'Celebrate Champlain'
Lake's 400th tacks toward the politically correct
Toolbox
By Kevin O'Connor
Staff Writer - Published: November 16, 2008
What's the most politically correct way to mark next year's 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain's discovery — make that exploration — of the lake that now bears his name?
The Vermont Lake Champlain Quadricentennial Commission is navigating that question very carefully.
Back in 1609, the Frenchman came upon a 120-mile body of water that native Abenakis called "Bitawbagok." Four centuries later, the state has created a commission and logo to "Celebrate Champlain." But its tagline doesn't mention the man. Instead, it lauds "The Lake – The Land – The People."
That doesn't mean the commission will disregard the explorer. But the commemoration, its Web site notes, "is designed to be inclusive for the many groups participating" — including Abenakis whose ancestors first heard the French translate the Green Mountains into "vert mont."
Log onto www.celebratechamplain.org and you'll find more than a dozen state government and civic groups planning events for 2009. Locals are invited to join in — but again, very carefully. The commission has rules for everything, noting "materials in connection with this event are a direct reflection on the state of Vermont."
"We have been extremely sensitive — we never say Champlain was the 'first person' or there was a 'discovery,'" says Bruce Hyde, commission chairman and head of the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing. "We're letting everybody know the history of European settlers — nearly 40 percent of Vermonters have some sort of French background — and the fact there have been people in the lake basin for 10,000 years."
Want to celebrate the nation's sixth largest freshwater lake and birthplace of the Navy? More than 60 observances already have won official approval.
The biggest so far is an 11-day Champlain International Waterfront Festival set for July 2-12 in Burlington. It will feature performers from France, Quebec and Vermont, a parade with participation from all of the state's 251 cities and towns, a "centerpiece pageant" and a three-nation fireworks show.
The festival's producers, Northeast Kingdom filmmaker Jay Craven and Burlington City Arts, are seeking stories about the lake's role in people's lives, be it childhood vacations, romantic dates or retirement fishing.
"It's an event we're trying to make very much about community, history, technology, ecology, the arts and culture," Craven says, "and to look at not only the last 400 years, but also the next 100 years."
The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, which sailed its replica 1862 canal schooner Lois McClure to Quebec City's 400th anniversary this past summer, will retrace Champlain's Vermont route next year.
Art Cohn, the museum's executive director, has read the explorer's journals and seen the rapids in Chambly, Quebec, that caused the Frenchman to downsize to a native birch-bark canoe.
"Champlain had every reason to turn back and go a different route, which would have changed the course of history, but he was determined," Cohn says. "It's an insight into his decision-making, curiosity and commitment, which led not only to his coming to the lake but also to his being enthralled enough to name it for himself."
The maritime museum, with sites in Burlington and Vergennes, is planning exhibits and lectures to show how the explorer helped spark lake travel by European settlers, early American soldiers and commercial shippers.
"1609 is one of the pivotal years in North American history," says Cohn, noting Henry Hudson's concurrent voyage up what's now the Hudson River. "The fate of the country was decided on these waterways."
Champlain's arrival also changed life for the Abenakis. In February, Burlington's ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center will examine the tribe's past and present in a year-long series of exhibits and events titled "Indigenous Expressions: Native Peoples of the Lake Champlain Basin." Then in July, the state's largest city will host a weeklong "Indigenous Celebration," featuring arts, lectures and traditional ceremonies.
"Abenakis are all over the state, and we need to get that message out," says Frederick Wiseman, the state's foremost scholar on his native tribe and producer of the new documentary "1609: The Other Side of History."
The federal government has withheld official recognition of Vermont's Abenakis for decades. But the state was quick to seat Wiseman on its quadricentennial commission.
"We want to make sure the native voice is heard and our history is treated properly," Wiseman says. "And we hope the interest will help with our political issues — make the Legislature more aware and lead to improved relations."
Gov. James Douglas created the lake's "quad" commission in 2003 to coordinate Vermont events and collaborate with similar efforts in the state of New York and Canadian province of Quebec.
The commission includes representatives from the state agencies of Agriculture, Commerce and Community Development and Transportation; the Vermont House and Senate; the state's Historical Society and Humanities Council; the Lake Champlain Basin Program, Byway Council and Regional Chamber of Commerce; the Nature Conservancy and Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission.
The commission has received $250,000 in state money to create its logo, Web site and other promotional materials. But that sum pales to New York, which has budgeted $4 million for its efforts, and Canada, which spent more than $100 million this past summer to observe Champlain's landing at Quebec City in 1608.
To compensate, Vermont is selling official souvenirs, including a license plate, cap, pin, tote bag, logo shirt (pre-washed cotton T or Egyptian pima cotton polo) and coffee mug (11-ounce ceramic or 16-ounce stainless steel). It's also inviting private entrepreneurs to make and market their own commemoratives — as long as they receive permission from licensers at Vermont Life magazine.
The Consulate General of France hopes to contribute by importing several French programs and performers.
"With up to a third of Vermont's population tracing back ancestry to France," Boston Consul François Gauthier says, "it is with great joy and pride that France has committed to participating in the quadricentennial celebrations."
But with so many global issues, why such attention to the Green Mountains?
"Champlain was French — it's natural we'd want to help celebrate," says the consulate's press attaché, Alexis Berthier. "The name of your state is French — Ver-mont. It's important we're associated with this."
The state is returning the favor. If the 17th-century sailor was alive to surf the Internet, he'd discover how a touch of a button translates the commission's Web site into something he'd recognize: French.
Contact Kevin O'Connor at kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com.
SIDEBAR HEAD: Saint or savage?
The Vermont Lake Champlain Quadricentennial Commission isn't the only group that has wrestled with questions of political correctness involving 17th-century explorer Samuel de Champlain. In his new book "Champlain's Dream," Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Hackett Fischer notes the challenge faced by historians:
At the start of the twentieth century, a very large literature ran heavily to hagiography, and celebrated Champlain as a saintly figure. After 1950 the inevitable reaction set in. Popular debunkers and academic iconoclasts made Champlain a favorite target. These attacks were deepened by a fin-de-siècle attitude called political correctness, with its revulsion against great white men, especially empire-builders, colonial founders, and discoverers. …
As these attitudes spread widely during the late twentieth century, Champlain began to fade from the historical literature. He all but disappeared from school curricula in France, Canada, and the United States. Many still remember him, but when the subject came up in France, we heard people say, "Connais pas, never heard of him." In the United States, one person asked, "Champlain? Why are you writing a book about a lake?" …
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, attitudes have been changing yet again. … The new scholarship of the early twenty-first century is becoming more mature, more global, more balanced, more empirical, more eclectic, and less ideological than before. …
Two generations ago, historians wrote of European saints and Indian savages. In the last generation, too many scholars have been writing about Indian saints and European savages. The opportunity for our generation is to go beyond that calculus of saints and savages altogether, and write about both American Indians and Europeans with maturity, empathy, and understanding.
— From "Champlain's Dream" by David Hackett Fischer. The 848-page hardcover, published this fall by Simon & Schuster, is priced at $40 and can be purchased or ordered at most bookstores.
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