Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship
BURLINGTON — At 4 p.m. on Monday, August 10, Captain Matthew Harrison and deckhand Kendre Guinane finished preparing the sails, placing cushions and checking the engine of the Friend Ship.
The boat heads out on Lake Champlain from the Burlington waterfront every other Monday evening in the summer and fall. The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum partners with Whistling Man Schooner Co. to take passengers on their boats for a two-hour tour for $80.
Part sailing excursion and part floating history lesson, the tour is designed to bridge the gap between recreational tourism and local heritage. By taking history out of the archives and onto the water, organizers give residents and visitors alike a tactile reminder that Lake Champlain’s waves hide centuries of stories.
“It’s an amazing and really unique experience, I think, for people, whether they’re local folks or if they’re visiting out of town and they’ve never been on Lake Champlain,” said Katherine Noiva, director of visitor experience and learning at the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. “The more ways we can either provide access to the lake or bring the lake to people is really our mission and focus at the museum.”
The Friend Ship left the dock at 4:15 p.m. Harrison began the tour by asking his passengers for names and where they were from. The 10 passengers hailed from all over, including as close as Vermont and as far as California.
“I do want to say, there’s no set script for this group. We go out, we look at things, we kind of go where people are interested in hearing about stuff,” Harrison told the group as he steered the boat.
As the boat made it out onto the water, it passed the Burlington Breakwater, a large stone wall which was built in the 1830s to protect the shoreline from intense weather.
“It’s actually quite an old piece of infrastructure,” Harrison said. “So a very early, federally-funded in part project here for Burlington, which allowed the harbor to grow into what you see today.”
The boat cruise continued farther away from the dock and came across the location of a boat wreck. The boat that crashed was called the O.J. Walker, an 86-foot-long, 15-foot-wide boat. The O.J. Walker helped haul heavy cargo for 33 years before the ship ended up wrecked due to a severe windstorm on May 11, 1895. The main cargo it hauled was bricks.
According to Harrison, large boats similar to the Walker were known for carrying stone and ore. The ore would be taken to manufacturing centers in places like Albany, New York, and would be made into commercial pots, pans, and iron stoves. These boats also carried fruit from local farms.
“You see images of canal boats carrying just barrels of apples or crates of fruit. We have a lot of orchards in the Champlain Valley on the Vermont side,” said Harrison.
As the Friend Ship continued to sail, Harrison moved from fact to folklore and told the story of Champ, Vermont’s cryptid lake creature.
“That is a fun legend, because it does go all the way back to the naming of the lake,” Harrison said. “The French explorer, Samuel de Champlain, in the 1600s, when he first traveled through here with a band of Mohawk warriors, he saw some sort of very large lake creature, and the legend has kind of spun off since then.”
As the boat made its way back towards the docks, Harrison pointed out a naval military shipwreck, the first lighthouse on the bay, and spots where divers have found historical artifacts.
As the history cruise neared the dock, Harrison brought up some lesser-known histories, like smuggling on the lake. The most notable incident happened in 1808, when President Thomas Jefferson paused trade with England. A notorious smuggling vessel clashed with local law enforcement in an event known as the Black Snake Affair.
“It happened on the Onion River, Winooski River, just over the hill here,” Harrison said.
At 6:15 pm, the boat pulled back into the Burlington harbor.
Jacob Campbell, 29, from Saratoga Springs, New York, was one of the guests on the cruise. He was interested in local history and a little bit of adventure.
“I’d never been on a sailboat,” Campbell said. “And that seemed like a way to kill two birds with one stone.”