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South Bay Inlet, Lake Champlain. Photograph by Gary Randorf. |
The ancient sandy seashore hardened into sandstone so tough that it still forms the waterfalls along our streams. Along LaChute River in Ticonderoga, flowing water has not erased the ripples formed by wave action or the burrow holes of ancient sand worms. Photograph by Robin Brown. |
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earth’s crust rebounded from the weight of ice, leaving a series of connected waterways that form an inland Passage.
Native Peoples
People have only been here since the glaciers melted. Paleolithic hunters moved north with the edge of the glacier twelve thousand years ago, following big game like mastodons and giant beaver. Migrating ducks followed the Passage on their long flights north, providing a bountiful source of food in spring and fall. About a thousand years ago, Woodland people began to grow crops and establish village sites alongside streams and lakes.
By the time European explorers arrived, at the beginning of the 17th century, the native people to the east and west had developed distinct language groups, Algonquin and Iroquois. Both peoples used the Passage as a travel route for trade. |
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