VT Untapped

In the run up to election day 2022 VT Folklife is re-releasing our audio series Under the Golden Dome: The Stories Behind Vermont’s Citizen Legislature.  In 2004 the Snelling Center for Government commissioned Vermont Folklife to interview 35 former legislators. VT Folklife founder Jane C. Beck along with audio editor and musician Bob Merrill then worked together to create this ten-part radio series. It allows a rare, very human view, of our Legislature and its workings over the prior fifty-plus years.  The series demonstrates that within our state house the only constant has been change. Yet under the golden dome a unique citizen legislature where anyone can serve continues to thrive. Funding for radio production was provided by The Vermont Community Foundation and The Windham Foundation. We’ll be releasing the full series over the next week to accompany you during the countdown to election day on November 8, 2022. We urge everyone to vote! You can learn more about this series and listen to other episodes of VT Untapped at www.vtfolklife.org/untapped.

In the run up to election day 2022 VT Folklife is re-releasing our audio series Under the Golden Dome: The Stories Behind Vermont’s Citizen Legislature.  In 2004 the Snelling Center for Government commissioned Vermont Folklife to interview 35 former legislators. VT Folklife founder Jane C. Beck along with audio editor and musician Bob Merrill then worked together to create this ten-part radio series. It allows a rare, very human view, of our Legislature and its workings over the prior fifty-plus years.  The series demonstrates that within our state house the only constant has been change. Yet under the golden dome a unique citizen legislature where anyone can serve continues to thrive. Funding for radio production was provided by The Vermont Community Foundation and The Windham Foundation. We’ll be releasing the full series over the next week to accompany you during the countdown to election day on November 8, 2022. We urge everyone to vote! You can learn more about this series and listen to other episodes of VT Untapped at www.vtfolklife.org/untapped.

In the run up to election day 2022 VT Folklife is re-releasing our audio series Under the Golden Dome: The Stories Behind Vermont’s Citizen Legislature.  In 2004 the Snelling Center for Government commissioned Vermont Folklife to interview 35 former legislators. VT Folklife founder Jane C. Beck along with audio editor and musician Bob Merrill then worked together to create this ten-part radio series. It allows a rare, very human view, of our Legislature and its workings over the prior fifty-plus years.  The series demonstrates that within our state house the only constant has been change. Yet under the golden dome a unique citizen legislature where anyone can serve continues to thrive. Funding for radio production was provided by The Vermont Community Foundation and The Windham Foundation. We’ll be releasing the full series over the next week to accompany you during the countdown to election day on November 8, 2022. We urge everyone to vote! You can learn more about this series and listen to other episodes of VT Untapped at www.vtfolklife.org/untapped.

In the run up to election day 2022 VT Folklife is re-releasing our audio series Under the Golden Dome: The Stories Behind Vermont’s Citizen Legislature.  In 2004 the Snelling Center for Government commissioned Vermont Folklife to interview 35 former legislators. VT Folklife founder Jane C. Beck along with audio editor and musician Bob Merrill then worked together to create this ten-part radio series. It allows a rare, very human view, of our Legislature and its workings over the prior fifty-plus years.  The series demonstrates that within our state house the only constant has been change. Yet under the golden dome a unique citizen legislature where anyone can serve continues to thrive. Funding for radio production was provided by The Vermont Community Foundation and The Windham Foundation. We’ll be releasing the full series over the next week to accompany you during the countdown to election day on November 8, 2022. We urge everyone to vote! You can learn more about this series and listen to other episodes of VT Untapped at www.vtfolklife.org/untapped.

In the run up to election day 2022 VT Folklife is re-releasing our audio series Under the Golden Dome: The Stories Behind Vermont’s Citizen Legislature.  In 2004 the Snelling Center for Government commissioned Vermont Folklife to interview 35 former legislators. VT Folklife founder Jane C. Beck along with audio editor and musician Bob Merrill then worked together to create this ten-part radio series. It allows a rare, very human view, of our Legislature and its workings over the prior fifty-plus years.  The series demonstrates that within our state house the only constant has been change. Yet under the golden dome a unique citizen legislature where anyone can serve continues to thrive. Funding for radio production was provided by The Vermont Community Foundation and The Windham Foundation. We’ll be releasing the full series over the next week to accompany you during the countdown to election day on November 8, 2022. We urge everyone to vote! You can learn more about this series and listen to other episodes of VT Untapped at www.vtfolklife.org/untapped.

In the run up to election day 2022 VT Folklife is re-releasing our audio series Under the Golden Dome: The Stories Behind Vermont’s Citizen Legislature.  In 2004 the Snelling Center for Government commissioned Vermont Folklife to interview 35 former legislators. VT Folklife founder Jane C. Beck along with audio editor and musician Bob Merrill then worked together to create this ten-part radio series. It allows a rare, very human view, of our Legislature and its workings over the prior fifty-plus years.  The series demonstrates that within our state house the only constant has been change. Yet under the golden dome a unique citizen legislature where anyone can serve continues to thrive. Funding for radio production was provided by The Vermont Community Foundation and The Windham Foundation. We’ll be releasing the full series over the next week to accompany you during the countdown to election day on November 8, 2022. We urge everyone to vote! You can learn more about this series and listen to other episodes of VT Untapped at www.vtfolklife.org/untapped.

In the run up to election day 2022 VT Folklife is re-releasing our audio series Under the Golden Dome: The Stories Behind Vermont’s Citizen Legislature.  In 2004 the Snelling Center for Government commissioned Vermont Folklife to interview 35 former legislators. VT Folklife founder Jane C. Beck along with audio editor and musician Bob Merrill then worked together to create this ten-part radio series. It allows a rare, very human view, of our Legislature and its workings over the prior fifty-plus years.  The series demonstrates that within our state house the only constant has been change. Yet under the golden dome a unique citizen legislature where anyone can serve continues to thrive. Funding for radio production was provided by The Vermont Community Foundation and The Windham Foundation. We’ll be releasing the full series over the next week to accompany you during the countdown to election day on November 8, 2022. We urge everyone to vote! You can learn more about this series and listen to other episodes of VT Untapped at www.vtfolklife.org/untapped.

In the run up to election day 2022 VT Folklife is re-releasing our audio series Under the Golden Dome: The Stories Behind Vermont’s Citizen Legislature.  In 2004 the Snelling Center for Government commissioned Vermont Folklife to interview 35 former legislators. VT Folklife founder Jane C. Beck along with audio editor and musician Bob Merrill then worked together to create this ten-part radio series. It allows a rare, very human view, of our Legislature and its workings over the prior fifty-plus years.  The series demonstrates that within our state house the only constant has been change. Yet under the golden dome a unique citizen legislature where anyone can serve continues to thrive. Funding for radio production was provided by The Vermont Community Foundation and The Windham Foundation. We’ll be releasing the full series over the next week to accompany you during the countdown to election day on November 8, 2022. We urge everyone to vote! You can learn more about this series and listen to other episodes of VT Untapped at www.vtfolklife.org/untapped.

In the run up to election day 2022 VT Folklife is re-releasing our audio series Under the Golden Dome: The Stories Behind Vermont’s Citizen Legislature.  In 2004 the Snelling Center for Government commissioned Vermont Folklife to interview 35 former legislators. VT Folklife founder Jane C. Beck along with audio editor and musician Bob Merrill then worked together to create this ten-part radio series. It allows a rare, very human view, of our Legislature and its workings over the prior fifty-plus years.  The series demonstrates that within our state house the only constant has been change. Yet under the golden dome a unique citizen legislature where anyone can serve continues to thrive. Funding for radio production was provided by The Vermont Community Foundation and The Windham Foundation. We’ll be releasing the full series over the next week to accompany you during the countdown to election day on November 8, 2022. We urge everyone to vote! You can learn more about this series and listen to other episodes of VT Untapped at www.vtfolklife.org/untapped.

This episode is the first in a three-part mini-series about people who made masks during the early days of the pandemic in Vermont. In Episode 3 - Masks and Identity we learn how mask makers began expressing themselves creatively through the masks they made, and how they helped others affirm their identities in the middle of a global crisis.

This episode is the first in a three-part mini-series about people who made masks during the early days of the pandemic in Vermont. In Episode 2 - Community and Collaboration we hear from mask makers who worked together to share resources and solutions when elastic or fabric were hard to find and offered mutual support amid the isolation of the early pandemic.

This episode is the first in a three-part mini-series about people who made masks during the early days of the pandemic in Vermont. In episode 1 - Sewing in a Crisis, looks at mask making as an outlet for anxiety and considers the complexities of mask makers earning money, or not, in exchange for their labor.

It’s the 2021 VT Untapped Spooky Halloween Special! This year we teamed up with our friends at Vermont Public Radio and put out a call to all Vermonters, inviting them to get in touch and tell us their scariest ghostly encounters and supernatural sightings.

In July, 2021 residents of the town of Mendon, VT gathered to share stories and reflect on the impact of tropical storm Irene, 10 years after it tore through their small town. In this episode of VT Untapped we hear excerpts from this story circle event.

Nine years ago the Vermont Folklife Center released Weathering the Storm - an audio documentary created with Vermonters from towns across the state hard hit by tropical storm Irene. In this special episode of VT Untapped we are re-presenting “Weathering the Storm” in its entirety to mark the 10th anniversary of this historic event.

Over a year since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic we take a moment to look back on a year of the Listening in Place project, focusing on submissions to our Sound Archive. This facet of Listening in Place began with a small collection of audio recordings submitted via a portal on our website in response to an invitation to sit down and interview someone in your household, or remotely, during our first weeks of lockdown.  We received about 30 recordings from across the state. College students interviewing their classmates or their parents who they were suddenly living with again after campus shut down; a father talking to his two kids; people connecting remotely with friends who were far away or who were quarantining just across town. In this episode of VT Untapped™ we revisit and reflect on these records, which we now think of as the first seeds planted in what has become the Listening in Place collection in our archive, documenting people’s experiences in Vermont during the pandemic. VT Untapped™ is produced by the Vermont Folklife Center. Learn more on our website: www.vtfolklife.org/untapped

This episode brings you a seasonal selection of audio excerpts from the Vermont Folklife Center archive that reflect the maple sugaring tradition and its prominence in Vermont life across generations.

This year’s Valentine's episode of VT Untapped™ explores Covid as a catalyst for strengthening an existing relationship—a story about love across distance and across borders. We hope you enjoy!

Back in March 2020, Pete Sutherland opened up the voice memo app on his phone, hit record and said “This is just day-one of one person's journal about isolation in the time of the Coronavirus outbreak worldwide.” In the following nine months, Pete continued to hit record and share his thoughts with what he calls “the vault” on his phone. Sometimes he discusses the COVID-19 Pandemic, other times he reflects on walks in the woods, his family, teaching, or the 2020 election. In this episode of VT Untapped™, we bring you excerpts of Pete’s COVID Diary. Pete is a longtime friend of the VFC and a vastly influential contributor to traditional culture in Vermont. He is prolific as a musician, teacher, visual artist, composer, writer, and storyteller and his way with words comes through in this diary. Beyond the words, the sonic experience of the diary transports us right into Pete’s world; many of his entries are made “on site” as he goes about his daily life. So take a seat and join Pete on his journey through COVID times. In addition to providing material for this podcast, Pete has donated his diary in its entirety to the VFC archive where it will add to our growing collection of materials documenting the COVID-19 pandemic and our Listening in Place project. We are profoundly grateful to Pete for agreeing to share this personal account with us.   VT Untapped™ is produced by the Vermont Folklife Center. Visit our website for more information.

Driving turkeys THANKSGIVING SPECIAL! As we’re all gearing up for what is likely to be one of the most, shall we say “unusual,” Thanksgivings of our lifetimes (thanks again, 2020), here at VT Untapped™ we reached out VFC founder Jane Beck once more in search of suggestions for a seasonal story. Not surprisingly, once again Jane came through! Jane directed us to a series of interviews she conducted with Earle Fuller of Warren, VT between 1979 and 1983. Jane interviewed Earle over 45 times during that period, discussing his family’s history in the area, and the Fuller family tradition of raising, training and trading horses during the era of horse power. Earle was born in Warren in 1888. In two interviews, one from 1979 and one from 1981, Earle recounted to Jane the experience of driving turkeys from Vermont to market in Boston. To be clear, when we say “drive” we mean “herd”—literally marching a flock of (in Earle’s account) over 500 turkeys by road, through towns, over bridges on a journey that lasted 10 days round trip. Turkey drives were a seasonal sight to behold in New England in the 18th and 19th centuries, with flocks as large as 2,000 birds traveling from farms to cities for slaughter and sale. As Earle shares, even railroads were unwilling to transport the live birds, so herding turkeys through the countryside persisted as the simplest way to transport them to urban markets. Based on a number of clues embedded in the stories we’re honestly not sure if Earle is reporting from personal experience or if he is recounting someone else’s. For one, Earle begins his initial account in the third person—as if he is talking about someone else—then gradually shifts to telling it in the first person, setting himself in the tale. In addition, Earle states that he was 11 when the drive he describes occurred, which would set the date around 1899. As we understand it, the turn of the century would have been pretty late for a turkey drive like this to have taken place. This stated, we really just don’t know with any certainty and—truly—we don’t think it really matters all that much. Earle’s evocative account of trouping a bunch of red-headed, gobbling turkeys from VT to Boston rings true to other sources that describe similar trips, so what he shares is accurate based on comparison. Earle’s own story or not, it’s a trip well worth joining him on. VT Untapped™ is produced by the Vermont Folklife Center. For more information visit www.vtfolklife.org/untapped

In this episode you’ll come along with VFC staff on three "virtual site visits” to meet a few of the artists participating in this year’s Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. You'll hear about the art forms and projects they’ll be working on over the course of the next 10 months.

It’s Halloween! Which means it’s time for our annual SPOOKY HALLOWEEN SPECIAL! This year we reached out to VFC founder Jane Beck to see if she could think of any extra spooky stories in the archive—and boy did she come up with a corker! Jane interviewed Floyd Cowdrey on November 14, 1994. It’s a wide ranging interview, with Floyd recounting events from the late 19th and early 20th century including family stories, grisly details of a few local murders, some off-color (and by today’s standards frankly offensive) jokes and, importantly, a pretty darn good haunted house story. The events described by Floyd took place in the mid 1920s in Hartland, VT. We won’t go into the details here—we’ll leave those to Floyd—but we will say that you might find yourself thinking differently about that mysterious, late night knock on your bedroom door after hearing what Floyd has to say… VT Untapped™ is produced by the Vermont Folklife Center. Visit our website for more information.

What does a vibrant camp sound like without its campers? Camp Killooleet sits on the banks of the Hancock Branch, a tributary to the White River in Hancock, Vermont. Since 1927 it’s welcomed kids ages 9-14 for a classic summer camp experience. Hiking and swimming, arts and woodworking, sports, horse-back riding and a particularly strong music and song culture due in large part to the longtime connection of the Seeger family with Killooleet. John and Ellie Seeger bought the camp in 1949 and today their daughter, Kate Seeger and her husband Dean Spencer are the camp directors. John Seeger was the brother of the legendary folk singer, Pete Seeger.    Back in August, Mary Wesley and assistant producer Abra Clawson drove down to Hancock to meet with Kate, Dean and Kate’s brother, Tony Seeger. Tony is an anthropologist and audio-visual archivist and he serves on the Board of Directors for the VFC. It was an unusual visit because for the first time in 93 years, Camp Killooleet was closed, due to Covid -19. Where you’d expect to hear splashing and shouting in the pond and music in the camp house there was only birdsong and a slight breeze.    This episode explores the ways in which a summer camp community, an inherently ephemeral group, stays connected over time and distance. Camp Killoolleet in particular offers a unique site of observation and reflection thanks to two albums recorded in 1958 available from Smithsonian Folkways: Songs of Camp and Sounds of Camp. These historical recordings feature documentary soundscapes and sing-alongs that allow us to travel back in time to hear just what was missing from Killooleet during this “camper-less” summer of 2020.   THE RECORDINGSWe thank Smithsonian Folkways for granting us permission to feature selections from Sounds of Camp and Songs of Camp in this episode. You can find both albums--as well as the entire Smithsonian Folkways catalog here on their website.  The campers and counselors featured in this episode are Charlie, Kim, Smitty, Danny and Avi. You can sit in on one of the Killooleet Virtual Campfires here on YouTube.    Vermont Untapped is produced by the Vermont Folklife Center. For more information visit our website.

This episode of VT Untapped™ is the first in a six-part series built around our “Listening in Place” project. We’ll take you into six different Vermont communities where we’ve spent some time listening to what people are going through and what they’re thinking about during the pandemic and beyond. Since mid May the VFC has been working in partnership with Project Independence, an elderly day center in Middlebury, as part of our Listening in Place project, which seeks to document the everyday lives of Vermonters as they live through the extraordinary events of 2020. Project Independence serves over 100 participants with the goal of keeping elderly people independent and at home for longer. However after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it was clear that they had to greatly adapt their in-person programming in order to keep their participants and staff safe. Project Independence transitioned to Zoom video calls, which required much technical support and providing people with new devices that would fit their needs. Now each day, participants can take part in a large array of activities online. Between May 12 and August 5, one of these activities was to participate in an online interview with the VFC. We spoke with 22 different people, participants, staff and volunteers who shared their perspectives on life during Covid. Having a conversation and recording online could be tricky and many times we heard the common refrain, “Can you hear me? Are you there?” But when technology cooperated the connection went deeper than just a clear internet signal. People shared about the impact of suddenly having to stay home (for some, visiting Project Independence was their only outing), missing family and friends, honest confessions of loneliness and powerful messages of resilience that perhaps only the perspective of age can allow. We hope you enjoy hearing some of these perspectives in this episode of VT Untapped™. This podcast is produced by the Vermont Folklife Center. Please visit our website to learn more.