Happy Vermont

Mike Snyder of Stowe was Vermont’s Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation for over a decade before leaving his post in December 2022. He’s now working as an independent consultant. Mike and host Erica Houskeeper met up at Brownsville Forest in Stowe to talk about fall foliage, forest health, and what it's like living in a popular tourist town. Visit my website Happy Vermont: https://happyve...

Glenn Fay of Burlington is an author, historian and seventh-generation Vermonter. He’s also a descendant of one of the Green Mountain Boys. Glenn wrote Hidden History of Burlington Vermont and has a new book out, Ambition of the Remarkable Family of Ethan Allen. On a sunny day in July, we met at the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum in Burlington, where Glenn serves as a board member. In this episode,...

Traveling east on Route 118 along the Trout River is a nostalgic scene with covered bridges, barns and mountain views. After a few bends in the road, a clear view of the Montgomery Center for the Arts unfolds. The Greek Revival building was empty the first time Sebastian Araujo saw it when he and his partner moved to town from Provincetown, Mass. The iconic building, perched at the intersection of...

Artist and entrepreneur Stacy Harshman was living in New York and looking for a change. She Googled "nature, therapy, community, work and mountains" and landed in Vermont.  Seven years ago, she started the Sparkle Barn in Wallingford, which has become a wildly popular destination in this small town in Rutland County. The Sparkle Barn is a gift shop and art installation located in an old dairy barn...

Adamant is an unincorporated Vermont village between Calais and East Montpelier.  Its geographical boundaries are hard to define. In this episode of Happy Vermont, Erica Houskeeper talks with three women about Adamant's history, the local co-op that's a community hub, and how Adamant is a state of mind.  https://happyvermont.com https://www.adamantcoop.org  

Mount Philo in Charlotte stands at 968 feet. It offers some of the most beautiful views, plus hiking trails, an auto road and campsites. It became Vermont’s first state park 100 years ago in 1924. Judy Chaves is the author of Secrets of Mount Philo: A Guide to the History of Vermont's First State Park. In this episode, we talk about Mount Philo's significance, its history and why people love this...

Outdoor recreation is breathing new life into Poultney, which is home to Lake St. Catherine, the Poultney River, the Delaware and Hudson Rail Trail and Slate Valley Trails. James Johnson lives off the grid in a yurt on land once owned by his grandmother. He's also the founder of the Fifth Season Race and Ride, a quirky mud season ride where participants ride around to local sugarhouses.  In this e...

Pete and Sandy Gebbie are farmers and skiers. They have three rope tows on their 400-acre property, which sits at an elevation of about 2,000 feet. When the snow is good, friends come over to ski. This year marks the 90th anniversary of the first rope tow, which opened in Woodstock in January 1934. In this episode, Pete and Sandy talk to host Erica Houskeeper about running a rope tow and what the...

Vermont’s skiing had a big year in 1934. Ninety years ago, the first rope tow opened in Woodstock. It’s also when the Stowe Ski Patrol got its start, when the Civilian Conservation Corps were busy building trails in Vermont, and when the first purpose cut ski trail was completed on Mount Mansfield. Brian Lindner of Waterbury is a historian, ski patroller, and outdoor enthusiast. While hiking on Ca...

Jane Dorney of Richmond is a geographer who helps people connect to the Vermont landscape and understand how it evolved. She approaches her work with the geographer’s question: Why are things where they are?  In this episode of Happy Vermont, host Erica Houskeeper talks to Jane about settlement patterns, maps, town centers, villages, covered bridges and old mill sites. https://janedorney.com https...

Mount Tom in Woodstock isn’t a particularly tall mountain. But its environmental legacy, easy public access and central place in the community are monumental. Mount Tom is where you’ll find miles of trails, beautiful views, a shining mountain top star, and the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, the only national park in Vermont. It’s also where the American environmental movement...

John Lent, of Waltham, started volunteering many years ago at the Vergennes Community Foodshelf with his late wife, Mary Ann. She was the driving force behind the couple’s volunteering efforts in the community. After Mary Ann died in 2020, John decided to keep volunteering in her honor.  John is not only an avid volunteer, he’s also an accomplished marathon runner. He’s completed marathons in all...

Alicia Taylor and Joanna Alpizar met at a pop-up roller-skating event in Burlington. The two BIPOC women became fast friends and are now on a mission to create a public, welcoming, year-round space for roller-skating in the Burlington, Vermont area. In this podcast episode of Happy Vermont, Alicia and Joanna talk about the joy of roller-skating, the history of roller-skating, and creating a welcom...

Jamie Franklin opened an exhibition at Bennington Museum earlier this year called Haunted Vermont , which explores disappearances in the Bennington Triangle and the work of mystery writer Shirley Jackson. Jackson lived in North Bennington and some of her work was inspired by the strange happenings in this area of Southern Vermont. This episode of Happy Vermont highlights disappearances in Glastenb...

Every fall, John Anderson of Dummerston and a group of volunteers monitor birds that are migrating south for the season. For decades, these volunteers, known as the Putney Mountain Hawk Watchers, have recorded the number and kinds of hawks they see and report the information to Hawk Migration of North America, which maintains an online hawk count database. Established in 1974, Putney Mountain Hawk...

If you’ve ever been to Shelburne Orchards, chances are you’ve seen or been lucky enough to meet owner Nick Cowles. Nick has spent most of his life at the orchard, which his father purchased in the 1950s. Nick loved growing up there, and when you visit, it’s easy to see why. Host Erica Houskeeper met up with Nick to talk about apples, brandy, and how running the orchard changed his life for the bet...

The summer she turned seven years old, Charity Clark's first outing on Vermont's Long Trail was at Little Rock Pond in Mount Tabor. Years later, she completed the 272-mile footpath across the Green Mountains, the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the United States. Today, Charity is Vermont's first female attorney general. Even with a busy schedule in Vermont’s highest law enforcement office, s...

Happy Vermont podcast host Erica Houskeeper shares ways to explore Vermont this summer and fall. She also weighs in on why we can't take Vermont communities for granted.  happyvermont.com

Terri Armata of Bennington is one of Vermont’s most dedicated butterfly watchers. A retired hospital employee, Terri has seen about 100 species in Vermont, nearly every kind ever found in the state.  Host Erica Houskeeper met with Terri at Merck Forest in Rupert to talk about good places to find butterflies, her passion for butterfly watching, and Vermont's second Butterfly Atlas Project survey. h...

Spencer Potter created Woodchuck Golf in his backyard in Waitsfield in 2004. The six-hole course, which runs on donations, attracts golfers from near and far looking for an offbeat and challenging experience. Happy Vermont podcast host Erica Houskeeper met up with Spencer to find out what motivates him about running a public backyard golf course in Vermont's Mad River Valley. www.woodchuckgolf.com...

Most of Vermont's forests and hillsides were clear-cut in the late 1800s. But in a few places, like Gifford Woods State Park in Killington, old trees were spared and continue to stand tall today. Host Erica Houskeeper talks to Vermont State Parks regional manager Rebecca Roy about ancient trees—some more than 300 years old—that visitors can see up close at Gifford Woods State Park.    Visit Happy...

A question host Erica Houskeeper often asks people is, how did you end up in Vermont?  As she gets older, Erica thinks more and more about how she ended up in the Green Mountains more than 40 years ago. In this solo episode, she shares some personal memories of her family's early days in southern Vermont (a bittersweet, challenging time), and answers a few lighthearted questions from Happy Vermont...

After moving to Vershire in 2020, Justin Willeau was eager to find ways to meet people in town and contribute to the community.  Vershire, a hard-to-get-to place in Orange County, doesn't have a coffee house or a bar. So Justin decided to create weekly get-togethers revolving around coffee and beer. Justin started a Coffee Bar on Saturday mornings and a Beer Exchange on Thursday nights at the Chur...

Butternut Mountain is the tallest peak that falls entirely within the town of Johnson. On the mountain's southern slope, the Marvin family owns 600 acres where they produce maple syrup for their business, Butternut Mountain Farm. David Marvin started Butternut Mountain Farm in the early 1970s on land owned by his father, Dr. James Wallace Marvin, a botanist and the co-founder of UVM's Proctor Mapl...

Tony Clark found his way to Vermont in the late 1960s. He bought an old farm in the middle of nowhere in Goshen and eventually turned it into an inn and cross-country ski center. One of his greatest legacies was helping to establish Vermont's 16,000-acre Moosalamoo National Recreation Area in 2007. Tony died a year ago in March 2022. Host Erica Houskeeper met with his daughter, Britta, who grew up...