“Vermont, avant-garde”

A visual journal of my road trip through Vermont to meet some of the change makers who contribute to the state’s reputation of being an outlier and a pioneer.

Here are some of the people and places that welcomed me along the way. Terry Knight, who mounts delicate, silk spider webs on wooden plaques to remind us that nature is a masterpiece we often forget to look at. The Rushton family, who tries to keep micro-farming alive despite the hurdles and gives each of their cows a funny name. Patrick Palmer and Lynda Balzac, who run a horse-drawn trash service in Bristol. Cory Krieg, who makes small-batch maple syrup in a sugarhouse he built himself in his backyard. Activists Melinda and Rick Moulton, who advocated for nearly four decades to finally see a daily passenger train run between Burlington and New York again in 2022 - a first since 1953. The co-housing community of Cobb Hill, where residents share skills and resources in the hope to live in a materially sufficient, socially and ecologically responsible way.

Near Glover, I marveled at the collection of the Bread & Puppet Theater, one of the oldest non profit political theater companies in the country (you can ago anytime, they just ask you to switch off the lights when you leave). At the Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh, I learned about the role Vermont played in the Underground Railroad, and how abolitionists helped fugitive enslaved people on their way to Canada. In Burlington, which became in 2015 the country’s first city that draws 100% of its power from renewable sources, I met with community leaders who champion the cause of affordable housing and clean energy. Near Huntington, I spent some time looking at the trees at HOWL, an open land for women. Meg, Lani and Michele see it as a place where one can escape systemic oppression and patriarchy. They teach visitors to connect with the land and love that this is a place where “no man will show up to mansplain you or take a big tool out of your hands”.

This work is part of a feature story published in GEO Magazine in February 2023.