionally. A long-time summer resident of the Champlain Islands, she is a biker, hiker, swimmer, and cross-country skier. She kayaks daily in the summer, and has hiked the length of Vermont’s Long Trail.

Margy Holden has worked for nonprofit and for-profit corporations, and as an organizational development and career consultant. She has chaired and served on a number of nonprofit boards. She writes occasional articles and coauthored the ‘Women’s Job Search Handbook‘. Happiest when she is outdoors, Margy runs, hikes, bikes, paddles, and swims in the Champlain Islands in the summer and the Bahamas in the winter.

Margy’s and Cathy’s travels on Lake Champlain have been featured in presentations before organizations, on television, and in the local press. Both are committed to increasing awareness of Lake Champlain, its strengths, and its issues.

Helpful Articles:

Kayaks
Kayaking Safety
Kayak Paddle Strokes
Kayak Fishing Tips
The Kayak Shop

Lake Champlain Geology

Lake Champlain Geology- present

Lake Champlain Geology- present

Lake Champlain is located on the Champlain Valley between the Green Mountains of Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains of New York state. It flows north and is drained by the Richelieu River, which in turn flows into the Saint Lawrence River at Sorel-Tracy, Quebec. Lake Champlain’s major feeders are Otter Creek, the Winooski, Lamoille and Missisquoi Rivers in Vermont and New York’s Ausable, Chazy, Boquet and Saranac Rivers. Lake Champlain also receives water from the 32 (51 km) mile long Lake George via the LaChute River. This means that Lake Champlain receives water not only from the northwestern slopes of the Green Mountains and the northeastern peaks of the Adirondacks, but it also drains the north and west slopes of Massachusetts’ Berkshire Mountains. Lake Champlain is connected to the Hudson River by the Champlain Canal.

Lake Champlain’s geology is very interesting. The Champlain Valley is considered part of the Great Appalachian Valley, which reaches from Quebec to Alabama. It is a physiographic section (geomorphic, or physiographic, regions are broad-scale subdivisions based on terrain texture, rock type, and geologic structure and history) of the Saint Lawrence Valley, which is, in turn, part of the larger Appalachian physiographic division.

Lake Champlain is one of many large lakes that are found in an arc from Labrador through the northern United States and into the Northwest Territories of Canada.  Although smaller than any of the Great Lakes, it is the largest freshwater lake in North America after the Great Lakes. Lake Champlain typically varies seasonally from 95 to 101 feet (29 to 30 m) above mean sea level.

Lake Champlain Geology- 12,000 years ago
Lake Champlain Geology- 12,000 years ago

Between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago the Champlain Basin was part of a great inland sea that was a temporary inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, a para-tropical sub sea, or epeiric sea, called the Champlain Sea. It was created by the retreating glaciers during the close of the last ice age. The Sea once included lands in what are now the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, as well as parts of the American states of New York and Vermont. This sea extended to the west of present day Ottawa, Ontario in Canada.

Modern evidence of the sea can be seen in the form of whale fossils, (beluga, fin whales and bowhead whales) and marine shells that have been found in Vermont  and near the cities of Ottawa, Ontario, and Montreal,  Quebec, the existence of ancient shorelines in the former coastal regions, and the presence of Leda clay deposits dotting the region. From Mount Pakenham, Ontario, the viewable ancient coastline to the northeast is roughly 25 miles (40 km) away and is known today as the Eardley Escarpment; part of the Gatineau Hills in the province of Quebec.

About Lake Champlain

Looking about Lake Champlain from above

Looking about Lake Champlain from above

Lake Champlain (French: lac Champlain) is a natural, freshwater lake bordered by the states of Vermont and New York and in the north by the Canadian province of Quebec. The New York portion of the Champlain Valley includes the eastern portions of Clinton and Essex Counties. Most of this area is part of the Adirondack Park. The eastern shore of Lake Champlain is composed of Franklin, Chittenden and Addison Counties of Vermont, and Vermont’s Grand Isle County is completely surrounded by Lake Champlain. The Quebec portion (the regional county municipalities of Le Haut-Richelieu and Brome–Missisquoi) forms the northern boundary of Lake Champlain.

Lake Champlain is over 120 miles (193 km) long and, at its widest about 12 miles (19 km) wide.  Its surface area covers about 435 sq mi (1,127 km2) has 587  (945 km) miles of shoreline and about 80 islands. Lake Champlain flows north from Whitehall, New York across the U.S./Canadian border to its outlet at the Richelieu River in Quebec. From there, the water flows into the St. Lawrence River, and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

With an average depth of 64 feet (19.5 m) and maximum depth of 400 feet (122 m)  in the area between Charlotte, Vermont and Essex, New York., Lake Champlain holds 6.2 cu miles (25.8 cubic km) of water or 6.8 trillion gallons (25.8 cubic km) .

The Lake is divided into five distinct areas, each with different physical and chemical characteristics and water quality. These lake segments include: the South Lake, the Main Lake (or Broad Lake), Malletts Bay, the Inland Sea (or Northeast Arm), and Missisquoi Bay.