Why isn’t Lake Champlain famous?

It’s been a struggle for organizers of the Lake Champlain Quadricentennial to build momentum and national attention.

Other geographies in America are iconic: the Mississippi River of Twain and a thousand blues songs; the Southwestern landscapes of cowboy yarns and Steinbeck; the lush, Faulknerian world of the South and the Civil War.

So why doesn’t Lake Champlain resonate? It’s one of the cradles of North American history and legend — or maybe one of the crucibles.

From Benedict Arnold’s fierce battle near Valcour Island to the Battle of Plattsburgh to the bearing of John Brown’s body to the waves of immigrants who burrowed deep under the Lake’s shore in search of iron ore.

There’s no richer landscape culturally. And the physical beauty is unrivaled.

And yet before I moved to the North Country, I had no sense of it. I knew of Fort Ticonderoga — but didn’t know that it was in the Champlain Valley.

War of 1812? Barely registered.

So what do you think? Do we need a great writer to bring Lake Champlain into the national imagination? What separates the iconic landscapes from the forgotten (or at least neglected) places?

Tags: champlain valley