VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Barbara Klein.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. This week on our program, we tell you about Lake
Champlain and the Finger Lakes in the northeastern United States.
(MUSIC)
VOICE ONE:
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Iceboarding on Lake Champlain |
Lake Champlain borders two states, New York
and Vermont, and Quebec, Canada. Many people like to vacation at this freshwater
lake. They enjoy sailing and fishing, water skiing, swimming, or just sitting at
the water’s edge, daydreaming. The waters can look so still and blue, like a
painting, though they can also become rough with waves when the wind blows.
VOICE TWO:
Much of the area around Lake Champlain has a country feeling. Nearby are
woods where people can hike. In the fall, visitors can watch the sugar maple
trees surrender their colorful autumn leaves.
Many animals and birds live around Lake Champlain. Road signs warn drivers to
watch out for moose, big animals that can walk into the road.
Visitors at the lake also keep their eyes open for "Champ." Champ is like an
American Nessie, the sea monster that supposedly lives in Loch Ness in
Scotland.
VOICE ONE:
Over the years there have been reports of some thing in Lake Champlain. A
nineteen seventy-seven photograph only fed the mystery. In the distance it shows
what appears to be a large creature in the water. Champ can also be found
helping the local economy by appearing on souvenirs like T-shirts and coffee
cups.
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VOICE TWO:
Lake Champlain is a long, narrow body of water. The lake is one hundred
ninety-three kilometers long and nineteen kilometers at its widest. It reaches a
depth of one hundred twenty-two meters.
The lake flows north from Whitehall, New York. Over the Canadian border it
makes its way into the Richelieu River in Quebec. The Richelieu joins the Saint
Lawrence River which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of Saint
Lawrence.
Lake Champlain lies in a valley between the Green Mountains of Vermont and
the Adirondack Mountains of New York.
A number of communities are near Lake Champlain. The largest is Burlington, a
city of thirty-eight thousand people in Vermont.
VOICE ONE:
Lake Champlain has more than seventy islands. One island in Vermont, Isle La
Motte, is known for its prehistoric geological formations. The Chazy Reef on the
island contains coral, like a reef in a warm, tropical ocean.
Scientists say this is because when the Chazy Reef began to form hundreds of
millions of years ago, it was in the southern half of the world. Then the plates
that form the surface of the Earth began to move around and gave the reef a new
home.
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VOICE TWO:
Lake Champlain is named for the French explorer Samuel de Champlain who first
saw it in sixteen-oh-nine.
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A ferryboat travels across Lake Champlain as the sun drops |
In the seventeen hundreds, the Champlain Valley
became a battleground in the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven
Years' War. French troops in Canada built a fort to control passage to the lake
as a defense against British troops moving north. The French named it Fort
Carillon. But in seventeen fifty-nine, the British took control of the fort and
renamed it Ticonderoga.
Troops from the English colonies that would become the United States
supported the British army in the war. But later, during the American
Revolution, colonial troops fought against the British at Fort Ticonderoga.
And later still, during the War of Eighteen Twelve, the Americans defeated
the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain. The defeat not only ended British
demands for territory in New England. It also put an end to British hopes of
controlling the Great Lakes area.
VOICE ONE:
The Great Lakes are Michigan, Erie, Huron, Superior and Ontario. Champlain is
smaller than any of them. But in March of nineteen ninety-eight, it joined the
list -- Congress declared Champlain the sixth Great Lake.
This was because of efforts by Patrick Leahy, a senator who has represented
Vermont for more than thirty years. Senator Leahy was trying to get research
money for Lake Champlain from the National Sea Grant Program. This program
operates under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The program pays for water research at universities that border either the
oceans or the Great Lakes. So Senator Leahy got the words "Great Lakes including
Lake Champlain" into the bill.
Many people in Midwestern states that border the Great Lakes were not at all
happy. John Glenn, the former astronaut who was then a senator from Ohio, put it
this way: "I know the Great Lakes. I’ve traveled the Great Lakes. And Lake
Champlain is not one of the Great Lakes."
VOICE TWO:
Still, there are similarities. Lake Champlain has wildlife and rock
formations that are similar to or even the same as the Great Lakes. All six were
formed from the same huge piece of ice. And all six flow into the Saint Lawrence
River in Canada.
Lake Champlain also has the same kinds of environmental problems, including
pollution and nonnative sea life, as the Great Lakes.
VOICE ONE:
For people in the Champlain area, having it declared a Great Lake was great
news. They saw it as a chance to get more help for the lake’s problems, and more
national attention for the area.
But the measure that declared Lake Champlain a Great Lake lasted less than
three weeks. The angry reaction from the Midwestern states succeeded in killing
it. Vermont, however, still won the right for its researchers to ask for money
under the National Sea Grant Program.
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VOICE TWO:
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Grapevines stand empty of their fruit on a hillside
overlooking Keuka Lake |
In central New York state, there
are five lakes that look like fingers on a map. Their names come from American
Indian culture: Seneca, Cayuga, Keuka, Canandaigua and Skaneateles.
These are the five major Finger Lakes. Cayuga Lake is the longest among them.
But Seneca Lake is the biggest and the deepest, at almost two hundred
meters.
Compare that to the nine-meter depth of Honeoye Lake. Honeoye is among what
are considered the six minor Finger Lakes in central and western New York. The
others are Owasco, Otisco, Canadice, Hemlock and Conesus.
VOICE ONE:
Most of the eleven lakes contain cold water fisheries like trout as well as
bass and other warm water fishing.
The Finger Lakes area is home to industries and large cities like Syracuse
and Rochester. But there are still many farms. And the area has a large number
of grape vineyards and wine producers.
VOICE TWO:
Several colleges and universities are in the Finger Lakes area. They include
Ithaca College, Colgate University and Cornell University.
Cornell honors Cayuga Lake in its school song, which begins: "Far above
Cayuga’s waters / With its waves of blue / Stands our noble alma mater /
Glorious to view.”
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VOICE ONE:
The first people to view the beauty of the Finger Lakes were the Indians. The
Iroquois believed that the Great Spirit formed the lakes. The Great Spirit was
closely linked with nature.
VOICE TWO:
Science tells us that a large body of ice moved across the land. The last
glacier covered large areas of what is now the northeastern United States about
twenty thousand years ago. The glacier moved south and then north again.
In doing so, it moved through many river valleys. It made the valleys deeper
and wider than they were before. Then the ice started melting and moved north
again. The glacier left huge amounts of soil and rocks in what scientists call
the Valley Heads Moraine. A moraine is a landform created by all the material
carried and left by a glacier.
VOICE ONE:
The Valley Heads Moraine prevented old rivers from flowing south, as they had
before. This left the valleys filled with water. And this is how scientists say
the Finger Lakes came to be.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m
Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And I’m Barbara Klein. Transcripts and MP3s of our programs can be downloaded
at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA
Special English.