http://www.canada.com/travel/usa/York+Vermont+celebrate+Lake+Champlain+Hudson+River/1542089/story.html
A cruise boat on Lake Champlain in Vermont.
Photograph by: Handout photo, State of Vermont
Not to be outdone by Quebec City's 400th-anniversary festivities last year, New York State and Vermont are holding quadricentennial parties in 2009 to celebrate two major waterways.
In July 1609, French explorer Samuel de Champlain became the first European to explore the lake that now bears his name. Two months later and farther to the south, English explorer Henry Hudson, working for a Dutch trading company, was becoming the first European to explore the river that's named after him.
Lake Champlain and the Hudson River would become key transportation routes for European settlers. In the early 1800s, the 95-kilometre-long Champlain Canal was built, linking the lake and river and opening a commercial waterway from New York City to Montreal.
Today, the lake, the river and surrounding towns are tourist magnets, luring boaters and landlubbers alike.
In this column, we look at websites that can help you explore the two waterways and take part in activities organized to commemorate the anniversaries. Why not discover a corner of the Green Mountain state you've never visited, or take in parts of the Empire State that you normally zoom by on your way to New York City. Inexpensive road trip, anyone?
A small part of Lake Champlain is in Quebec, and the lake's waters flow northward via the Richelieu River into the St. Lawrence. So far, all the lake's 400th festivities are in the United States, home to most of the sprawling lake, which is almost 200 kilometres long and 19 kilometres wide.
The Quebec government did, however, contribute $100,000 this year to help finance events in Burlington, Vt., which sits on the lake's eastern shore. The money will help defray the costs of bringing more than 100 Quebec artists to the Burlington International Waterfront Festival, July 2-14, including the musicians, dancers and circus performers who will perform on Quebec Day (July 10).
The website of the Vermont Lake Champlain Quadricentennial Commission (celebratechamplain.org) lists dozens of other events - concerts, festivals, plays, museum exhibits, historical tours and more. Among the events are shipwreck expeditions, a kids' pirate festival and natural-history walking tours.
The website also has information about the lake's history, the people who inhabited the Champlain basin before Europeans arrived, and the 300 or so shipwrecks that have occurred on the lake. Of course, there's also a section about "Champ," the lake's "mystery monster," said to be "a serpent-like plesiosaur who is perhaps a cousin of Loch Ness's 'Nessie' " in Scotland.
For more on activities in Lake Champlain valley, including summer swimming, canoeing and fishing, visit Vermont's tourism office (http://tinyurl.com/cgttwg); the site will also help you find accommodations. Kids Vermont, a newspaper aimed at parents, also has extensive online listings of child-friendly activities (kidsvt.com).
On the New York side of the lake, events are being organized by the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Office. It was set up to commemorate Champlain and Hudson, as well as the 202nd anniversary of the first successful steamboat journey from New York City to Albany, on the Hudson, by Robert Fulton.
The focus of most New York events is the 500-kilometre-long Hudson River, which begins about 200 kilometres south of Montreal in the Adirondack mountains and flows to New York City.
For the lowdown on New York festivities, visit the websitewww.exploreny400.com. It has a good search engine. Click on Things To Do; from there you can search by month, city or category (festival, food, history, outdoor recreation, arts and culture, and exhibits).
One of the key events will be River Day, June 6, when a flotilla of boats - including a reproduction of Hudson's ship, the Half Moon - will retrace Hudson's route, from New York City to Albany. Events will be held in communities along the way. Other activities will include exhibits, concerts and festivals.
The official New York State tourism website (www.iloveny.com) is a good bet for finding accommodations. Hudson Valley Parent magazine has listings of kids' activities (www.hvparent.com/travelguide/).
For more on attractions along the Hudson River, visitwww.hudsonriver.com.
A train journey is a romantic way to enjoy the river. Options include Amtrak's daily Montreal-New York City service (www.amtrak.com), which takes at least 11 hours. Or drive to Poughkeepsie, 130 kilometres north of New York City, and board the commuter Metro-North Railroad (http://tinyurl.com/2tnalq) to the Big Apple.
If you're looking for a bigger adventure, the Netherlands also is celebrating the 400th anniversary of Hudson's voyage up the Hudson. After all, he was working for the Dutch East India Company at the time.
Visit www.ny400.org for activities going on in Holland, as well as a captivating section about the role the Dutch played in the founding of New York, originally known as New Amsterdam.
Another website - www.henryhudson400.com - also lists events going on in New York and Amsterdam.
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