In AWRA's March-April 2022 issue of Water Resources IMPACT The Lakes Sampler is a wonderful piece by Kris Stepenuck:
The first paragraph:
Communities change, nations rise and fall, but the need to care for water resources remains. For some 11,000 years—since long before Europeans and others arrived in North America—the indigenous Abenaki people have lived along the shores of the lake they call “Pitawbagw.” This ancient name is roughly translated as “waters between,” denoting the lake’s place in the daily life of the Abenaki and its role as a natural boundary between them and their Iroquois neighbors. For millennia the Abenaki have fished on its waters and served as stewards of its watershed. Today Pitawbagw is more commonly known as Lake Champlain, a name that serves as testament to its place within the history of European colonization and the displacement of indigenous peoples Pitawbagw was renamed in 1609, when the French colonist and founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, explored the area, claiming it for France. Through all these political and social transformations, the health of the lake and its watershed have remained linked to the well-being and livelihood of the surrounding communities.
Kris Stepenuck ([email protected]) is extension program leader for Lake Champlain Sea Grant and extension associate professor of watershed science, policy, and education in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont.
Enjoy!
“You can't keep trouble from coming, but you don't have to give it a chair to sit on." - Vermont saying
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