Vermont

Artists pick up the pieces after Stowe Foliage Arts Festival canceled

Published

2 hours ago

October 12, 2024

Artists pick up the pieces after Stowe Foliage Arts Festival canceled

STOWE, Vt. (WCAX) – Artists rushed to save their work after the Stowe foliage arts festival’s big tent blew down.

“When we pulled in, my husband had made a comment that the tent’s look really small. I looked around and said, ‘Well that’s because there’s an entire tent that has collapsed,” Kate Slocum of Northfield said.

This was local artist Kate Slocum’s first year setting up a booth at the festival.

But she’s now one of many packing up her things, and heading home, after wind knocked down the tent early Saturday morning.

“We were looking forward to a very successful day today, and we came to this devastation instead. Helping other vendors here clean up, go through their items,” Slocum said.

For more than four decades, the festival has been a staple for fall in Vermont.

Over 150 artists come from all across the country to show off their work, like artist Alexa Varano.

This would have been her third year at the festival, an opportunity that’s become crucial for business, during Vermont’s biggest weekend for foliage tourism.

“The last two years I averaged around seventy five hundred in sales, so that’s a pretty good show for three days. Yesterday I did okay, a little over two thousand. Large projected loss definitely in profit. Probably about five to six thousand. Kind of leaving a lot of questions for us I think because I don’t think it should have gone down with the wind,” Varano said.

As organizers scramble to pick up the pieces, they still aren’t sure what went wrong.

“I look at the weather every day. Multiple days out. When I looked yesterday, it was showing fifteen – seventeen today, which is breezy but not disastrous. This tent was supposed to be ready for eighty mile an hour winds, but you see the result of it,” Tim Cianciola of the Stowe Foliage Arts Festival said.

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Vermont

Vermont high school, UVM scores for Saturday, Oct. 12: See how your favorite team fared

Published

10 hours ago

October 12, 2024

Press Room

Vermont high school, UVM scores for Saturday, Oct. 12: See how your favorite team fared

The 2024 Vermont high school fall season has begun. See below for scores, schedules and game details (statistical leaders, game notes) from soccer, field hockey, volleyball, golf and cross-country running.

To report scores: Coaches or team representatives are asked to report results ASAP after games by emailing sports@burlingtonfreepress.com. Please submit with a name/contact number.

►Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter: @aabrami5.

►Contact Judith Altneu at jaltneu@gannett.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @Judith_Altneu.

SATURDAY’S COLLEGE GAMES

Women’s hockey

Merrimack at Vermont, 3 p.m.

Men’s hockey

Vermont at St. Thomas, 7 p.m.

Men’s soccer

NJIT at Vermont, 1 p.m.

SATURDAY’S H.S. GAMES

Football

See Week 7 scoreboard for schedule, results

Boys soccer

Milton at Vergennes, noon

Field hockey

Otter Valley at Woodstock, 11 a.m.

SUNDAY’S COLLEGE GAMES

Women’s soccer

Vermont at UMass Lowell, 1 p.m.

(Subject to change)

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Vermont

Leaf peepers crowd into Vermont for peak foliage season

Published

18 hours ago

October 12, 2024

Press Room

Leaf peepers crowd into Vermont for peak foliage season

WOODSTOCK, Vt. (WCAX) – It’s estimated that 2.5 million people visit Vermont during the fall foliage season, and this weekend is one of the busiest.

The tables, stores and sidewalks are packed in downtown Woodstock.

“It’s the weather, the people, the restaurants, being able to be outside,” Lynn McGary said.

McGary and her family are visiting Vermont from North Carolina. We chatted briefly in front of a Revolutionary War reenactment at the library.

“As we go in and out of the valley, you see beautiful colors. We are planning on going to maybe Okemo and Killington after this just to see the difference,” McGary said.

Coincidentally, I had just come from Killington. This holiday weekend is the last one the gondola is open until the skiing starts. That’s where I met South Carolina resident Jenn Ash.

“I’ve never been before. This is a trip of a lifetime,” said Ash, who is six days into an eight-day trip through Vermont and New Hampshire.

The snow on the ground near the top of the mountain was a bit of a surprise.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “It is really great to see all the people. People have been so incredibly nice. And I get a chance to see all of the destinations, too.”

But one destination that’s off limits again this year is the Sleepy Hollow Farm in Pomfret, and also the Jenne Farm in Reading. It’s the second year in a row that roads leading to the farms have been closed because of too much fall foliage traffic.

But pretty much every back road this time of year is a destination in itself.

“I can send people in several different directions to get the same kind of beauty that they would get at either Jenne Farm or Sleepy Hollow,” said Beth Finlayson of the Woodstock Area Chamber of Commerce, who says the last three weeks have been record-breaking. “A thousand visitors a day every day at the welcome center.”

All those visitors bring big wallets. It’s estimated the state will take in roughly a half billion dollars during the six-week fall foliage season.

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Vermont

Woman pleads guilty to trying to smuggle 29 turtles across a Vermont lake into Canada by kayak

Published

1 day ago

October 11, 2024

Press Room

Woman pleads guilty to trying to smuggle 29 turtles across a Vermont lake into Canada by kayak

A woman from China pleaded guilty on Friday to attempting to smuggle 29 eastern box turtles, a protected species, across a Vermont lake into Canada by kayak.

Wan Yee Ng, 41, was arrested on the morning of June 28 at an Airbnb in Canaan as she was about to get into an inflatable kayak with a duffle bag on Lake Wallace, according to a Border Patrol agent’s affidavit filed in federal court.

Agents had been notified by Royal Canadian Mounted Police that two other people, including a man who was believed to be her husband, had started to paddle an inflatable watercraft from the Canadian side of the lake toward the United States, according to court documents.

The agents searched her heavy duffle bag and found 29 live eastern box turtles individually wrapped in socks, the affidavit states. Eastern box turtles are known to be sold on the Chinese black market for $1,000 each, the affidavit stated.

Her cellphone was seized, and a search by law enforcement found communications showing that she tried to smuggle the turtles into Canada so that they could eventually be sold for a profit in Hong Kong, according to the plea agreement. Ng, from Hong Kong, was living in Canada.

She pleaded guilty on Friday to one count of unlawfully attempting to export and send 29 eastern box turtles out of the United States, contrary to law. VTDigger first reported on the plea deal.

She is scheduled to be sentenced in December and faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

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