The Green Mountain State has long been a beacon for certain kinds of people drawn to the low-key lifestyle, bucolic landscapes, and progressive values. These include the many idealistic entrepreneurs my mom and I have encountered during a decade’s worth of annual trips, from experimental brewers working out of garages to a chef who serves dinner-party-style meals in a general store. COVID-19 was the catalyst for the most recent wavelet of entrepreneurial energy, as natives and transplants alike saw fresh potential in Vermont’s small towns, often reimagining businesses inherited from an older generation ready to relinquish the reins.
My mom and I had embarked on a road trip that started in the islands of the north, crossed the state’s mountainous middle, and stretched to the pastoral southern border. We could have driven all of it in four hours, but we decided to take it slow, spending five days discovering this latest group of starry-eyed folks who, like Shaw, are running businesses on trust, passion, and a sense of stewardship.
The foliage has just started to show its famed autumnal hues, and although much of the state is already mobbed with leaf peepers, the communities along the shores of Lake Champlain are unexpectedly quiet. Sometimes called the sixth Great Lake, this massive body of water stretches for 124 miles between the Adirondacks in New York and the Green Mountains in Vermont, and beyond into Quebec. Within it is an archipelago of around 80 islands, with Isle La Motte, North Hero, Grand Isle (home to the towns of Grand Isle and South Hero), and the Alburgh Peninsula comprising what residents call “the Islands.” In the summer, their collective population of around 7,000 doubles as vacationers come to paddle, sail, fish, and camp along the shores of the area’s many state parks. After Labor Day, tourists disperse, missing out on the colors and calm of the lake in fall.
The day we arrive, my mom and I pop into Hero’s Welcome. First opened in 1899, this general store on the island of North Hero has been a one-stop shop for everything from groceries to local gossip. Its current owners, Vermont native Kevin White, 35, and his partner, Nathaniel Keefe, 31, took over three years ago with a mission to carry on its legacy. They’ve acquired a liquor license and gussied up the deli menu but have largely kept the other offerings—a book loft, ice cream, gas, and bike and kayak rentals—the same. At checkout, I comment on the surprising emptiness of the lake. “One day it will change,” Keefe says wistfully. “But for now enjoy that you can paddle into the middle of the lake during fall and feel almost like you discovered it.”
