HIDDEN GEM

You don’t need to cross oceans to find the boating experience of a lifetime. Tucked between Vermont’s Green Mountains and New York’s Adirondack range is Lake Champlain, New England’s largest lake at almost 500 square miles and the country’s unofficial sixth Great Lake. It has served as a water highway for thousands of years and played an important role in battles during the Colonial era, Revolutionary War and War of 1812, but I did not yet know any of this when I was first struck by its unique and beautiful geography.

As a lifelong boater growing up on the water in Rhode Island, I never thought anything could compare to an ocean. When I moved to Burlington, Vermont, I was not expecting the lake to be much more than, well, a lake. It was