Yankee Magazine January/February 2025 by Yankee Magazine

features

52 /// The Great Indoors

Banish the winter blahs at five New England museums whose settings are as engaging as their artworks. By Courtney Hollands

64 /// Cold Rush

The only predictable thing about ice climbing in the Mount Washington Valley? The urge to keep coming back. By Michael Wejchert

68 /// The Name We Carry

A legacy of duty and sacrifice ripples through generations of a single Boston family. By Erin Gottwald

72 /// Acadia in Winter

A photo tribute to the off-season beauty of one of America’s most visited national parks.

80 /// Conversations: Jacob Knowles

Meet the lobsterman using TikTok to pull in followers by the boatload. By Alyssa Giacobbe

84 /// A Place That Changes Lives

In Portland, Maine, young people discover the power of their stories at a writing center like no other. By Mel Allen

Ice climber Peter K. Brandon makes his way up Frankenstein Cliff in New Hampshire’s Crawford Notch State Park. Story, p. 64

THE COLUMBIA & SNAKE RIVERS

As you travel the route of Lewis & Clark with just 180 fellow guests, admire the magniﬁcent Multnomah Falls and witness the power of Mount St. Helens. During your intimate voyage, taste the ﬁnest cuisine in the region, view the most spectacular ever-changing scenery, and hear amazing tales about the area’s rich history.

24 /// Cozy Up!

Leave it to New Englanders to create useful home goods and accents that keep you feeling warm all winter long. By Elyse

Major

PERSON

32 /// Squeeze Play

Taste what the sun-kissed flavors of citrus can bring to your winter kitchen. By

Sarah Hearn Morrison

38 /// In Season

Two hearty, easy-to-make soups featuring ingredients that you may already have on hand. By Amy

Traverso

44 /// Weekend Away

Snow-globe perfection meets small-town warmth in Woodstock, Vermont. By Amy Traverso

50 /// Bonbon Appétit

From truffles to taffy, these favorite candy shops bring out New England’s sweet side. Compiled by Bill Scheller

In praise of electrifying the senses with an icy plunge. By Bruce Irving

FIRST LIGHT

Step into a world where butterflies and humans alike can enjoy endless summer. By Ian Aldrich 22 UP CLOSE

Mad River Glen’s one-skier chairlift isn’t just a ride— it’s an expression of heritage. By Lisa Gosselin Lynn

What you can’t control, you have to learn to survive. By Ben Hewitt

Unsurpassed.

EDITORIAL

Editor Mel Allen

Senior Managing Editor Jenn Johnson

Executive Editor Ian Aldrich

Senior Food

Editor Amy Traverso

Senior Digital/Home Editor Aimee Tucker

Travel/Branded Content Editor Kim Knox Beckius

Contributing Editors Sara Anne Donnelly, Ben Hewitt, Rowan Jacobsen, Nina MacLaughlin, Bill Scheller, Julia Shipley, Kate Whouley

ART

Art Director Katharine Van Itallie

Senior Photo Editor Heather Marcus

Contributing Photographers Adam DeTour, Megan Haley, Corey Hendrickson, Michael Piazza, Greta Rybus

PRODUCTION

Director David Ziarnowski

Manager Brian Johnson

Senior Artists Jennifer Freeman, Rachel Kipka

DIGITAL

Vice President Paul Belliveau Jr.

Senior Designer Amy O’Brien

E-commerce Director Alan Henning

Digital Manager Holly Sanderson

Marketing Specialist Jessica Garcia

Email Marketing Manager Eric Bailey

Customer Retention Marketer Kalibb Vaillencourt

E-commerce Merchandiser Specialist Nicole Melanson

YANKEE PUBLISHING INC.

ESTABLISHED 1935 | AN EMPLOYEE-OWNED COMPANY

President Jamie Trowbridge

Vice Presidents Paul Belliveau Jr., Ernesto Burden, Judson D. Hale Jr., Brook Holmberg, Jennie Meister, Sherin Pierce

Editor Emeritus Judson D. Hale Sr.

CORPORATE STAFF

Vice President, Finance & Administration Jennie Meister

Human Resources Manager Beth Parenteau

Information Manager Gail Bleakley

Assistant Controller Nancy Pfuntner

Accounting Associate Meg Hart-Smith

Accounting Coordinator Meli Ellsworth-Osanya

Executive Assistant Christine Tourgee

Maintenance Supervisor Mike Caron

Facilities Attendant Ken Durand

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Andrew Clurman, Renee Jordan, Joel Toner, Jamie Trowbridge, Cindy Turcot

FOUNDERS

Robb and Beatrix Sagendorph

Publisher Brook Holmberg

ADVERTISING

Vice President Judson D. Hale Jr.

Media Account Managers Kelly Moores, Dean DeLuca , Steven Hall

Canada Account Manager Cynthia Fleming

Senior Production Coordinator Janet Selle

For advertising rates and information, email sales@yankeepub.com or go to newengland.com/adinfo.

MARKETING

ADVERTISING

Director Kate Hathaway Weeks

Senior Manager Valerie Lithgow

Marketing Assistant Natalia Rivera

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Roslan & Associates Public Relations LLC

NEWSSTAND

Vice President Sherin Pierce

NEWSSTAND CONSULTING

Linda Ruth, PSCS Consulting

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FOOD

Winter Soups, Stews & Chowders 

Warm up this season with a dozen of Yankee’s favorite meal-in-a-bowl recipes. newengland.com/bestsoups

LIVING

Cozy Cabin Dreaming 

The fantasy of a backwoods escape comes to life in Instagram-ready photos by Vermont-based Dirt and Glass. newengland.com/cozycabin

TRAVEL

Great Winter Guided Adventures 

From embarking on a family-friendly snowshoe trek to tackling the summit of Mount Washington, following the leader has never been so much fun. newengland.com/guidedwinter

Best New England Bookstores

Wherever you go in New England this winter, there’s nothing like a top-notch independent bookstore to help you get a read on the local community. newengland.com/bestbookstores

Want more Yankee? Follow us on social media @yankeemagazine and scan the code below to read this bonus content!

In Maine’s Carrabassett Valley region, classic winter adventure awaits on the Maine Huts & Trails multiuse trail system. Photo by Mark Fleming

]

STAKE YOUR CLAIM

AUTHENTIC POST & BEAM BARNS

[ COLE HAUSER × THE BARN YARD

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

ately my Sunday mornings have been spent in a bright second-floor Yankee office with large windows that let in the early sun. Rudy, our 15-year-old Jack Russell, who has seen age take its toll with deafness and a dollop of confusion, comes with me, and makes himself comfortable on his soft bed beneath a desk.

The shelves in this room hold the bound collections of every issue of Yankee magazine, beginning with founder Robb Sagendorph’s first one, September 1935. This is Yankee ’s history right here, all around me, and because I have been here for half of its life, I feel as if these shelves hold a chunk of my own as well.

For the 50th anniversary issue of Yankee, September 1985, I wrote, An anniversary is like a reunion, all memories invited. With this winter 2025 issue, we begin our 90th year. And as I sit here on Sundays, listening to Rudy’s soft snores, and rifle through thousands of pages, the memories accept the invite, keeping me company while I search for notable snippets through the years that might make their way into one more anniversary issue this coming September.

The hours pass and I see a tapestry of New England play out as if in a movie, images speeding across the screen: the 1930s and the Depression, impending war, soldiers coming home, ski areas popping up, coastal towns becoming resorts, foliage becoming a thing People and places and happenings all flash by.

As I flick page after page, no matter what is happening in the world, I hear the voice of a magazine that gives readers comfort and solace in stories about the spirit and beauty and endurance of New England.

When I reach the issues from the late ’70s, I find my name attached to stories, and it is like seeing photos of myself as a boy. The memories come in waves. This is when Jud Hale, our editor and my mentor, impressed upon me that stories need to make readers feel. Whether they laugh, or cry, or be astonished, or learn something new, they will come back for more. I do not think he ever said no to any story I wanted to write. Not once. My stories always took me weeks longer than I thought— because I knew Jud would read them first.

And so my Sunday mornings have become full of pride and nostalgia for what we all made happen: Photography to make your heart stop. Stories about people and places that readers come to know because they arrive in Yankee. And the most wonderful part of these hours is I know that what I am finding now, just before Thanksgiving, you will discover down the road just a bit, when the leaves start to change again just as they did in 1935 and as they will 90 years from now.

No matter what is happening right now in New England and in our country, here will be Yankee, as it always has, and always will, giving you the spirit and beauty and endurance of New England.

Mel Allen editor@yankeepub.com

MICHAEL PIAZZA

In photographing our “Cozy Up!” home goods portfolio [p. 24], Piazza found the braided rugs to be a real nostalgic throwback. “If I think back on cozy winter days in our family cabin, with all the snow coming down,” he says, “the absolutely huge braided rugs made by my grandmother are right near the top of my memories.” Chief photographer and creative director of Edible Boston, Piazza has contributed to Food & Wine, Imbibe, and The New York Times, among others.

ELYSE MAJOR

Writing “Cozy Up!” [p. 24] combined three favorite things, says Major: wintertime, New England brands, and being cozy. “And I might just get my husband and two grown sons to take a road trip with me now that they know Raiders of the Lost Ark ’s Karen Allen has a shop in Massachusetts,” she jokes. A resident of Rhode Island, Major is editor in chief at Hey Rhody Media Co., publisher of four monthly lifestyle magazines that “showcase the people and places that make our state so wonderful.”

ALYSSA GIACOBBE

Though a native New Englander, Giacobbe is a fairly recent resident of Maine who is reminded (often) she’ll always be from “away”—which gave her a special appreciation for lobsterman and TikTok star Jacob Knowles [“Conversations,” p. 80]. “Jacob invites those from ‘away’ into his world with such enthusiasm and warmth,” says Giacobbe, a contributor to publications ranging from Condé Nast Traveler and Architectural Digest to Teen Vogue “It’s an entertaining, educational, joyful corner of social media.”

DANA SMITH

An editorial illustrator whose images appear in The New York Times and many others, Smith says this of his haunting artwork for “The Name We Carry” [p. 68]: “There’s little that gives me more joy than sifting through a box of family snapshots, letters, and clippings—that, and the idea that my own illustration might become one of those folded-up pieces of paper dug up from the bottom of someone’s dusty treasure box generations from now. It’s one of the most wonderful things I can imagine.”

ERIN GOTTWALD

Having spent decades as a professional dancer and dance instructor, Gottwald is currently pursuing an MFA in creative nonfiction writing at Bay Path University in Massachusetts, from which her essay “The Name We Carry” [p. 68] was born. Although this is Gottwald’s first byline in Yankee, her writing has also been published in the journal Snapdragon and a Pure Slush literary anthology, and she was selected as a top 10 finalist in Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Writing Awards.

LIZ NEILY

Working in a stunning studio space in an old creamery barn in Woodstock, Vermont, Neily makes, styles, and photographs many of the recipes that appear in Yankee’s food pages. A longtime contributor to the magazine’s “In Season” column [p. 38], Neily also creates delicious-looking images for features such as this issue’s tribute to citrus recipes, “Squeeze Play” [p. 32]—and she reveals that the triple-lemon loaf cake was her absolute favorite of the bunch.

Letters to the Editor

Though I was late reading my September/October issue, the timing was perfect: The essay “Benefits” touched my soul deeply. Thank you, Mel Allen.

I’m on an Amtrak train heading back to Nashua after a trip to New York City. I once lived there for 11 years, and always took the train “home” to New London, Connecticut, when my folks were alive. It still brings tears to my eyes when I pass through and remember how they eagerly waited to pick me up at the station. I wish I had made more visits back then. How foolish of me not to.

Today I will tell my parents about all the wonderful things happening now in my life, and how proud they would be of their family. And there will be tears in my eyes. Just like when I read your piece. Thank you again, Mel. Maggie Lewis Via email

I was saddened to learn of Edie Clark’s passing. Unlike the many readers who turned to “Mary’s Farm” first in every issue, I always saved it for the last. I genuinely connected with her writing and stories, and even emailed her a few times to remark on the similarities we shared, especially her living on a farm in New Hampshire and my looking forward to retiring to a New Hampshire homestead that has now been in my family for 120 years. She was a bright spot in a world that values less and less the simple joys of life. Rest in peace, Edie.

Rev. Dr. Christopher Drew Plymouth, NH

I live in Massachusetts and have been aware of Yankee for a very long time. Recently I began watching your show, Weekends with Yankee, and enjoyed it so much I decided to subscribe to the magazine. I received my first issue last week, and it’s great. (I also wish to fight the diminishment of print publications due to digital media, so it’s a bit ironic I’m sending you this note through email!)

Allan Ken Wilson Greenfield, MA

Chill Seeking

In praise of electrifying the senses with an icy plunge.

During the winter of 2021, I spent three months living solo on an island in Maine. I’d been seized with the idea a few summers earlier while walking along a sun-splashed road on Monhegan, thinking, Gosh, this is nice. I wonder what it’s like in the middle of February? After some fits and starts, I found myself in a sweet timber-framed yearround house on the south side of Little Cranberry Island, far enough from my nearest neighbors that I could go a week without seeing anyone if I chose.

The project, if you can call it that, was to take my well-worn, extroverted, relational self (son, friend,

husband, father, worker, all-around glad-hander) and put him on the bench to see what or who would emerge in his place. That’s another essay, but it’s also how I found myself sitting by the woodstove late one February afternoon, reading Katherine May’s Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times , which my sister had sent me as “just the thing” for her kid brother’s wacky adventure.

May writes about the salutary effects of following nature’s cycles, allowing oneself to withdraw, rest, even mourn, rather than relentlessly pursuing the headlong linear rush this society encourages and rewards.

One of her chapters recounts her experiences with cold-water swimming, and it was utterly captivating. Her first time into the ocean, it was drizzling and 43 degrees, the water 37. Entering, she writes, “was so absolute. So vicious.” I shuddered as I read. Minutes later, when she was back on the beach, she gasped, “That was brilliant.”

I closed the book and looked out at the ocean in front of my house. The sun was setting, the wind brisk; there was some snow on the ground. I said

As skaters crisscross the ice at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, the author ventures into what lies below.

a string of phrases that I can’t share here. I knew what I had to do.

Cursing some more, I headed down to the beach, terrified but slightly tickled by my sudden resolve. A little back from the waterline, I began taking off my clothes, shocked by the coldness of the sand and, as each layer came off, the strangeness of my bare body exposed to the air. This continued up to the toughest moment of the whole process for me, when my shirt came off and my mind said, Really? And there I was, buck naked and dry as a bone.

I walked into the water. It was indeed absolute in the way it grabbed my attention. Up to my knees, the small waves splashing the martinicold onto my poor warm thighs. I ain’t waiting for the crotch, I thought, and I turned around and launched myself backward into the Atlantic.

My body and mind were so astounded by the novelty of what was happening that pain or terror or even alarm didn’t register. But I did want to stand up as soon as possible, which I did, finding the bottom, jumping to my feet, gasping for air, and shaking the water from my hair. I was fully wet and vibratingly electrified. Now what? I crouched back under the water, up to my chin, trying to tame my breath. I started counting— one thousand one, one thousand two —and made it to about 20 before bolting to the beach, where I looked out on the ocean, bellowed an exultant and again-unprintable phrase, gathered up my clothes, and ran back up to my house and into the hot tub.

Which is where my buzz instantly ended. Yes, I was warm again and yes, I had DONE IT, but the feeling that I’d just read May describe—“My blood sparkled in my veins”—was now gone.

Still, I felt acutely alive for the rest of the evening, and I would end up sleeping even better than normal. This thing was real, it seemed. And uttering another, gentler curse, I

I walked on the beach, tomatosoup-red as my capillaries flushed with blood, feeling utterly bulletproof for five minutes or so, spectacularly present in nature.

knew I would do it again tomorrow. I went in every day for the remaining month and a half of my stay, following the high tide and ignoring the weather (wading in with snow on my shoulders was memorable). I worked my way up to staying in for a minute, which seemed plenty, and I never had another hot tub buzzkill, instead walking on the beach, tomato-soupred as my capillaries flushed with

BREAKING THE ICE

blood, feeling utterly bulletproof for five minutes or so, spectacularly present in nature. One of my favorite times was an early morning with a good surf running; crouching in the water, I looked into the rising sun through the tube of a wave. The last day I got out of the water was the only time I cried that my island sojourn was over.

Since then, I’m less regular in my plunging, but when presented with an opportunity I’ll usually take it. I’ve been in Cape Cod Bay in January, Wildcat Brook in February, and Walden Pond at the drop of a ski hat, wading in while ice chunks banged my shins and hockey players skated past me. Canada, Scotland, the Faroe Islands—my trips are now more vivid for these immersions, connecting me to place in an indelible way. My wife and I even fill the bathtub with cold water on winter mornings, getting ourselves revved up for the workday. The high never fails, and the benefits linger. It’s brilliant.

Ready to try a winter plunge in New England? Join the crowd.

For more than a century, the hardy souls of South Boston’s L Street Brownies —the nation’s oldest organized “polar bear” swim club—have gathered on New Year’s Day to plunge into the frigid waters of Boston Harbor. That event can be seen as the inspiration for the countless winter plunges that have sprung up around the region in the years since, many of which combine fundraising with teethchattering fun. Here’s a sampling:

n LOBSTER DIP (Old Orchard Beach, ME): Maine’s first and largest winter ocean plunge marks its 37th year as a fundraiser for Special Olympics Maine. Preregister and raise a minimum of $100, and you, too, can take a dip before warming up at the after-party with food, drinks, and dancing at the Brunswick Hotel. Jan. 1; somaine.org/lobster-dip

n FROZEN CLAM DIP & OBSTAPLUNGE (Warwick, RI): Take your pick of two fundraising romps at this Mentor Rhode Island event: a plunge into Narragansett

Bay, or a ninja-style obstacle course on the beach. If you missed a chance to score tickets online ($44 adult/$22 youth), they’re available at the event, too. Jan. 4; mentorri.org/frozenclam

n PENGUIN PLUNGE (Burlington, VT): At Special Olympics Vermont’s biggest fundraiser, a designated spectator zone provides a great view—and prime photo ops—as registered participants make a splash in Lake Champlain. Meanwhile, the event’s Winter Village offers music, food trucks, games, and more. Feb. 8; specialolympicsvermont.org/ penguin-plunge

n SOUNDWATERS SUPER SPLASH (Stamford, CT): On Super Bowl Sunday, get your heart rate up before the game even starts by jumping into Long Island Sound. Admission is by registration fee ($30 adult/$20 youth), with additional donations welcome. Proceeds support climate science education. Feb. 9; soundwaters.org/get-involved/events

f irstLIGHT

Flights of Fancy

Step into a world where butterflies and humans alike can enjoy endless summer year-round.

BY IAN ALDRICH PHOTOS BY HEATHER MARCUS

few years ago, I hit the wall with winter. Actually, it was more like a full-on collision. I was hauling wood and clearing walkways for what seemed like the hundredth time that season. I wanted to throw my shovel into the woods. I was finished with feeling cold and moving snow. Even my son, Calvin, seemed done with it. He’d just shrug at the prospect of another chance to go sledding, as if to say, Are we really still doing this?

What to do? Escaping to Florida wasn’t an option—but as it turned out, there was a winter respite just a little south of our home in New Hampshire. And so began our pilgrimage to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory & Gardens in South Deerfield, Massachusetts.

On a late February day, stepping into an 80-degree environment can make all the difference. Heavy coats are shed. T-shirts emerge, along with arms that have rarely been bare in four months. You see flowers. You see turtles. And of course, you see thousands of butterflies. I felt as though I’d entered a time machine and been dropped right into an early summer day in New

OPPOSITE: Butterflies from species native to Central and South America, Australia, and the southern U.S. gather around one of the sugarwater feeders at Magic Wings.

ABOVE, FROM LEFT: A blue-banded morpho alights on a young visitor’s shoulder; the conservatory’s burbling koi pond; a gentle reminder of the resident insects’ right-of-way.

England. No more shovels. No more ice. No more winter.

We weren’t the only ones soaking all this in. Each year, more than 90,000 people visit Magic Wings, where curving paths lead visitors around and through an 8,000-squarefoot glass conservatory. But where you stop and sit—a gazebo and a scattering of benches are among the options—is up to you. Maybe you’ll take a few minutes to gaze at the koi pond. Or perhaps it’s the orchids you’ll find most transfixing. Or maybe (and you wouldn’t be the first),

you’ll just want to keep walking at a leisurely pace as butterflies dance and flutter around you.

Kathy Fiore understands the allure. In the late 1990s, her father, George Miller, a local contractor and military veteran, was hired for an unusual job: turning a tired restaurant space into a home for thousands of butterflies and tropical plants. Miller liked the

“Winter is really the time when people find us,” says Fiore. “We have regulars who come here, take their coats and boots off, put on flip-flops, and a T-shirt, bring in a book and make an afternoon of it. I had one lady tell me she was paying $75 a week for therapy, then she decided to come here—and that became what she needed instead.

“If you think about it, the butterfly is this powerful symbol of change, a reminder that life is fleeting,” Fiore continues. “That really registers when you visit here, and I always find it remarkable how emotional some people are when they come here.”

In a region not exactly known for an abundance of butterfly conservatories, Magic Wings is one of the largest. More than 4,000 butterflies representing some 45 species make their home here; many of them you’d have to travel to places like Peru, Costa

FROM LEFT: A family strolls amid sunlightdappled greenery at Magic Wings, which has drawn some 2 million visitors since opening in 2000; a male Cairns birdwing, Australia’s largest native butterfly.

Rica, and the Philippines to see. The magic of this place, though, is that it’s not just about the butterflies: The conservatory is also base camp for all manner of life. There are over 100 varieties of tropical plants—plants that hang from high places, plants that droop, plants that flower, plants that burst with color. Red-footed tortoises from South America patrol the ponds, while teams of Chinese painted quail dart around the grounds. Look closely and you may spy a Vietnamese mossy frog or a stop-you-in-your-tracks Hercules beetle.

At the center of the show is Akbar, a Senegal parrot who has resided at Magic Wings for nearly two decades. “He’s pretty convinced that this is a bird sanctuary with some butterflies in it,” quips Fiore, then adds, “But my staff is passionate about everything here, so what visitors find is a place where all our creatures live in harmony.”

Magic Wings can feel like a place that shouldn’t exist. Not in New England. Not in the throes of deep winter. But it does—and on a late February day when it feels almost impossible that spring will ever arrive, Magic Wings serves up a hopeful forecast. magicwings.com

ROGER WILLIAMS PARK BOTANICAL CENTER

Providence, RI

It’s 70 degrees at all times inside New England’s largest glasshouse display garden. Fountains murmur, camellias blossom, 40-foot palm trees stretch toward the sun. And you’ll feel the warmth tingling all the way from the top of your head to the tips of your toes as you inhale the heavenly scent of calamondin oranges. providenceri.gov/ botanical-center

LYMAN CONSERVATORY AT SMITH COLLEGE

Northampton, MA

Give Jack Frost the slip at one of the nation’s oldest plant havens, founded in 1895. Among the 10 greenhouses here that are open to the public, the Palm House is a standout: Its junglelike warmth and humidity ensures the comfort of its specimens while soothing winter-weary humans, too. garden.smith.edu

ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM

Boston, MA

Come for the art, stay for the aah at the Venetian-style palazzo that Isabella Stewart Gardner once called home. Now a world-renowned museum, it shows how the socialite and arts patron surrounded herself with beautiful things—paintings and sculptures, yes, but also lush tropical and subtropical plants in the four-story glass-topped courtyard. gardnermuseum.org

LOGEE’S PLANTS FOR HOME & GARDEN

Danielson, CT

Marvel at such botanical rarities as a citrus tree bearing 10 varieties of fruit, a Ponderosa lemon tree that’s been growing since 1900, and an otherworldly Buddha’s Hand citron at this family-owned exotic-plant specialist. And who knows? After wandering through the greenhouses and retail shop at Logee’s, you may just be inspired to load up on the makings of your own tropical escape. logees.com

Since arriving at Magic Wings when he was 12, Akbar the Senegal parrot has served as the butterfly conservatory’s “ambassador” for nearly 20 years.

COME ON IN, THE WEATHER’S FINE Pull oﬀ a tropical escape without ever leaving New England’s frosty climes.

Roger Williams Park Botanical Center

Loving the Single Life

Mad River Glen’s one-skier chairlift

isn’t just a ride— it’s an expression of heritage.

As New England ski areas rush to install four-, six-, and even eight-person chairlifts, Mad River Glen remains a believer in the power of one. The Fayston, Vermont, ski area is home to the Single Chair, the last of its kind in the lower 48 states, and to slide onto its cushioned wood-slat seat, pull the safety bar closed, and rumble in solitude over snow-covered glades is to make a pilgrimage to another era.

In 1946, Mad River Glen founder Roland Palmedo commissioned the American Steel & Wire Company to build the original Single Chair. Designed to take skiers 2,000 vertical feet up Stark Mountain in 12 minutes, it’s said to have been the fastest chairlift in the world when the ski area opened on December 11, 1948.

In Mad River Glen, Palmedo was looking to create what he described as “not just a place of business, a mountain amusement park, as it were. Instead, it is a winter community whose members, both skiers and area personnel, are dedicated to the enjoyment of the sport.”

That spirit carried on through decades of expansion. It was only amplified in 1995 when owner Betsy Pratt, a New Yorker who had inherited the resort from her husband two decades earlier, turned Mad River Glen into the country’s first skier-owned co-op.

By the early 2000s, the co-op knew the Single Chair needed to be either fixed or replaced. The cost to refurbish it was $1.8 million; installing a new double chairlift was $300,000 less. But more than 80 percent of the 1,700 shareholders voted to restore the Single Chair, aiming to preserve Mad River Glen’s character

while staving off overcrowding on its trails.

Working with the Preservation Trust of Vermont and the Stark Mountain Foundation, shareholders raised the full $1.8 million, and the ribbon was cut on the refurbished Single Chair on December 15, 2007. Five years later, Mad River Glen earned the honor of being the only ski area on the National Historic Register, thanks in part to its iconic ride.

“I don’t think we ever would have raised that kind of money to preserve any other chairlift,” says Eric Friedman, Mad River’s marketing director at the time. “That chair galvanized our community and made us realize what we had in the ski area.” —Lisa Gosselin Lynn

Fair Winds and Following Seas Blue Sapphire Ring

I’m going to take you on a trip to the other side of the world. You don’t want to be seen because if you are you’ll mess up someone’s day and they won’t find what they are looking for, if they see you. So you hide in the bushes and just watch.

A man is sifting gravel in a riverbed in Sri Lanka. He reaches down and picks up a rare blue crystal. He closes one eye, holds the crystal to the sun and thinks, “Good, this will feed our family for a week.”

He has no idea what will happen to the gem but here you are a year later on the other side of the world deciding on this token of love. You know what you feel for her. You know what you’re feeling about this ring. It’s perfect in every way.

Yes, we have only one Fair Winds & Following Seas ring at this price. The sapphire is a beautiful shade of blue.

This ad appears in 243,622* Yankee magazines. Only one of you can have this ring. For the other 1,300,000 readers of the January/February issue of Yankee, we have over 200 exquisite pieces of blue sapphire jewelry on our website. All jewelry is ready to buy. It takes 45 seconds to get to our 1,000-item website. Shipping is fast, safe and free, anywhere USA.

Our Real Goal

Our real goal for this ad is not to just sell the ring shown, but rather to get you to visit our website. Because we know once you do, we’ve got you, because what we show on our website is pictured so well and explained so well. We almost always share the story behind the story... You’ll love it.

Cozy Up!

New Englanders know how to create useful goods and accents to keep you feeling warm all winter long.

BY ELYSE MAJOR | PHOTOS BY MICHAEL PIAZZA

Oh-SoWoolly Wear

CASHMERE SHAWLS

Fans of actress Karen Allen will be doubly starstruck to learn that the iconic Raiders of the Lost Ark heroine is also a textile artist with a shop and design studio in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Via Karen Allen Fiber Arts, she sells a signature line of knitwear, made in-house. On her website, Allen explains that she uses ﬁne Scottish and Italian yarns in 100 percent cashmere because there is “zero itch factor,” which makes this collection of light but instantly warming shawls a real audience-pleaser. karenallen-ﬁberarts.com

SHEARLING SLIPPERS

On frosty days, you might find yourself wearing slippers more often than shoes—so why not invest in a solid pair? Continuing a decades-old legacy of footwear handsewn in Maine, shearling slippers from Quoddy check all the boxes: The outsole is nubbed for traction, the collar nestles ankles in warmth, and the signature Quoddy ESQ “Barefoot” shape offers more wiggle room for toes. And if you love these slippers a little too much, the Lewiston company offers a “resole and refurbish” service. quoddy.com

THIS PAGE: Karen Allen Fiber Arts cashmere shawls ($325–$475 each); Quoddy shearling slippers (FROM LEFT) Men’s Hearth ESQ Slipper ($145), Women’s Cuddle ESQ Slipper ($129), and Men’s Quad ESQ Slipper ($149).

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Lamp by Danforth Pewter (see p. 27); throw by Johnson Woolen Mills (see p. 28); rug by Colonial Mills (see p. 28); teacup and saucer by Peter Pots Pottery (see p. 28); sheepskin by Chilton (see p. 30); pillow by Nantucket Looms (see p. 30).

Light Touches

TAPERS

While the name Mole Hollow might suggest these candlemakers are just down the road from Toad Hall, the company is actually located in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, home to the famed Old Sturbridge Village. Each taper boasts a custom-braided wick, linenlike ﬁnish, hand-ﬂuted base, and a solid burn time of four to 10 hours, depending on size. Plus, when you buy a box of 12 it comes inscribed

with the candlemaker’s name—a personal touch with a warming glow. molehollowcandles.com

SOY CANDLES

Nestled along Main Street in picturesque Peterborough, New Hampshire, is Grey Horse Candle Company, a husband-and-wife-led enterprise that whips up small-batch soy candles “for equestrians.” But their line of soothing/spicy fragrances— with names like Fresh Cut

Hay, Spring Pasture, and High End Saddle—promises to inspire unbridled enthusiasm in non-horsey people, too. Each longburning candle is made with wax from Americangrown soybeans and comes in either a reusable glass canning jar or a handy lidded tin. greyhorsecandles.com

OIL LAMPS

With its sleek mix of glass and shiny pewter, the Seaport Oil Lamp with 8.5”

Globe brings elegance to any battening down of hatches. Made in-house at Danforth Pewter in Middlebury, Vermont, by a team of trained artisans, each ﬁxture is rendered from raw metal into this useful and eye-catching object. Unlike silver, pewter never rusts or tarnishes, but instead develops a patina that only adds to its luster. The lamp holds three ounces of oil—that’s nine hours to you and me. danforthpewter.com

Comfy Coverings

PLAID THROWS

Until the chance of snow has finally left the forecast (May, perhaps?), plaid-everything rules the Northeast—and you’ll find scads of the stuff at Johnson Woolen Mills, which has been outfitting outdoorsy Vermonters and their neighbors in rugged but cozy fabrics since 1842. The snuggle-ready Norris Wool Throw comes in rich solid colors as well as a variety of patterns, but we’ll admit to going mad for the Old Canadian Plaid, a jaunty mix of black, red, forest green, and cream. johnsonwoolenmills.com

WOOL BLANKETS

As residents of one of the 10 coldest states in the country, Mainers know a thing or two about keeping cozy—which is exactly the

feeling you get from the Swans Island Grace Winter Blanket, which the Northport company touts as its heaviest and warmest. Handwoven and hand-dyed using wool from nearby farms, each blanket is an instant heirloom. Order online or plan a ﬁeld trip to the company store to scout for additional goods and yarn. swansislandcompany.com

DOWN COMFORTERS

Time for a new comforter?

The folks at Franconia, New Hampshire–based Garnet Hill have you covered. Not only is their Essential Down Comforter stylish (in 13 colors with matching piping), but the midweight spread is certiﬁed toxin-free right down to the thread and buttons. For in-person browsing,

head to the retail store in Dedham, Massachusetts, or the outlet store in Franconia. garnethill.com

BRAIDED RUGS

Braided rugs are having a moment, thanks to makers who are changing up classic palettes while adhering to the traditional techniques that make each one so durable. In Rumford, Rhode Island (original home of the iconic red can of baking powder), family-owned Colonial Mills turns out a basket-load of handcrafted braided products, from poufs and chair pads to rugs. Among the standouts: the multicolored 100-percentwool Rustica line, whose rugs are reversible, stainresistant, pet-friendly, and perfect for adding warmth underfoot. colonialmills.com

RIGHT: Johnson Woolen Mills Norris Wool Throws ($149.95 each); Swans Island Grace Winter Blankets ($1,595–$1,795 each); Garnet Hill Essential Down Comforters ($249–$329 each); Colonial Mills Rustica braided wool rugs (prices vary by size and shape; check website). Also shown: Colonial Mills Rustica 14x10-inch braided wool basket ($134.99).

Tea Time

TEAPOTS

A winding road near the University of Rhode Island campus will lead you to Peter Pots Pottery in West Kingston. Inside the old streamside mill turned studio and showroom, you’ll ﬁnd displays of ceramic goods in a business founded by two Rhode Island School of Design students in 1948. Among these objets d’art is a signature teapot that earns bonus points for being dishwasher-safe (and extra Ocean State cred for the color option Seagull Blue). peterpotspottery.com

LEFT: Peter Pots Pottery Tea Pot ($48). Also shown: Peter Pots Pottery Chipmunk Creamer ($22), Tea Cup ($20), and Tea Saucer ($18). Loose-leaf tea courtesy of Simpson & Vail in Brookfield, CT.

Location: Sonder, the Home Garden Store, Peterborough, NH; special thanks to owner Katherine Forrest

Warm Fuzzies

SHEEPSKIN THROWS

Is there anything better than a home accent that works triple duty? The fluff y Sheepskin Throw by Maine’s Chilton is a locally sourced hide that can be used as a blanket, cushion, or small area rug. It’s deceptively easy-care and can be tossed in the washer and dryer (so no worries about cocoa spills). Drape over almost anything for effortless rustic-meetsluxe style. chiltons.com

BOUCLÉ PILLOWS

Nantucket may conjure up visions of summer days and rose-covered cottages, but those who live on the Massachusetts island nicknamed “the Gray Lady of the Sea” know it has a wintry ﬂip side. Enter Nantucket

Looms, a studio, shop, and showroom selling a range of luxury handwoven textiles in a neutral colorway of sand and shells. Its Ivory Bouclé Pillow is a nubby-squishy confection ready to soften the season’s hard edges and bring a little lightness to gray days. nantucketlooms.com

WARMING PADS

When you can’t bear the cold any longer, Maine Warmers in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, has just the thing: the Cozy Bear. This adorable woodland stuff y, part of the company’s Comforting Creatures line, is a warming pad in disguise. In its belly is a cotton muslin insert filled with whole corn (not the popping variety) that can be zapped in the microwave (or

frozen, depending on ﬁckle weather-pattern needs). Simple, portable … and oh so soothing. mainewarmers.com

BED WARMERS

Forget those fussy ye olde metal pans you may have seen in historic house museums. For those who want to get their bed roastytoasty sans electric blanket, Vermont Soapstone Co. in Perkinsville, Vermont, suggests you consider a simple slab of soapstone. No ﬁreplace to heat it? No problem. The country’s oldest soapstone supplier recommends using an oven or even a sunny windowsill before wrapping the stone in a towel and tucking it under your blankets. Sweet dreams! vermontsoapstone.com

PET BEDS

If your pet likes to cuddle up on your favorite pair of slippers, it may be time to outﬁt Spot or Whiskers with ﬂeecy footwear to call their own. Enter the slipper-shaped pet beds from the playful designers at Old Saybrook, Connecticut’s Napping JoJo. Shaped like an oversize moccasin or mule with a faux suede exterior and a faux sherpa lining, each bed is made of 100-percent-vegan materials. Even more of a warm feeling comes from knowing Napping JoJo donates to no-kill pet shelters and supports #AdoptDontShop. nappingjojo.com

ABOVE: Chilton Sheepskin Throw ($115–$495); Nantucket Looms Ivory Bouclé Pillow ($275); Maine Warmers Cozy Bear ($45.60); Vermont Soapstone Co. Bed Warmer ($47.50); Napping JoJo Giant Slipper Bed ($115). Also shown: Colonial Mills Rustica braided wool rug (see website for size and price options).

COURTESY OF NAPPING JOJO (PET BED)

Squeeze Play

Taste what the sun-kissed flavors of citrus can bring to winter meals.

BY SARAH HEARN MORRISON

STYLED AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY LIZ NEILY

s is true for many New Englanders, my first memories of oranges were tied to a large box of fruit shipped from Florida every December. In our house, the telltale signs of Christmas morning included the hum of holiday music, torn wrapping paper strewn about, and a small mountain of orange peels piled beside an old-fashioned manual steel juicer. We’d take turns pressing the lever to expel the fresh juice, dramatically declaring with each sip that it was just like being in Florida.

While citrus may not thrive in New England as a crop, it took the region by storm in the 19th century, when a network of railways allowed the fruit to be shipped here from southern climes. As a result, recipes featuring lemons, oranges, and grapefruit began appearing more regularly in New England cookbooks. That prized box of oranges in our home was just an extension of the same tradition.

Between the sunshine-hued colors, the always-welcome dose of vitamin C, and the boldly sweet-tart-tangy flavors, citrus feels like exactly what we need during the cold, gray, and sometimes seemingly endless winter. So bake a dish of tangerine bars or some ramekins of lemon pudding cake; whip up a triple-lemon loaf cake or some grapefruit-glazed cookies perfumed with Earl Grey tea. Or just add freshly squeezed blood orange juice to a vinaigrette for a taste of warmer lands—and add a little sunshine to your New England winter.

TRIPLE-LEMON LOAF CAKE

This cake has a soft, velvety texture and a tangy and bright citrusy flavor. I use the reverse creaming technique (first combining the dry ingredients with the butter and cream cheese to inhibit gluten production), which makes overmixing nearly impossible. A generous soak of lemon syrup followed by a bright lemon icing ensures a moist, buttery, and lemony cake.

Note: Using milk instead of cream in the glaze will produce a thinner and less opaque icing but will still taste delicious.

FOR THE CAKE

2 yolks from large eggs

1 large egg

½ cup sour cream

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1½ cups plus 1 tablespoon (220 grams) all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon fresh lemon zest, plus more for garnish

½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, room temperature, cut into tablespoons

¼ cup cream cheese, room temperature, cut into tablespoons

FOR THE SYRUP

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon salted butter

FOR THE ICING

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 –2 tablespoons milk or cream Pinch of kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lightly coat an 8½- by-4½-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and line with parchment paper, letting the excess parchment hang over the long sides of the pan (about 2 inches on each side is perfect). Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, egg, sour cream, and lemon juice until smooth and set aside. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, sugar, and lemon zest in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on low until combined. With the mixer on low, add the butter and cream cheese a few pieces at a time and mix until fully incorporated and the dry ingredients resemble damp sand. Increase the speed to medium and beat for about 1½ minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. With the mixer on low, add half of the egg mixture. Once it is mostly combined, increase the speed to medium-high and beat for 30 seconds.

Triple-Lemon Loaf Cake

Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl once more and add the rest of the egg mixture. Beat for 30 seconds. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan using a silicone spatula and smooth the top with an offset spatula.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the cake center comes out with a few moist crumbs, 50 to 55 minutes. (If the top seems to be browning too quickly, tent with foil.)

While the cake is baking, make the lemon syrup. In a small saucepan combine the sugar, lemon juice, and butter. Place over medium-high heat and stir until the sugar dissolves.

When the cake is finished baking, remove from the oven and set the pan on a cooling rack. Generously brush the top of the cake with the syrup. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 15 minutes, glazing the top a few more times while it cools. Run a knife between the edges of the cake and the pan, then lift

the cake from the pan using the parchment paper sling. Remove the parchment paper and set the cake on a cooling rack set over a piece of aluminum foil to catch drips. Let cool completely.

To make the icing, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice. Add 1 tablespoon of milk or cream and whisk until smooth, then add by the teaspoon until you reach the desired consistency. Add salt to taste. Spoon the icing over the completely cooled cake, using the back of the spoon to gently smooth it over the top of the cake and letting it drizzle a bit down the sides. Sprinkle with lemon zest. Allow the icing to set before serving. Cover and store any leftover cake for up to 4 days in the refrigerator. Yields 8 servings.

EARL GREY SABLÉS WITH PINK GRAPEFRUIT GLAZE

A sablé, the French equivalent of shortbread, is a classic butter cookie that

has a melt-in-your-mouth texture with crisp edges and tender centers. Here, the cookies are flavored with Earl Grey tea, which itself contains the citrus fruit bergamot. A pink grapefruit glaze provides a pop of bright citrus flavor.

Note: The tea in tea bags is much more finely ground than loose tea. If you use loose tea leaves here, pulse them in the food processor a few extra times to create a finer texture. Also, while the color of pink grapefruit is very pretty in these cookies, you can substitute yellow grapefruit.

FOR THE COOKIES

2 tablespoons Earl Grey tea leaves

¾ cup granulated sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, room temperature

2 teaspoons pink grapefruit zest

2 large egg yolks

2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour

Earl Grey Sablés with Pink Grapefruit Glaze

Lemon Pudding Cakes, recipe p. 91

FOR THE GLAZE

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

2 teaspoons pink grapefruit zest

Pinch of kosher salt

2–4 tablespoons freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the tea, sugar, butter, and grapefruit zest and process until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg yolks, and process until combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl again, add the flour, and pulse until just combined and the dough forms into clumps.

Dump the dough onto a lightly floured workspace and bring it together, patting it into a square. Divide the square in half and roll each portion of dough into even 2-inchwide logs. Wrap each tightly in plastic wrap, smoothing out the log and flattening the ends. Chill for at least 4

hours and up to one day. (The logs may also be frozen at this point for up to 4 months—just defrost in the refrigerator before slicing and baking.)

When ready to bake the cookies, preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Remove one log from the refrigerator and unwrap. Use a sharp knife to cut it into generous ⅓-inch-thick slices, place on the prepared baking sheet, and bake until the edges are light golden brown, about 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cookies cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before removing and placing them on a cooling rack. Repeat with the remaining dough.

While the cookies are cooling, prepare the glaze. In a bowl, combine the confectioners’ sugar, grapefruit zest, and salt. Add the grapefruit juice a tablespoon at a time until you have a

thin glaze, whisking until smooth. Dip one cookie at a time into the glaze, flip it up, and give it a shake or two to ensure the glaze evenly coats the top of the cookie. Return cookies to the cooling rack and allow the glaze to set before serving. Store cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Yields 30 cookies.

FENNEL, BLOOD ORANGE & PISTACHIO SALAD

The flavors of Sicily inspired this pretty salad that hits all the notes: sweet, acidic, salty, savory, crunchy, juicy. Featuring vibrant blood orange slices, crisp fennel, and toasted pistachios, the salad is finished with ricotta salata, a Sicilian cheese made from ricotta that has been salted and aged.

Note: A mandoline can quickly cut thin and even slices of the fennel and red onion.

(Continued on p. 90)

Fennel, Blood Orange & Pistachio Salad

Soup’s On

Two hearty winter warmers made with ingredients you may already have on hand.

BY AMY TRAVERSO

STYLED AND PHOTOGRAPHED

BY LIZ NEILY

oup has many winning qualities, but here are my favorites: It makes you feel cozy, it transforms into a complete meal with a loaf of good bread and a salad, and it tastes better the next day … or the next … or the one after that. Most of all, it’s so easy to make—just saut é some aromatics (onions, garlic, celery, carrots, etc.), add the main ingredient

(anything from meat to vegetables to beans to grains), cover with liquid and maybe some cream, and cook until the flavors combine.

For this column, I went with something chunky and hearty, and something smooth and creamy. The first recipe was partly inspired by one of my friends, the food writer David Leite, who pointed out that gnocchi can act as ready-made dumplings

when added to soup. The second takes its cue from a richer, fancier potato-onion soup that I had years ago at the Woodstock Inn & Resort in Vermont. That soup had lots of cream and a complex layering of sherry, brandy, Gruyère, Parmesan, and Romano cheeses. My streamlined adaptation calls for fewer ingredients and a lot less cream, but has a wonderful flavor nonetheless.

Amy Traverso is Yankee’s senior food editor and cohost of our TV show, Weekends with Yankee

Sausage, Tomato & Gnocchi Soup

CARAMELIZED ONION, POTATO & GRUYÈRE SOUP

This is one of my all-time-favorite soups. It’s cheesy, creamy, nutty, a bit sweet, and extremely cozy. If you want to make it vegetarian, just replace the beef stock with vegetable stock.

3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for garnish

2 pounds sweet onions, such as Vidalia or Walla Walla, peeled and thinly sliced

6 large cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste

½ cup dry sherry

1 large russet potato, peeled and diced

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves, plus more for garnish

3–4 cups beef stock

1 cup heavy cream

4 ounces Gruyère cheese, shredded (can substitute cheddar)

1 tablespoon cornstarch

4 ounces freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Heat oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, then add onions, garlic, and 1 teaspoon salt. Stir, cover, and cook for 2 minutes. Remove cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions turn a deep golden brown, 30 to 35 more minutes. Add sherry, increase heat to medium-high, and cook until liquid is reduced by half. Add potato and thyme, stir, then add 3 cups beef stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer until potato is very tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Add cream and stir. Puree the soup in batches in a blender (or process with an immersion blender), then return to a simmer. If it seems too thick, add a bit more stock. In a medium bowl, toss the Gru yère with the cornstarch, then whisk

it into the soup with the Parmesan or Romano. Taste and add pepper and more salt if needed. Garnish with thyme and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve hot. Yields 6 to 8 servings.

SAUSAGE, TOMATO & GNOCCHI SOUP

For this very adaptable soup, you can use any chopped greens you have on hand (frozen spinach is also fine). Feel free to throw in a can of white beans, too, if you like. Want to substitute chicken or vegan sausage for the pork? Just be sure it has plenty of seasoning, as the soup depends on it for flavor.

Note: If you can find frozen or fresh gnocchi, go for it. The shelf-stable kind is fine, but its acid and preservatives do give it a slightly sour flavor.

3 tablespoons olive oil

1¼ pounds (about 5 links) uncooked sweet or spicy Italian pork sausage

2 celery stalks, sliced

2 carrots, sliced

1 medium yellow onion, diced

3 large cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 cups chicken stock

1 can (28 ounces) chopped tomatoes, with their juices

5 ounces baby spinach

½–1 pound gnocchi

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

In a 5-to-7-quart pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, breaking it up into small pieces with a wooden spoon, until it’s cooked through and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the celery, carrots, onion, garlic, 2 teaspoons salt, and pepper, and stir well. Cook for 3 minutes, then add the stock, tomatoes, and spinach. Bring to a boil, then add gnocchi and stir. Bring to a gentle simmer, then cover and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes or up to 1 hour. Taste and add salt if needed. Serve hot with a generous shower of Parmesan. Yields 8 to 10 servings.

Caramelized Onion, Potato & Gruyère Soup

THE ART of RETIREMENT Make the Move to a Retirement Community

Retirement marks a significant life transition, one that may be approached with both excitement and uncertainty. The art of retirement lies in planning not only for financial security but also for personal fulfillment. It’s a time to reimagine how you spend your days in terms of exploring passions, hobbies, or activities that may have been sidelined during your career. Whether it’s traveling the world, learning new skills, or engaging in volunteer work, retirement can offer the freedom to pursue personal growth

like never before.

An important part of a fulfilling retirement is choosing a retirement community that supports your desired lifestyle and goals. From those focused on active lifestyles and wellness to those that provide extensive support for healthcare and assisted living, retirement communities offer a range of amenities and social opportunities. To find the best retirement community for you, consider which set of offerings aligns best with your vision for this next chapter. The right fit can yield

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AT HOME IN CAMDEN

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your day-to-day life in meaningful ways.

Finally, a successful retirement requires balancing leisure and health. As your time becomes more flexible, it’s important to prioritize your physical well-being to ensure longevity and high quality of life. Exercising regularly, eating healthy, and staying mentally active are all crucial parts of that effort. The art of retirement lies in crafting a vibrant lifestyle that nurtures your body, mind, and soul, allowing you to embark on this new chapter with enthusiasm and resilience.

Woodstock, VT

Where snow-globe perfection meets small-town warmth.

BY AMY TRAVERSO | PHOTOS

BY OLIVER PARINI

OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A sprinkling of rose tea adorns a La Vie En Rose cocktail at the French-influenced bar Au Comptoir; behind the scenes at Farmhouse Pottery; one of the Percherons that make up the working draft horse team at Billings Farm & Museum; jumbo lump crab cakes at Simon Pearce Restaurant in Quechee.

THIS PAGE: An aerial view of Pleasant Street and the Ottauquechee River, looking west toward Mount Tom. The field to the north is part of the 240-acre Billings Farm & Museum.

It’s a windy Saturday night in early February, and despite temperatures that plummet with every gust, there’s a lively aprèsski crowd gathered around firepits outside Au Comptoir, a craft cocktail bar just behind Central Street in Woodstock, Vermont. Inside the white clapboard cottage (originally built as the personal garage of Laurance S. Rockefeller, whose largesse left a permanent stamp on this town), the decor is all reclaimed barn wood, antique brass, and marble. Owner Zoe Zilian was a cofounder of the artisan housewares brand Farmhouse Pottery, and there isn’t a sconce or bar stool or cocktail that isn’t expertly curated.

Au Comptoir encapsulates much of what is lovely and stylish about winter in Woodstock. The Danes may get through winter with their hygge —a quality that embraces coziness and small pleasures—but this Vermont village has its own brand of gentle comfort.

Consider Central Street: At the darkest time of the year, when most people have dutifully taken down their holiday decorations, this main commercial street still abounds with fairy lights sparkling in shop windows and sidewalk trees. Over on Elm Street, the Vermont Flannel Company specializes in the snuggliest of winter fabrics. And a few miles down the road in Quechee, you can dine in style in Simon Pearce Restaurant while gazing out at the dramatic falls that once powered a woolen mill here.

The Woodstock Inn & Resort commands a prime spot on the village green and boasts several satellite facilities, including the Saskadena Six Ski Area, a Nordic center, and a fitness center with an indoor pool, a sauna, a steam room, and a hot tub. A day on the slopes followed by a soak in the hot tub and a hot toddy at the inn’s Richardson’s Tavern is a good day.

On this visit, though, we’re lodging in a newer spot. The Vesper is a bed-and-breakfast run by Dana Hale, who updated an 1835 brick

LEFT: Brick flooring and exposed beams lend a rustic warmth to Au Comptoir, which opened in 2022. OPPOSITE: A downtown landmark for generations, F.H. Gillingham & Sons is chock-full of local goods and gifts.

IN & AROUND WOODSTOCK

EAT & DRINK

Au Comptoir: There’s more to this bar’s popularity than just its sleek good looks. Juices are freshly squeezed, syrups and some bitters are made in-house, and many of the spirits hail from Vermont. aucomptoirvt.com

Ransom Tavern: Just down the road in South Woodstock’s Kedron Valley Inn, dig into Neapolitan-style pies from a Forza Forni gas-fired pizza oven. Imaginative combos include ingredients such as gorgonzola, maple syrup, and butternut squash. kedronvalleyinn.com

The Red Rooster: The Woodstock Inn’s signature restaurant offers seasonal fare that’s sourced locally and served with a Mediterranean accent. You can always count on the pork chop, the roast chicken, and the Vermont cheese plate. Don’t miss the Parker House rolls. woodstockinn.com

Simon Pearce Restaurant: For delicious food with a waterfall view, make a reservation: This upscale eatery adjoining the Simon Pearce glassblowing studio fills up fast, especially on the weekend. Save room for the triple chocolate layer cake. simonpearce.com

Worthy Kitchen: Craft beer lovers, rejoice: Worthy Kitchen has your Hill Farmstead, your Trillium, your Heady Topper. Use them to wash down smash burgers and crispy wings—and possibly a fresh doughnut or two. worthyvermont.com

TOP ROW, FROM

A view of Middle Bridge, one of four covered bridges spanning the Ottauquechee River in or near Woodstock; cross-country ski trails maintained by the Woodstock Nordic Center include routes up Mount Tom and Mount Peg, both offering lovely town views; Dana Hale stands ready to welcome guests at her cheery bed-andbreakfast, The Vesper.

RIGHT: The gleaming artistry of glassblowers fills Simon Pearce’s Quechee showroom, which occupies the same 19th-century mill building as the company’s work studio and restaurant.

Greek Revival with colorful modern design featuring textiles and pottery from her partner Rafael’s native Guatemala. The couple have two young children, so it’s no surprise the B&B has a relaxed “we’re all family” vibe (so much so that the young couple we meet at breakfast become our companions for beers and rollicking conversation later that night).

The Vesper stands as a stylish, budgetfriendly option right in the village and reminds us that while Woodstock has long had a reputation as a retreat for the Rockefeller set, it’s possible to enjoy a trip here without overspending. Consider this: A weekend day pass at Saskadena Six costs about half that of nearby Killington, and there’s something more intimate and welcoming about its smaller size and the crackling wood fires inside the lodge (and outside, as well).

Back in town, you’ll find shopping at many price points, from Farmhouse Pottery with its upscale home goods to the Yankee Bookshop, the perfect small-town bookstore. Founded in 1886, F.H. Gillingham & Sons reigns as the archetypal general store, complete with penny candy and Carhartt work wear. Meanwhile, the Norman Williams Public Library, housed in a stunning Romanesque building of pink sandstone and Barre granite, offers an

eminently calming—and free—place to pass a snowy afternoon. (Note to parents: The children’s room downstairs is excellent and welcoming to visitors.)

Even if you’re not staying at the Woodstock Inn, you can still enjoy its athletic club via a $25 day pass that allows you to use all the exercise areas and the pool. The town’s three free trail networks are perfect for day hiking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, or fat-tire biking. Waiting for you afterward is perhaps a drink at Au Comptoir or a burger at Worthy Kitchen.

On our last day in town, we buy day passes at the Woodstock Nordic Center and head out on the trails that run around and through the golf course—the easiest route for our modest skills. A light coating of fresh flakes has blessed us with smooth tracks, and with a temperature of about 14 degrees, the snow makes that perfect squeaking sound as I glide alongside Kedron Brook.

Skate skiers zoom past me, glowing with rosy-cheeked good health, and—just as I do every time we visit Woodstock—I think about how much more outdoorsy and glowy I’d be if I lived here. I’m reminded of how many ways there are to truly enjoy the outdoors in winter. And I remember how to find warmth and comfort on the long, dark nights.

STAY

The Vesper: The room names at this B&B pay homage to owner Dana Hale’s favorite musicians, and she brings her personal taste to the decor, too: part modern, part folk art, all colorful. Expect good coffee, a generous breakfast buffet, and general bonhomie. vesperwoodstock.com

Woodstock Inn & Resort: Classically elegant (“Vermont semiformal,” if you will), the inn offers a big crackling fire in the lobby, afternoon tea and cookies in the conservatory, a Vermont-meetsScandinavia-style spa, and two topnotch restaurants. woodstockinn.com

PLAY

Artistree: This vibrant community arts space near Saskadena Six hosts live theater, touring musicians, jam sessions, and a gallery featuring the work of Vermont and New Hampshire artists. artistreevt.org

Billings Farm & Museum: Visit velvetnosed Jersey cows in their milking parlor and tour an 1890 farm manager’s home at this beloved outdoor history museum. billingsfarm.org

Saskadena Six: With three lifts and 28 trails, the former Suicide Six ski area is perfect for novices but still fun for advanced skiers. saskadenasix.com

Woodstock Nordic Center: Buy or rent cross-country skiing equipment, sign up for lessons, or even have lunch at this well-appointed facility, which welcomes snowshoers and fat-tire bikers, too. woodstockinn.com

Bonbon Appétit

CONNECTICUT

BRIDGEWATER CHOCOLATE, Brookfield.

The only problem with gifting Bridgewater chocolates is that their exquisite boxes might suggest fine jewelry lies within. Any disappointment will disappear, though, when recipients dig into Swedish chocolatier Erik Landegren’s creations. His assortment of dark, milk, and white chocolates is complemented by things like chocolate-covered shortbread, peanut butter patties, and even marshmallows. Traditional English toffees, along with almond and hazelnut varieties, are a specialty. Additional locations in Westport, West Hartford, and Boston; bridgewaterchocolate.com

CASTLE HILL CHOCOLATE, Sandy Hook.

“Too pretty to eat” comes to mind when first encountering one of the most artistically expressive arrays of bonbons in the land. Bright, colorful glazes grace Castle Hill’s ganache creations, which come in flavors such as caramelized cinnamon, salted toffee, lemon coconut, and brownie batter. Dark, milk, and white chocolate bars also boast distinctive flavors—strawberries and cream, almond toffee pretzel, and glacé orange, to name just a few. castlehillchocolate.com

THE CHOCOLATE SHELL, Old Lyme. Given the name, there are bound to be chocolate seashells somewhere in this shop’s whimsical inventory, among a quirky collection of shapes, sizes, and flavors. Nutella colada or espresso martini truffles? Both have turned up recently. Clever packaging is also a calling card here: Along with chocolate gift boxes, there are candy olives (actually almonds covered in green chocolate) in, yes, classic martini glasses. Facebook

FASCIA’S CHOCOLATES, Waterbury. Picture an Old World–style candy kitchen with copper kettles and marble cooling slabs. That’s the scene at Fascia’s, where 60 years and the talents of one family have been devoted to handcrafting fine candies. The shop is especially known for its “meltaways,” which do just that and come in a spectrum of flavors including mocha and peanut butter. Buttery caramels are always available, as are creams, with marzipan, raspberry, and crème brûlée ranking among the favorites. faschoc.com

COMPILED BY BILL SCHELLER

THE LITCHFIELD CANDY COMPANY, Litchfield. The sweetest spot in the Litchfield Hills is nestled into a bright red bandbox of a building that doesn’t look as if it could possibly hold its outsize confection collection. Shelves and counters bulge with chocolates, gummies, fudge, and more, just about all of which can be hand-selected and purchased by the pound

(Continued on p. 92)

Find a feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds at Ragged Coast Chocolates in Westbrook, Maine.

Gary Hall

Juniper Studios

Juniper Studios J+J Photo

Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha’s All the Flowers Are for Me invites visitors to step into a mesmerizing lacework of light and shadow at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

PHOTO BY BOB PACKERT

the great indoors

BY COURTNEY HOLLANDS

Exploring a Witch City Spellbinder

Born from the treasures East India Marine Society seafarers amassed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Salem’s Peabody Essex Museum has been called a “collection of collections.” So, cliché as it sounds, this museum really does offer something for everyone—including my 4-year-old daughter.

During our visit last January, she relished the backyard birds on display in The Pod, part of the family-friendly Dotty Brown Art & Nature Center, and the interactive “Salem Stories” exhibit, which traces the city’s journey from witch trials epicenter and global shipping mecca to the vibrant, multicultural hub it is today. The maritime art gallery was an unexpected hit, especially the “step inside to discover” alcoves: Enter, settle on a bench, and take in the highlighted artifact or artwork—such as a “calendar” stick notched by a castaway to mark the days he spent stranded—while listening to its origin story.

Another multigenerational favorite was the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery of Fashion & Design, where we oohed and ahhed over mannequins done up in fabulous designer duds and chunky jewels. My daughter deemed them “fancy,” while I, a former fashion editor, fangirled over the late Iris Apfel’s sartorial significance.

LEFT: The main entrance to the Peabody Essex Museum, whose 100,000-plus square feet of gallery space is packed with more than 2,000 artworks and artifacts. ABOVE: PEM boasts the world’s largest collection of Chinese export art, including this lavishly carved 19th-century moon bed. RIGHT: A rotating but always colorful selection of ensembles worn by fashion pioneer Iris Apfel and her husband, Carl, fills the gallery named in their honor.

We moved on to Anila Quayyum Agha’s All the Flowers Are for Me, craning our necks as we slowly strolled around the illuminated and suspended laser-cut steel cube. The sculpture cast intricate shadows against gallery walls that were painted yellow because Agha, as she put it, was “interested in bringing sunlight into the room.”

Also warming—at least in spirit—was the fireplace flickering with digital logs in the Sean M. Healey Family Gallery, where street sounds and music immerse visitors in the floor-to-ceiling wallpaper that once hung in Strathallan Castle in Scotland. A scavenger hunt encourages closer inspection of the 19 panels, depicting life and trade in Guangzhou, China. (Example: Can you find this mother trying to pull her mischievous child off of the rattan roof of their sampan?)

We didn’t finish the full hunt, nor did we make it to PEM’s famous Yin Yu Tang House. A late lunch (the kids ramen at Kokeshi) was calling. But we already have plans to return to explore the 16-bedroom home originally built in China during the Qing Dynasty, reconstructed in Salem, and installed on the PEM campus. Because that’s a hallmark of a truly great museum: There’s always something calling you back. pem.org

PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM | SALEM, MA

For more tripplanning ideas,

BEYOND THE MUSEUM : Artisan sweets at Kakawa Chocolate House in Salem.

see p. 97.

Looking Beyond Seascapes and into the Future

amie, Andrew, and N.C., oh my: There’s no name more associated with the Farnsworth Art Museum than Wyeth. Since its founding in 1948, the Rockland institution has been intertwined with the three-generation painting dynasty, and today it boasts a Wyeth Center and owns the Olson House in nearby Cushing, Maine, the setting for several of Andrew Wyeth’s most well-known paintings, including Christina’s World.

What’s more, the Farnsworth counts many Wyeth masterworks among the 15,000 or so items in its everexpanding collection, which celebrates Maine’s outsize role in American art. (Also see: Winslow Homer’s

seascapes, an aluminum LOVE sculpture by the late Vinalhaven resident Robert Indiana, and more.)

But the museum, which marked its 75th anniversary in 2023, isn’t stuck in the past. In a way, it’s a reflection of Rockland itself, which has seen a revitalization in recent years with cool restaurants and artisan shops putting down roots.

I first found proof of the Farnsworth’s forward-looking ethos in the mural flanking the entrance, You Showed Me Love. Portland-based artists and couple Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams—self-described “weird art kids”—emblazoned the museum’s facade with bright geometric patterns and stylized lettering that quotes the Frank Ocean song they heard on their first date.

Speaking of futuristic, the Farnsworth also has the second-largest collection of works by ahead-of-her-time sculptor Louise Nevelson. While the recent “Dawn to Dusk” exhibition featured the monochromatic scrapwood constructions she’s known for, it also included early oil paintings, collages, and funky jewelry. Nevelson, who emigrated from Ukraine to Rockland in 1905, once called the Farnsworth “something that I had not expected in my wildest dreams to find in a town in Maine—that jewel that shines.”

Perhaps the most striking example of how the Farnsworth is looking ahead is “Momentum,” a new

OPPOSITE: To the right of the Farnsworth Art Museum’s entrance, the crayon-bright colors of You Showed Me Love by Rachel Gloria Adams and Ryan Adams greet visitors on a snowy day. ABOVE: Roses crafted from seashells adorn Brian White’s 2006 sculpture Rose Arbor/Sea Street, part of the Farnsworth’s permanent collection. TOP RIGHT: A gallery entrance frames one of the famous “Love” sculptures by American pop artist Robert Indiana.

BEYOND THE MUSEUM : Wish-you-were-here scenes at Rockland’s Samoset Resort (TOP) and North Beacon Oyster. For more trip-planning ideas, see p. 97.

exhibition series that launched last year showcasing the next generation of Pine Tree State artists. Each year, the museum provides an artist with their first solo show, acquires an artwork for its permanent collection, and publishes a scholarly catalog. First up was Harpswell’s Emilie StarkMenneg, whose wildly colorful, tapestry-inspired acrylic paintings depict maidens and unicorns frolicking among flowers and fruit—a far cry from meditations on Maine’s rocky coastline or weathered fishermen.

All of this isn’t to say a Wyeth exhibit can’t be fresh, too. Last summer’s “Abstract Flash: Unseen Andrew Wyeth,” presenting never-before-seen works spanning six decades, floored Boston Globe art critic Murray Whyte. “It is nothing less than a thrill,” Whyte wrote, “both as vital connective tissue in the Modern American canon, and as a simple, indulgent pleasure of a great artist revealed in new layers.” He knows what I learned firsthand: The Farnsworth—and the town it calls home, for that matter—is full of surprises. farnsworthmuseum.org

BEYOND THE MUSEUM : A cozy respite for readers at Still North Books in Hanover. For more tripplanning ideas, see p. 97.

Big-League Art Meets Ivy League Vibes

Cloaked in white and surrounded by mountains and rivers, the Dartmouth College campus in late winter is a scene straight out of a snow globe. But the sleepy setting belies one of the country’s largest and most exciting university art collections.

Representing six continents, the Hood Museum of Art’s 65,000 holdings range from hulking, nearly 3,000-yearold stone reliefs from Assyria to one of Nick Cave’s sequinand-mirror-bedecked Soundsuit sculptures. And with the 2019 debut of a dazzling renovation and expansion,

TOP ROW, FROM FAR LEFT: Dartmouth students stroll past the Hood Museum of Art’s eye-catching north entrance, unveiled in 2019 as part of a $50 million renovation and expansion; a side view of the textilebased sculptures Soundsuit by Nick Cave (FOREGROUND) and What Do You Want? When Do You Want It? by Jeffrey Gibson; Cara Romero’s The Zenith, part of the Chemehuevi photographer’s first major solo museum show (on view from Jan. 18 to Aug. 10, 2025).

LOWER LEFT: Visitors contemplate Cree artist Kent Monkman’s 2023 painting The Great Mystery

the museum now has a fitting home for this world-class collection. Passersby can get a literal sneak peek of its treasures in the north facade’s imposing picture window, which often frames an important painting or sculpture. Because the Hood is manageable in size and not particularly crowded, it allows you the time and space to savor this worldly art buffet at your own pace. Docents are quick to answer questions or chat, but they’re also perfectly content to let museumgoers explore.

On my visit, I was a globetrotter. The temporary exhibit “Connecting Threads and Woven Stories” featured textiles from Southeast Asia—including a Thai wall hanging woven with jewel beetle wings (!)—while up on level two awaited new-to-me abstract paintings, all earth tones and arresting patterns, by contemporary indigenous Australian artists. I especially lingered over the works in “Homecoming: Domesticity and Kinship in Global African Art,” a show centering the role of women artists and feminine themes in African and African diaspora art. The oversize quilts were the stars, including the recent Hood acquisition It’s a Blue World by Bhasha Chakrabarti, tracing the history of the global indigo trade.

I ended my visit in the Engles Gallery, where the aforementioned picture window overlooks the college green. Also set up there: an opt-in art project inspired by Chakrabarti’s work, prompting participants to draw a cherished object on a brightly colored square and add it to a “quilt” on the wall. My eyes darted between the outside world in quiet afternoon shades of gray and the rainbow-paper tapestry before me, pulsing with life. And while I still had all of the rest of Hanover to explore, that would have to wait; I sat down and began to sketch. hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu

HOOD MUSEUM OF ART | HANOVER, NH

Masterworks in the Mountains

SOUTHERN VERMONT ARTS CENTER | MANCHESTER, VT

It was snowing hard as we wound our way up the almost-mile-long driveway to the Southern Vermont Arts Center. Flecked with white in the waning afternoon light, the sculptures lining the road and dotting the fields appeared otherworldly. All was hushed, in contrast to the buzzing town center we’d just left, where tourists hunkered down in the charming inns and cozy farm-to-table cafés Manchester does so well.

But any illusion that we’d entered a frozen fairy-tale land melted away when we reached the busy parking lot. In fact, what we didn’t know yet was that we had found the beating heart of the southern Vermont arts community.

Our first stop on the 100-acre-plus campus was the modern, many-gabled Wilson Museum. Opened in 2000, it hosts traveling exhibits as well as the center’s permanent collection showcasing works from artists active in the Southern Vermont Artists collaborative in the early 20th century. On the day we visited late last January, we were

ushered into a bustling reception for two installations grappling with violence against women: Cat Del Buono’s Voices and Nayana LaFond’s Portraits in RED. It was tough, honest stuff, and all around me, people were literally leaning in. And once visitors left the gallery, they couldn’t stop talking about it, to each other and to Del Buono, who was on-site for the event.

That community feel extended across the sculpturestrewn green to the circa-1917 Yester House, home to the Southern Vermont Artists Inc. since 1950. In the annual SVAC Fall/Winter Member Exhibition, works by 300plus member-artists from New England and New York in various media—from painting and photography to ceramics and fiber arts—filled the homey galleries, several bearing “sold” signs. Jessica Rhys’s oil paintings of owls accented with gold leaf and Barbara Ackerman’s abstract multimedia etchings especially caught my eye.

To keep the conversation going, there are gathering spots throughout the historic house (think Oriental rugs, fireplaces, comfy chairs, and shelves piled with art books), as well as the upscale curATE café, open yearround. Because at SVAC, you can’t help feeling part of the area’s long-running artistic dialogue. It’s a sentiment underscored by the words on the official historic roadside marker near the entrance: “Hundreds of artists show and perform annually, and thousands attend programs, continuing the traditional search for creativity in the inspiring hills and small villages of southern Vermont.” svac.org

TOP ROW, FROM FAR

: Snow-dusted mountains provide the backdrop for Gatekeepers by Pat Musick, part of the sculpture garden at the Southern Vermont Arts Center; an image from the blockbuster traveling exhibit “The Red Dress,” which made its U.S. debut at SVAC in 2023; work by SVAC member artists in the Yester House. LOWER LEFT: Three Generations by Susan Abbott, part of the current SVAC exhibition “Lineages: Artists Are Never Alone” (through Feb. 23).

For more trip-planning ideas, see p. 97.

LEFT

BEYOND THE MUSEUM : Sweet dreams await at Manchester’s rusticchic Barnstead Inn.

At Home with Art History

Your first inkling that the Florence Griswold Museum is a New England art museum like no other is the short documentary you’ll see in the Visitor Lounge, introducing the artists who established the famed Lyme Art Colony at the turn of the 20th century. Until Florence Griswold’s death in 1937, her Georgian manse turned boardinghouse was ground zero for these American tonalists and Impressionists—and there’s history around every corner at the Flo Gris, as it’s affectionately known.

As I took in the wall panels painted by one-time guests Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, and William Chadwick and wandered the mansion’s period-perfect rooms, I got a real sense of the lived experience of the painters and sculptors who found Miss Florence’s home to be, as Hassam called it, a “little excursion into Bohemia.” And I could see how they gleaned inspiration from the rural beauty of the Lower Connecticut River Valley—a beauty that the Old Lyme-Essex-Old Saybrook area, while brimming with inviting shops and artful attractions, still retains today.

With highlights from the museum’s vast collection now rotating through the modern Krieble Gallery also on campus, there are even more opportunities to get up close and personal with these important American artists. Don’t miss the glass case displaying Chadwick’s palette, Metcalf’s sketches and diary, and a paint box that belonged to miniaturist Lydia Longacre, a rare female colony member. Also on view are two “wiggle” sketches, from artists who played the raucous Wiggle Game in the nearby boardinghouse parlor—one artist would draw a number of squiggles on paper and dare the next artist to incorporate these flourishes into a finished sketch.

This idea of living history comes into sharp relief while strolling the half-mile Robert F. Schumann Artists’ Trail around the museum’s property. Although I didn’t catch Miss Florence’s prized gardens in bloom, I did spend time roaming the banks of the Lieutenant River. Not only did the Lyme Colony artists once paddle rowboats there, but they also found a muse: Everett Warner’s painting Winter on the Lieutenant River, for one, depicts tawny marsh grasses poking through patchy snow on the water’s edge.

The trail opened in 2019, one of the most recent additions to this preservationist’s dream, which also saw the donation of a 190-piece Connecticut art collection from the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company in 2001, and the opening of the undulating Krieble Gallery in 2002.

But back to the artists and their antics: The oft-quoted Hassam once stated that Griswold’s boardinghouse was just the place “for high thinking and low living.” So while I reveled in the art history all around me—I also found myself wishing the walls could talk. florencegriswoldmuseum.org

FLORENCE GRISWOLD MUSEUM | OLD LYME, CT

For more trip-planning ideas, see p. 97.

BEYOND THE MUSEUM : Cocktail-hour options at The Essex in Old Saybrook.

COLD

When it comes to ice climbing in the Mount Washington Valley, nothing is predictable except the urge to keep coming back.

By Michael Wejchert

by Joe Klementovich

Photos

RUSH

Alexa Siegel checks her harness for another ice screw as she leads the way up Chia Direct in Crawford Notch State Park. Siegel met the author while both were working as winter climbing guides; now married, they often climb in the White Mountains together near their home in North Conway.

Dusk is hunting us down, the way it stalks everybody in northern New England this time of year. It’s January and my wife, Alexa, and I are halfway up Remission, an ice climb on Cathedral Ledge outside North Conway, New Hampshire. And we are racing the dark.

The new ice I swing into has formed practically overnight, sticking in blobs to Cathedral’s cold granite. Toeing in with my crampons, scratching for the perfect placement in the thickest bit of ice, I concentrate on breathing and relaxing. I forget that my legs are sore and that I am fighting a vicious cold. Move up. Test the ice. Retreat to a stance. Move up again. Repeat. Each placement of an ax takes me that much higher.

I clip myself to the first belay stance, begin yarding up rope, and stare out toward town as Alexa climbs up behind me. The last sunlight burnishes the fields of North Conway and glints against the Saco River, which weaves its way south in a lazy midwinter slither among patches of ice. Lights start to flicker on downtown, bright and clear in the frigid air.

From their houses at the base of Cathedral, a few people must be watching our headlamps blinking on. They must be wondering what we are doing dangling from a piece of ice halfway up a cliff on so cold an evening. After 20 years of winter climbing, I often wonder, too. But once in a while, everything comes together: a climb caught at the right time; a fleeting feeling of poise, gone as quickly as the ice on a

warm day. Fragments of moments, caught in the margins of our darkest season. They feel worth it.

Below me, Alexa finds the thickest part of the thin ice to swing into. The pick of her ax sinks in with a thud as she works her way up the tongue of frozen water. We’ve both climbed Remission more times than we can remember, even though this hourglass-shaped route usually plasters itself to our home cliff only once a year. Yet each time seems to require something new or different, so we keep coming back.

It’s cold, but water still drips all around me, splashing my jacket, my climbing boots. In the dying light, with the sun no longer melting snow from above, the flow of water freezes and pastes itself to the cliff. I can see it happening, and I wonder if we’re here at just the right time or if we are early, if the ice will be thicker and better in a day or two. So much relies on knowing conditions, on trying again and again, and on being ready and available and prepared when it all comes together.

On this January day, we’ve been up since 4 a.m., on standby along with other Mountain Rescue Service volunteers to try to bring a deceased hiker out of the mountains an hour north of town. All morning, we were clunking our boots together at the trailhead to stay warm as radios crackled and exhaust plumes shot out of Fish and Game trucks. Although the weather cleared enough for a helicopter to land at the scene and we were called off after hiking just three miles, it’s already been a rough day.

On impulse, I drove us toward the Cathedral parking lot instead of going straight home. With last night’s cold, Repentance and Remission—twin ice climbs that are considered among the best winter routes in the lower 48—have formed, gleaming on the cliff like two strings of pearls. Seeing this, we nodded, then drove the eight minutes back to the house, where we tossed ice screws, axes, and crampons into our packs before being briefly tempted to collapse on the

When Alexa and I met, we both worked as winter climbing guides in between gigs banging nails and babysitting, the kinds of jobs young climbers fill their schedules with to make ends meet. Alexa is an ER nurse now, and I write books and magazine articles. The need to climb doesn’t boil over like it used to; I no longer force it when everything doesn’t line up. But sometimes we still push our limits. (Continued on p. 99)

FROM LEFT: Majka Burhardt of Jackson, New Hampshire, accompanied by fellow local climber Robert Frost, leads the way up North Conway’s Cathedral Ledge; Erik Eisele of Maine, who climbs in the Whites yearround, tackles Odell’s Gully in Mount Washington’s Huntington Ravine; Burhardt, right, at Vermont’s Lake Willoughby with Peter Doucette, her husband and owner of the Jackson-based Mountain Sense guide service.

the name we carry

In one Boston family, a legacy of duty and sacri ce ripples through generations.

BY ERIN GOTTWALD | ILLUSTRATION BY DANA SMITH

Iopen up my Facebook feed one day in 2019 and am astonished to find a photo of my father posted in the public group “Old School Boston.” In the picture, my unidentified 22-year-old father is walking down a wet, puddle-filled, pock-marked street. He is stooped, haggard, looking straight into the camera. His face is sunken and shadowed, and a bucket hat sits atop his unkempt hair. He is wearing the army fatigues from his tour in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. Slung over his torso is an ammunition belt; under his right arm is tucked a replica automatic weapon. The photo is captioned: “Old School Boston ... Boston’s Combat Zone ... Demonstration ... April, 1971 ... Vietnam Veterans Against the War.”

It’s a picture of a soldier who returned home.

I’m struck by how ravaged my father looks. Meanwhile, the pictures we have of his brother who was killed in Binh Duong in 1968 feature a handsome, smiling 18-year-old. All the photos of my Uncle George, a year older than my father, were taken before he enlisted in the infantry. George lives on in my imagination as youthful, clean-cut, light-hearted.

Meanwhile, on this computer screen it is my father who looks like the walking dead.

I post a comment under the photo to give the VeteranAgainst-the-War a name:

This is my father / Fredrick Gottwald / Served from 19691970 / Infantry Rifleman / Machine Gunner / 9th Infantry Division / His brother, George J. Gottwald, died in combat in 1968. My father enlisted after his death. My grandfather, their father, died in the line of duty as a BFD (Boston Fire Department) Lieutenant in March 1970. They are from Roslindale.

The story of Gottwald service and sacrifice started in 1857 when 26-year-old Aloysius Michael Gottwald emigrated from Germany to America. When he was 34 (by then a husband and father), he enlisted in the Massachusetts Infantry of the Union Army. Although impossible for him to foresee, this immigrant set the wheels in motion for his seven children and generations to come. Aloysius was 67 when his son, George Joseph Gottwald, a Boston fire lieutenant, died on February 5, 1898, in the city’s deadliest fire for a single fire company. Aloysius would not be the only Gottwald to survive the death of a son killed in action.

In March 1969, just over a year after my Uncle George died in Vietnam, the corner of Washington Street and Metropolitan Avenue in Boston’s Roslindale neighborhood was dedicated to him: George J. Gottwald Jr. Square. The Boston Globe published an article about the memorial and included what is likely the last family photo of both my paternal grandparents and their eight surviving children. My father left for Vietnam about a week later.

There’s another photograph.

It’s cold, but there’s no snow. My grandmother is long and slender—her nose, her arms, her fingers, everything about her. She stands to the right and slightly behind my father, as though she is pulling him toward her home in the background. It’s 1969, one year after her eldest son was killed in Vietnam. She has a kerchief over the back part of her head and it’s tied below her chin. My dad squints into the lens. He is in the light; she is in his shadow.

Nani’s plaid wool coat is dark. Her hair, almost black. Her eyes, dark. Ivory skin and jet-black features. “Black Irish” they called her. Next to her, Daddy appears broad

ILLUSTRATION FROM PREVIOUS SPREAD: (1 & 2) Historical images related to Boston’s tragic 1898 Merrimack Street fire and portraits of the six firefighters who died that day, including (3) Lt. George Joseph Gottwald; (4) George Joseph’s son Frederick Elias Gottwald, whose own son George J. Gottwald (5) died of smoke inhalation after responding to a 1970 Boston blaze; (6) George J.’s children circa 1966, including the author’s father, Fred, and his brother George Jr., who would later die serving in Vietnam; (7) an archive photo from the 1969 dedication of Boston’s George J. Gottwald Jr. Square; (8) Fred with his mother, Carolyn, in 1969 before leaving for Vietnam; (9) Fred at a demonstration against the war in 1971.

ABOVE LEFT: At Boston Police Headquarters in 1988 after his promotion to sergeant, Fred Gottwald is shown with his mother, Carolyn; his wife, Priscilla; his brother Bill (a Boston firefighter); and his children, including the author, age 11, standing front row far right.

and muscular in his army uniform. His high-and-tight haircut looks fresh. He has a medal on one of his breast pockets, his name on the other, and a badge on his left sleeve. It’s hard to imagine the Veteran-Against-the-War two years later is the same man.

I think he’s biting his lip.

She grips the crook of his right arm. His hand is tucked into his crisply pressed trouser pocket. Daddy favors his right hip in this picture. They both look at the photographer in anticipation.

The eight concrete stairs behind them lead up to their home at 6 Metropolitan Avenue in Boston. When the army officer came to deliver the news that George was killed in

(Continued on p. 102)

When snow and ice arrive, tourists depart, and one of the most visited national parks becomes a place of quiet beauty.

ACADIA IN

WINTER

Bitter cold meets otherworldly beauty as a photography workshop convenes on frozen Jordan Pond in Maine’s Acadia National Park.

PHOTO BY BENJAMIN WILLIAMSON

THIS IS WHAT SEPARATES THE DIE-HARD landscape photographer from the rest of us: It is six below zero. Armed with cameras and a battery of lenses, the 10 participants in a weekend photo workshop in and around Maine’s Acadia National Park are focused not on the bitter cold, but on the way sea smoke rises from the water, or how the waves at Thunder Cove seem to explode against the shore.

They will notice the intricate patterns formed by water trickling over rock, and the exquisitely delicate coating of ice on a small plant. They will seek out snow-covered paths and frozen lakes to walk on, the park’s famous cliffs all around. They will be excited to see fog draping Bass Harbor’s working waterfront as boats vanish into the mist.

Acadia National Park is considered among the most beautiful in the country. More than 3 million visitors arrive each year to see its iconic views of ocean and lakes meeting boulders and cliffs. But come deep winter, it quiets, the solitude welcomed.

At daybreak, when the photographers catch first light, their breath freezes in an instant. No matter how many layers they wear, the windswept cold reminds them that this still beauty comes at a price. But they already accepted that when they signed up for the “Winter in Acadia” workshop led by Benjamin Williamson and John K. Putnam, notable Maine photographers who have shot here in all seasons and who serve on these annual expeditions as guides, teachers, and fellow image hunters.

“We encourage them to find something unique, not just the iconic images,” Williamson says. “We tell them, ‘Go for whatever catches your eye.’” He adds that he and Putnam always see with new eyes each time they lead a winter weekend in Acadia. And this also remains true: No matter how cold it gets, the hunger for the perfect image burns strong, and the reward for everyone comes when they gather back inside to see what they have found. —Mel Allen

To learn more about the “Winter in Acadia” photo workshops, go to jkputnam.com/winter-in-acadia.

LEFT: Using a pier piled with gear and slung with ropes to “anchor” the scene, workshop participant Mark Teitelbaum caught this ghostly image of a fishing boat on the waterfront in Bernard, one of the coastal villages that fringe Acadia National Park.

Using the belly of a cloud to frame a lone tree on a clifftop, this Hunters Beach photo by Kevin Armstrong speaks to the creativity that bubbles up during the “Winter in Acadia” weekends, says co-leader Benjamin Williamson. “Kevin is an extremely talented photographer who has been to almost every workshop John and I offer, but he keeps doing them in part because the other students spur him to see things in new ways.”

As a full-time nature and landscape photographer based on Mount Desert Island, workshop co-leader John K. Putnam gets to show participants the stunning place he calls home. Putnam also collects a few new images of his own along the way, like this shot of a loon in winter plumage stretching its wings in Bass Harbor.

Crashing water at Hunters Beach in Acadia National Park caught the eye of Maria Cruz , a photographer originally from Cuba who “loves exploring the world with a camera,” Williamson says. “She’s currently in love with the landscape of Iceland and is planning on making more trips there. I think it’s fitting that she would love both Iceland and ‘Winter in Acadia.’”

Even as workshop students explore the same locations, unique images emerge—as with Joel Dube’s spectral abstract from Hunters Beach (ABOVE) and Dana Humphrey’s trio of weathered boats in Bass Harbor (BELOW).

OPPOSITE: “A monster sunset at one of the most iconic locations in Acadia” made shooting at Jordan Pond the highlight of the trip for many, says Benjamin Williamson, who found inspiration for this dramatic composition in one little heart-shaped chunk of ice.

Jacob Knowles

In sharing his day-to-day life on the ocean, a Maine lobsterman turned TikTok star is pulling in followers by the boatload.

INTERVIEW BY ALYSSA GIACOBBE

Thirty-one-year-old Jacob Knowles is a fifth-generation lobsterman in Winter Harbor, Maine, population 475. He got his start in the business before he was even in double digits, working crew on his dad’s boat; by the time he was 15, he was operating his own boat, setting and hauling traps before school, after school, on weekends, and all summer long. When his waders were shed, he turned to YouTube for a glimpse of how other kids his age—beyond the 20 or so in his graduating class—lived . It was a chance to see the world without leaving his own.

Knowles was a teenager when he began creating his own videos for YouTube, mostly of his recreational pursuits: hunting, fly fishing, skiing, hiking. But nothing really happened (was anyone out there?) until Knowles took to TikTok—and, specifically, until he turned his attention to the one thing that was so day-to-day familiar it hadn’t even occurred to him that

“has

“Not

Jacob Knowles aboard his boat the Rest-Ashoar in Winter Harbor, Maine. The world of lobster fishermen

been pretty secretive up until this point,” Knowles said in a 2023 interview with GQ.

that our way of life necessarily is being kept a secret; it’s just nobody came along to really share it.”

others might find it interesting, let alone wildly compelling: the life of a lobsterman.

Today Knowles has nearly 6 million followers across multiple social media platforms, plus a videographer, several corporate partnerships, and even a talent agent. His videos are energetic and entertaining, but they’re also educational without being pedantic, not even a little. “Everybody’s always asking what the biggest lobster I’ve caught is,” he says in one video posted to TikTok showing him aboard his boat, the Rest-Ashoar, in his bright orange waders holding up a massive lobster, which he places next to a can of Red Bull for reference. (“And that’s the big Red Bull, too. That’s not the little 8.4 [ounce].”) Knowles estimates that the lobster is well over 10 pounds and probably pushing 100 years old. “Pretty crazy,” he says, “to think that my grandfather, greatgrandfather—most likely my father—have caught this lobster [too].”

Other videos offer tutorials on such topics as egg-bearing female lobsters—aka

So, what does a lobsterman know about becoming a TikTok influencer?

I’d been experimenting with YouTube since I was a kid, maybe 14 or so. I never really stopped. My senior year of high school I started watching YouTube a lot. I’d watch fishing content but really just loved watching anybody outside of the small world I grew up in. The more I watched, the more I was like, I want to try this.

I’m in a unique spot in Maine. I see things that a lot of other people may never see. I wasn’t sure if my niche was on the ocean or on land, but I thought that I had something,

“eggers”—and how they are given a notch on their tail so that other fishermen will know to release them. Lobsters pulled up with lots of barnacles on their shells get a trip to what Knowles calls “Claw Spa”: He cleans each up with pliers, places a fish “snack” into the pincher claw, and tosses the lobster back into the ocean.

Other creatures also make appearances, including monkfish (“probably the world’s ugliest fish”), the occasional tiny seahorse, and any number of small birds that get blown out into the Atlantic during high winds and come to rest, exhausted, on the boat, where they spend the day being fed snacks and drinking water from bottle caps until they get ferried back to shore. (One of Knowles’s earliest bird posts generated more than 10 million views. ) We caught up with Knowles by phone in late summer, on a rare day off from the Rest-Ashoar he’d given himself in order to take his wife and three kids to the Portland Sea Dogs baseball game, where he’d been invited to throw out the first pitch.

a unique looking glass. And I’ve always been good at explaining— anything that I understand is easy for me to explain to other people.

Early on, I tried taking cameras out on the lobster boat to film for YouTube, but you know, it was challenging. When you’re running the boat, you sort of need to be running the boat. So I’d show my life in Maine, doing things I did for fun. I was doing those things anyway, and I enjoyed making videos. If I was doing it for the views, I would have quit. Then, during Covid, TikTok really took off. All of a sudden, it was possible to just haul a phone out and take a 6-second, 10-second,

30-second video and post it. That was a lot easier to manage. That really revolutionized how I, and lots of other people, created content. Now all of a sudden, farmers, truck drivers, lobster guys—anybody, really—could do this. You didn’t need to know how to film and put together a video to be a content creator anymore.

Lobster licenses are hard to come by, at least in Maine. Did you ever feel pressured to go into lobstering simply because you could?

My father was a lobsterman, as was his father and his father. Licenses

can’t be passed down, but it’s easier to get one if you’re born into a fishing family, because you start at a young age. To get a license, you have to log hours on another boat. After you get your hours done, you sit on the waiting list until a certain amount of fishermen leave your zone. There’s an enter-exit ratio in place—I believe ours is three-to-one or two-toone, somewhere around there—so a couple fishermen have to leave before one can come off the waiting list. That’s why starting as a kid is important if you’re going to stand a chance of getting a license by the time you want to do it full-time. I could have gone the college route. But I’d already worked my way up in fishing, and was fishing full-time pretty much through high school. My summer vacations were spent lobster fishing. So by senior year, when I had enough credits to only have to go to school every other day, I was ready to make a real go of it. It just made more sense to me at that time to continue pursuing lobster fishing. And I did enjoy it.

The New York Times has called you “TikTok’s finest lobsterman.” What do the other lobstermen Down East think about that? I was nervous about what they would think of this whole thing. But I’ve always tried to make all my content something that other fishermen could respect and appreciate— informative, educational, and cool.

I don’t want to ever do something that is frowned upon by my fellow fishermen. Everything on the ocean, the world that I have grown up in—and still live in—is based on respect for each other…. It’s very old-fashioned. So I’ve always tried to make sure the content is something that is good for the industry. And for the most part, but especially in my harbor, all the fishermen have appreciated that.

My dad is still fishing. I feel him out a little bit. Social media is all very foreign to him. But he’s a good example of who I try to make content for.

What’s been the most surprising part of this turn in your career? That there’s so much fan engagement. That people care. I spent three years basically just answering questions that popped up in the comments. Maine lobster is popular worldwide, but nobody really knew much about it other than it tasted good.

Personally, it’s made the longer days more interesting. The lobster fishery is open year-round but we slow down a lot in the winter. There’s a lot of monotonous, boring times where when we’re not catching much. We’re confined to a small zone on the coast, so we can’t really go chase after lobsters in other areas. We’re just sitting waiting for the lobsters to come to us. If you compare it to a sport, we’re never really on offense.

LEFT: Knowles works to educate as well as entertain in his videos, like the one he made on baitfish known as pogies, or menhaden, titled “They Save Me $100,000 a Year!” RIGHT: Knowles with his son Jayce and a nearly centuryold lobster, which they released after giving it a fish snack for the road.

And now, instead of grinding through those boring times, it’s fun all year long.

People learn a lot from watching your videos—for instance, I never knew you could put a lobster to sleep by petting it. Have you learned anything from making them?

Petting a lobster—I knew that one from my dad. That was an old trick passed down through the generations. I don’t know who first figured that out or how, but it’s always a funny one. People love it.

It’s been interesting trying to figure out what will be popular and what won’t. I’ve learned how to structure a video so that people don’t lose interest too early. I’ve learned a lot about “the algorithm” from other creators, people who are actual content creators. Those guys have, like, very creative brains. I don’t even know if I really consider myself a content creator. I’m more or less just sharing my life.

Jacob Knowles is on TikTok @jacob_knowles. For links to his other social media accounts and more, go to pillar.io/jacobknowles.

changes that place a lives

YOUNG PEOPLE DISCOVER THE POWER OF THEIR STORIES.

MEL ALLEN AT THE TELLING ROOM IN PORTLAND, MAINE,

iwant to show you a special place on this fine spring morning in Portland, Maine. Walk south on Exchange Street in the heart of the Old Port. The one-way street is just shy of a quarter mile as it stretches to Casco Bay and spills out near Commercial Street. This is the Portland that brings endless streams of visitors. But this is not the special place I want to show you.

Follow me a few blocks west on Commercial Street, away from ferries steaming to the islands, away from the boutiques and tourists. There, at 225 Commercial Street, nestled between a men’s clothing store and a shop selling wine and cigars, is a five-story brick building with tall windows facing the water.

We climb steps to the second floor. The sign on the door reads “The Telling Room.” Before we go in, take a moment to imagine being young and leaving behind everything you have known—friends, family, landscape, language—to come to a new country, and having few ways to express what you have seen and endured along the way. And even then: Who would listen or understand? Loneliness is a part of your new life, like the snow and the cold.

Or imagine growing up in a small Maine town while wrestling with questions of sexual or gender identity, knowing kids in school talk about you, feeling as much an outsider as if you had arrived from another continent, too.

Or simply imagine being young, and not knowing what lies ahead for you.

Now: Imagine opening this door into a place where you can sit beside someone who will help you write the stories

that have stayed inside you for so long, you sometimes don’t remember they are there. A place where, after you hear others share their lives, you can take a breath and begin telling about your own—and everything changes.

It is here, in this place called The Telling Room, that young people are asked to be brave. To trust others. To know that they can tell their stories, and to believe their stories matter. And for the past 20 years, The Telling Room has shown them how. That’s what waits on the other side of the door.

And there’s no place quite like it anywhere.

“We’re dealing with all this heavy stuff, but it’s all driven by the stories that kids need to tell and are compelled to tell and urgently want to tell.” —Michael Paterniti, cofounder of The Telling Room

To understand what happens at The Telling Room, which has seen more than 35,000 young people take part in its programs all across Maine, let’s step back a few decades. Creative newcomers are putting down roots in Portland, and ideas and energy are everywhere. One day in 2004, three people are sitting in a booth at a Congress Street café. They are in their mid-30s, and two are a married couple: Michael Paterniti and Sara Corbett, both accomplished journalists as well as the parents of two preschoolers. With them is their friend Susan Conley, an author and a passionate teacher of writing. She grew up in midcoast Maine and, after teaching in Boston, moved to Portland with her husband and their two preschool-age children.

At this time, Portland is seeing an influx of writers, artists, musicians, makers, and chefs. But also arriving in the city is the first big wave of asylum seekers from Africa, Afghanistan, and the Middle East—families who had

PREVIOUS SPREAD: Over the years, the bulletin board above teacher Sonya Tomlinson’s desk has grown crowded with photos of participants in The Telling Room’s Young Writers & Leaders program, all hailing from international and multicultural backgrounds.

OPPOSITE: In a publishing workshop overseen by teacher Jude Marx, right, students consider the sequence of poems, stories, and essays for the 2024 Telling Room anthology This Moment and the Next.

THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The Telling Room founders, from left, Sara Corbett, Michael Paterniti, and Susan Conley speak at the nonprofit’s 20th anniversary celebration in October 2024; a session of Works in Progress, an after-school writing workshop for 12-to-18-yearolds; a Telling Room summer camp culminates with student readings for friends and family; a selection of the more than 200 books featuring the work of The Telling Room’s young authors.

fled the kind of danger and turmoil that Paterniti and Corbett had both reported on. “I found the same young people I had seen in Sudan now on the other side, in Portland,” Paterniti tells me now, 20 years later. “You would see the end of their journey here. It felt really vital that we help them tell their story.”

Paterniti and Corbett have recently returned from a village in Spain, where they spent hours in a cave set deep in a hillside. Inside was a special space, El Contador, literally “the counting room,” which also translates as “the telling room.” There, they heard stories by a man named Ambrosio who held his listeners spellbound.

Sitting in the café, the trio begin talking about their belief that children are natural storytellers who need their own “telling room” to discover their voices. “We wanted to show them the path,” Conley remembers. So they hatch an idea: Start a nonprofit writing center where young people can come for free and learn how to unlock the stories they had lived.

The problem was, as Conley puts it, “we had all these wild ideas, but we had no students.” So they begin meeting with teachers throughout the city, telling them, “Many students feel unheard, not seen. Let us help you reach them.”

They volunteer in high schools, middle schools, elementary schools. They work with kids who’d been in Maine all their lives as well as those who had just landed here, with a new language to learn. Calling their project The Telling Room, they believe in their mission even in the face of its mounting obligations. “The conflict was, we’re writers. We have to write and produce,” Conley tells me. “And we were really, really overtired. It took a serious personal toll. But we kept hearing yes from teachers—We need you.”

Paterniti remembers Conley saying once, “It’s like we have seven tickets a day to spend. So you spend three tickets on family, three tickets on work. And we only have

Tomlinson and writing coach Chris Turner talk with Young Writers & Leaders student Elkanah Okoruwa, center, as he works to craft his personal narrative. Tomlinson says while the impact of the Young Writers & Leaders program can be felt in some big ways—as when President Barack Obama joined in a Zoom chat with students in 2021—“sometimes it’s as little as encouraging another student to come join this program. And that feels like a success and achievement to me.”

one ticket left for The Telling Room. Except The Telling Room is taking three tickets.”

“But we had to keep doing it, because it mattered,” he adds. “These kids were telling unbelievable stories. And there was this awe at how these kids were finding the words, the courage to tell these stories out loud.”

And then angels arrive: A foundation awards them $8,000. “It was life-changing,” Conley recalls. With the funds, they hire the poet Gibson Fay-LeBlanc to be the first program director of a nonprofit writing center that doesn’t exist yet. They apply for more grants, small ones and then big national ones. Local businesses take note. Donations come in. By 2007, The Telling Room finally has a place to call home—the sunny spaces on Commercial Street where it’s been ever since—and the ability to publish its first anthology of young writers’ work, I Remember Warm Rain.

An installation called the Story House Project launches that first book at Portland’s nonprofit SPACE Gallery. Students at the Maine College of Art & Design created posters to illustrate the writers’ words and built a series of sculptural “houses”—some representing what the writers had left behind, others showing the writers’ imaginings of what a home could be. Inside each house, audio of a story is playing.

One of these is stories by Aruna Kenyi. He is 16, maybe 17. He has spent hours with Paterniti, sitting beside him in a room at Portland High School, as Aruna spoke his words into a tape recorder. He told Paterniti about being 5 years old in South Sudan when soldiers burned his village. He ran and hid with his older brother in a cane field. He was certain his parents were dead. He hid and walked for more than a year before reaching a refugee camp, and then walked again when the camp became too dangerous.

After each session, Paterniti transcribed the tape so they could look together at the words in Aruna’s new language. Eventually, a way to put them into a story took

shape. And now, for the first time, Portland will hear it.

In the house, Aruna’s audio begins: “I have no photographs of my past, none of my village or parents or me as a boy there, none of the places where we fled or the camps in which we lived, nor of my friends.” After Aruna came to Maine, the listeners learn, a letter arrived and inside was a photograph of his mother and father, still alive thousands of miles away.

Looking back on that night at the SPACE Gallery, Paterniti remembers it as a seminal moment for The Telling Room. “We all saw you can be vulnerable. You can be emotional. You can tell your story. All seems possible.”

“Who are the youth of Maine? What stories are we missing? There is a need for us to be here.” —Kristina M.J.

Powell, executive director of The Telling Room

The day of my visit to The Telling Room begins with a field trip by fifth-graders from the Village School in Gorham, about 10 miles west of Portland. It is one of the 42 Maine schools that will reach out to The Telling Room this year. The kids wander around the large central loft, which is filled with light from tall windows. Chairs and shelves are painted cheery red and green. The sofas are deep and comfy, and the tables hold jars filled with pens and pencils. A poster on the wall sets out a simple ethos: “We Agree to: No Phones; Pen to Paper; Respect Other People’s Work; Don’t Hold Back.”

In all the rooms and offices, books line the shelves. They range from classics by the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald to modern-day works by Telling Room mentors and visiting authors. But most precious here are the nearly 230 titles that hold the writings of more than 5,000 young people. Whatever else they do in life, their stories will live inside these books.

But to call them books does not do them justice. “Books” is a quiet word. The pages in these volumes are not. Instead, they are filled with voices. Some emerge from memories that have sometimes traveled across years and thousands of miles; others come from growing up in Aroostook or in fishing villages on the Maine coast. Here are stories from the Young Writers & Leaders program, focused on high school students with international backgrounds. Their stories slowly shift as the years pass: There are fewer tales of harrowing journeys to a new land, as their journeys now lead inward—the struggle not in the getting here, but in the being here. And here are novels and poetry collections and memoirs from the Young Emerging Authors program, in which four high schoolers each spend nearly a year creating just one work that becomes as polished and professional as if they were far older writers.

Whenever schoolkids visit, they learn about these books, written by young people just like them. The message is clear: You, too, can do this. And one way to begin is simply to look closely at the life swirling around you.

Before long, the kids from the Village School go outside with their teacher, Alison Penley, to walk around, to see the

life of the Portland waterfront so they can come back in and write about it. Once inside they grab pencils and paper and sprawl on the red carpet, or sit hunched at the tables. Telling Room teachers Kathryn Williams and Jack Gendron move from one to the next, helping to coax a few more words. “What do you want to happen next?” Williams asks one boy.

After a half hour, the children gather in a circle. Williams, who writes young-adult fiction and who has been teaching here for a decade, tells them, “I think writing looks like walking in the world and just eavesdropping. You know what writing is? It’s being curious. It’s asking, What if? ”

Then she asks everyone to share something they had written. “Sharing your writing can make you feel a little embarrassed,” she tells them. “The more you share, the easier it becomes.”

One boy says he wrote about a pirate. Gendron, a poet, asks, “What do you think it is like to raise a pirate?” With a shy, proud smile, another boy reads about his father’s gold watch. A girl says she wrote a play about getting ready to go to a party.

I watch and think what The Telling Room wants to do with field trips like this is not to teach writing —the way it does during the months-long workshops. This is about striking a match, and hoping a spark may catch.

“When I came to The Telling Room it was a very powerful feeling, knowing that I could share my stories honestly, and feel like I would be listened to.” —Leigh Ellis, whose novel Bach in the Barn was published in 2021

By midafternoon during my visit, when the schools are out, high school students begin to arrive at The Telling Room. Four are in the Young Emerging Authors program, and I meet them in a small room where they are working under the final deadline for their 10-month project. There are three high school sophomores and one junior, high achievers who have signed up for the intensity of writing a solo book. Each has been working with a mentor under the direction of program lead Jude Marx and teacher Kathryn Williams.

They introduce themselves and their work to me. Josie Ellis’s poetry revolves around the theme of water. Margaret Horton’s novel features a heroine living in the last human settlement on earth. Madeleine Turgelsky has set what she calls her “sapphic novel” during the ’80s AIDS epidemic in New York. Natalia Mbadu’s memoir of struggling with faith is a mix of prose and lyrics.

Each of them has just received feedback from an outside reader, someone coming to their work for the first time, and they admit to me it can be scary to see new critiques after putting in so much effort. The room is quiet as they scroll through the suggestions. They have only two weeks to make changes. Soon their books will be off to a printer, ready for

Squeeze Play

(Continued from p. 36)

3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

¹⁄ 3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 4–5 blood oranges

5 ounces arugula

1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced (save a few fronds for garnish)

½ small red onion, peeled and thinly sliced

½ cup shelled pistachios, toasted

2 ounces ricotta salata

In a small bowl, add the vinegar and then slowly whisk in ⅓ cup olive oil until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper to taste and set aside.

Place an orange on a cutting board and slice off each end. Stand the orange up and use a sharp paring knife to cut away the skin and pith, following the curve of the fruit. Turn the orange on its side and slice it crosswise into ¼-inch-thick slices. Carefully stack the orange slices in a bowl and repeat with the remaining oranges, being sure to reserve any orange juice. Whisk the juice into the dressing.

To serve, spread half the arugula in an even layer on a large platter. Cover with approximately half each of the sliced fennel, red onion, orange slices, and pistachios. Drizzle about ⅓ of the vinaigrette over the salad and use a vegetable peeler to shave some ricotta salata all over. Cover with the remaining arugula and then add the remaining fennel, red onion, and orange slices, arranging as you wish. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette and then top with the remaining pistachios and the shaved ricotta salata. Finish the salad with a drizzle of olive oil and a generous grinding of black pepper. Serve immediately. Yields 4 to 6 servings.

TANGERINE BARS

Here, classic lemon bars get a glow-up by swapping out lemons for tangerines and making a thinner crust that’s baked a bit longer. The result? A silky, zippy

tangerine curd and a crisp shortbread base with hints of toasty browned butter.

Note: If you can’t find tangerines at your supermarket, you can substitute clementines, mandarins, or tangelos.

FOR THE CRUST

1 cup (140 grams) all-purpose flour

¼ cup confectioners’ sugar

¹⁄ 8 teaspoon kosher salt

7 tablespoons salted butter, melted

FOR THE FILLING

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon tangerine zest

1 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons (18 grams) all-purpose flour

2 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

¾ cup freshly squeezed tangerine juice

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Pinch of kosher salt

Confectioners’ sugar, for serving

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lightly coat an 8-inch square pan with nonstick cooking spray and line with parchment paper, letting the excess

Tangerine Bars

hang over the sides of the pan (about 2 inches on each side is perfect).

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, confectioners’ sugar, and salt. Add the butter and mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture just comes together into a dough (it’s OK if it’s a bit crumbly). Sprinkle the dough into the baking dish and, using your fingers, press the dough into a thin, even layer and build up a thin, ¾-inch-high edge around the sides to help contain the filling. Bake until the crust is evenly light golden brown all over, about 25 minutes.

While the crust is baking, make the filling. Add the tangerine zest and sugar to a food processor’s work bowl and pulse until the zest is thoroughly incorporated. The sugar will be pale orange and incredibly fragrant. Add the flour and pulse a few times to blend. Add the eggs and egg yolks and pulse just until smooth, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the tangerine and lemon juices and salt and blend.

When the crust is ready, reduce the oven temperature to 325°F and pour the filling into the hot crust. Bake until the filling is set and the center jiggles just the tiniest bit, 25 to 30 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and set on a cooling rack. When completely cool, place the baking dish in the refrigerator and chill for at least three hours or until cold. Before serving, lift the bars onto a cutting board using the excess parchment paper sling. Dust the top of the bars with confectioners’ sugar and, using a sharp knife, cut into 12 bars, cleaning the knife between cuts as needed. Serve cold or at room temperature. Any extras may be wrapped and stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Yields 12 bars.

LEMON PUDDING CAKES

Part pudding, part cake, and part soufflé, this easy-to-make dessert feels like kitchen sorcery. One batter is poured into ramekins and emerges from the oven as two desserts: a creamy, souffle-like cake sitting atop a layer of rich pudding. Using a food processor allows you to first blend the sugar and lemon zest to ensure

maximum lemon flavor (alternately, you can also rub the zest into the sugar with your fingers to release the oils). Adding heavy cream creates a luxe, pudding-y sauce and a cake that is incredibly creamy and impossibly light.

1 cup milk

½ cup heavy cream

4 large eggs, separated

2 teaspoons lemon zest

¹⁄

3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (1 to 2 large lemons)

1 tablespoon salted butter, melted

1¾ cups granulated sugar

½ cup (70 grams) all-purpose flour

Confectioners’ sugar, for serving

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease eight 6-ounce ramekins, place in a large roasting pan, and set aside. Heat a large pot or kettle with water until boiling, reduce heat, and let simmer until needed.

In a large liquid measuring cup, combine the milk and cream and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, zest, juice, melted butter, and sugar until smooth. Whisk half the milk and cream into the mixture, followed by half the flour. Whisk in the remaining milk and cream and then the remaining flour until just combined.

Add the egg whites to the bowl of a stand mixer and, using the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add a quarter of the egg whites to the batter and whisk until smooth. Gently fold the remaining egg whites into the batter.

Pour the batter into the ramekins (they will be quite full), place the roasting pan in the oven, and pour the hot water into the pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake until the cakes are puffed and the tops are set and very lightly golden, about 25 minutes. Use tongs to carefully remove each ramekin from the roasting pan and set on a cooling rack. Let cool for about 20 minutes (the cakes might deflate a bit, but that’s OK). Serve warm and dusted with confectioners’ sugar. Yields 8 servings.

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in bags, boxes, and gift baskets. Facebook MUNSON’S CHOCOLATES, Bolton. What better way to show support for UConn’s champs than with a Husky chocolate bar? They’re at Munson’s, in dark or milk, with nuts or without. Of course there’s plenty else here, including distinctive takes on classics such as fudge stuffed with peanut butter and caramel, and chocolate bark studded with macadamia nuts. Bonbons are sold by the pound or in boxes ranging from a six-piece assortment to a “create your own” 36-piece extravaganza. Additional locations statewide; munsonschocolates.com

TSCHUDIN CHOCOLATES & CONFECTIONS, Middletown. In Roberto Tschudin Lucheme’s search for the perfect career, artisanal confectioner was the winner— and he’s pursued it with a passion. For him, it’s all about the ingredients: Chocolate from Central American and Caribbean cacao varietals is married with flavors found closer to home, such as mint and honey sourced right here in Connecticut. Fresh cream and butter are prime elements, though vegan options are available. Thinking about your own career switch? Tschudin also offers chocolate classes. tschocolates.com

MAINE

BEN & BILL’S CHOCOLATE EMPORIUM, Bar Harbor. Sea salt caramel truffles may seem like the perfect nibble to enjoy by the waters of Frenchman Bay—but choosing just one kind of treat is nearly impossible at this premier location of a nearly 70-year-old, family-run New England candy business. Among the emporium’s other offerings are chocolatecovered candied ginger, blueberry fudge, and scrumptious cashew brittle. There’s ice cream, too, including a flavor that another “Ben &” outfit has yet to come up with: lobster. Additional locations on Martha’s Vineyard and in Falmouth, MA; benandbills.com

DEAN’S SWEETS, Portland. Dean’s is fanatically loyal to its Maine location, its Maine suppliers, and, well, just about everything Maine. From bars and squares to nonpareils and buttercrunch, local ingredients abound. Dean’s uses organic cream from Maine dairies, beer from Portland’s Orange Bike Brewing Company for its stout truffles, Maineroasted coffee, and even Maine-distilled vodka for a special take on the state’s classic potato candies, called Needhams. deanssweets.com

THE GOLDENROD, York Beach. Since 1896, beachgoers have strolled (or eagerly sprinted) two blocks from Short Sands Beach to this iconic sweet shop. The Goldenrod—where there’s also a restaurant and an antique marble soda fountain—is famous for its saltwater taffy “kisses,” made according to founder Edward Talpey’s recipe. These taffy treats come in nearly a dozen regular flavors, plus a flavor of the week. Fudges, barks, brittles in peanut or cashew, and oldfashioned caramel corn all make that hike from the beach worthwhile. Open midMay to mid-October; thegoldenrod.com

HARBOR CANDY SHOP, Ogunquit. A handsome space lined with dark wood cabinets and shelves, Harbor Candy’s premises seem less like a shop than a jeweler’s showroom. But the gems here are fine chocolates, made daily with alwaysfresh ingredients. Among the specialties are chocolate bars in 16 varieties and hard-to-find divinity, marzipan, layered truffles, and fruit jellies that more closely resemble true French pâtes de fruits than everyday gummies. harborcandy.com

ISLAND CANDY COMPANY, Orr’s Island. Melinda Richter was once the proverbial “kid in a candy store,” and her recollections of that childhood time led

A sampling of sweets arrayed on the Chutters candy counter in Littleton, New Hampshire.

her to start her own sweet shop. Today she turns out a tempting variety of barks enhanced with pistachios, cranberries, assorted nuts, and chia seeds; nut brittles and toffees; and buttercreams, fudge, and nougats. Maine Needhams are here, along with chocolate-dipped fruits and even rum fudge golf balls. Open April–December; orrsislandcandy.com

MONICA’S CHOCOLATES, Lubec. Down East (just about as far Down East as you can go, in fact) is the direction to travel for Monica Elliott’s handmade selection of bonbons, caramels, truffles, creams, chocolate-covered fruits, and even sugarfree blueberry, cranberry, and nut clusters. Among the special treats are wintergreen chocolate hearts and Needhams perked up with almonds, pecans, or—this being Maine—blueberries. Open April–December; monicaschocolates.com

RAGGED COAST CHOCOLATES, Westbrook. At Ragged Coast, “local” is the watchword. Cream and butter for chocolates and caramels come from nearby dairies, and Down East farms produce the herbs, fruits, and edible flowers the chocolatiers use. Even the rye in whiskey truffles is locally distilled. Chocolate, of course, travels farther—it’s sourced from responsibly cultivated Latin American and Hawaiian trees. Top picks here: rich milk and dark chocolate barks, and truffles in flavors including lavender and hazelnut latte. raggedcoastchocolates.com

MASSACHUSETTS

CHOCOLATE THERAPY, Wayland. It’s not hard to find folks who believe that chocolate is indeed therapy—and who are we to disagree? Since 2011, Pam and David Griffin have been soothing countless souls with their exquisite handmade dark chocolate truffles crafted with ingredients both traditional and outside the box (cayenne, lemon, basil, etc.). For those who prefer taking the nutty route, the Griffins offer crunchy almond barks in dark, milk, and white chocolate. Try all three varieties by treating yourself to the Chocolate Therapy Trio Nut-Bark Collection, which earned a spot on Oprah’s Favorite Things list in 2024. thechocolatetherapystore.com

THE CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE, Reading. No, not the kind of truffle hunted by pigs in Europe. These morsels are chocolates with a delightful dual personality: pillowy ganache centers in an assortment of flavors, hand-rolled and enveloped in an outer shell of rich Belgian chocolate. Four generations of Burkinshaw family confectionary experience go into the truffles as well as nut-rich turtles and other artisan specialties, including peanut brittle and caramel popcorn made with

thechocolatetruffle.com

HILLIARD’S CHOCOLATES, North Easton This family-owned shop reached its century milestone in 2024. Milk and dark chocolates with a variety of fillings are a mainstay, along with favorites like almond toffee crunch, barks, and truffles. Hilliard’s loves to dip (or completely immerse) popular treats in chocolate. Looking for half-dipped diced and candied apricots, pears, peaches, or oranges? They’re all here, alongside chocolate-covered raisins, cranberries, potato chips, Oreo cookies, and graham Additional locations in Norwell hilliardscandy.com

licorice, caramels, toffee—to inspire trickor-treat fantasies in the Witch City all year round. Additional location in North Andover; oldepeppercandy.com

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Woodstock, Vermont | woodstockinn.com

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MRS. NELSON’S CANDY HOUSE, Chelmsford. It’s been more than 70 years since Mrs. Nelson started making and selling chocolates, and though the Nelson family are no longer the house chocolatiers, a commitment to top ingredients and candy made daily is still the rule. Look for all the standbys—milk and dark chocolate, caramels, creams, nut clusters—and take out the guessing with boxes of “HardN-Chewy” or soft center only. There’s plenty of non-chocolate favorites here, too. mrsnelsonscandyhouse.com

THE PENNY CANDY STORE, Sharon . Who knew? Hershey’s Kisses come in 10 foil colors—and here’s a shop that has them all. Kisses, though, are just one of a thousand candy selections, each available by the piece, by the box, or, one imagines, by the carload. Candy brands that date back decades are a specialty (remember Choo-Choo Charlie and his Good & Plentys)? Gummies, wafers, jelly beans, licorice—if it’s sweet, it’s on Merchant Street in Sharon . pennycandy.com

SPINDLER CONFECTIONS & SAVORY DELIGHTS, Cambridge. Harvard University may be at the heart of Cambridge, but for an education in chocolate, continue down Massachusetts Avenue to Spindler. Here, the major subjects include caramel nut clusters, cherry cordials, vanilla mint meltaways, barks and butter cups, and bonbon assortments scrumptious enough to bribe the crankiest professor. Plus, right on the premises is a fascinating museum chronicling the Boston area’s once-thriving confectionery industry. spindlerconfections.com

YE OLDE PEPPER COMPANIE, Salem Named for an early proprietor rather than an unusual ingredient, this Salem institution located near the city’s historic waterfront claims to be America’s oldest candy company. Dating back to the firm’s earliest days are signature sweets such as peppermint or lemon “Gibralters” that derive their name from their rocklike consistency, and “Black Jacks,” made with molasses. There’s much more—chocolates

CHUTTERS, Littleton. At an astounding 112 feet, the Chutters candy counter takes the prize as the longest in the world. Candy lovers come from all over to marvel at the legion of glass jars brimming with more than 500 varieties of hard candies, gummies, jelly beans, and every other example of sugar’s leap into immortality, including old favorites you didn’t think they made anymore. Look for handmade chocolates and fudge, too. Additional locations in Bretton Woods (open seasonally) and Lincoln; chutters.com

GRANITE STATE CANDY SHOPPE, Concord . Look around this shop, and two things will likely come to mind: Grandma’s house and the movies. Didn’t your grandmother always have a dish of licorice allsorts on the coffee table? And weren’t sugar-sparkled spearmint leaves part of your cinema-going experience? Granite State has these and much more, starting with a full lineup of chocolates and specialties such as chocolate-covered (dark or milk) gummy bears. It goes all out with theme items for holidays, too. Additional location in Manchester; granitestatecandyshoppe.com

HUCKLEBERRY’S CANDIES, Hampton. Some confections seem to survive only in memory … and then they turn up in a shop like Huckleberry’s. Here are two such nostalgic favorites: gummy raspberries and blackberries, looking just like the real thing with their sugarbead coatings; and chocolate-covered espresso beans, sweet and bitter at the same time. The shop is filled with just about everything else that can be covered in chocolate, plus rich milk and dark chocolates, while gummy lobsters honor the seaside location. huckleberryscandies.com

L.A. BURDICK CHOCOLATES, Walpole While Burdick’s French-accented restaurant is a surprisingly sophisticated destination in this small Connecticut River Valley town, its adjoining café and chocolate shop are just as big a draw. Among Burdick’s specialties are dark, milk, and white chocolate bars studded with cocoa nibs, pistachios, and other nuts; chocolate-covered treats such as mango slices, marzipan, and pâtes de fruits ; and boxed arrays of elegant bonbons including the signature handcrafted Burdick mice and penguins filled with flavored ganache. Additional locations in Boston and Cambridge, MA, and New

York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.; burdickchocolate.com

LEE’S CANDY KITCHEN, Meredith. Lee’s is three candy shops in one. It’s an outlet for handcrafted chocolates from artisan suppliers, a place to mix and match selections from jar after jar of individual candies, and a source for the candy bars (some getting a bit hard to find) that everyone remembers from afternoons at the movies or from rummaging through their jeans for quarters at the corner store. Zagnut? 100 Grand? You’ll find them here. Additional location in Plymouth; leescandykitchen.com

LICKEE’S & CHEWY’S CANDIES & CREAMERY, Dover. New England’s only medieval-themed candy shop comes with a goofy knight-and-dragon backstory and—more important—a selection of 200-plus sweets, including classics like marshmallow peanuts, Turkish delight, and Pez. These share the shelves with chocolate bonbons, truffles, and international treats (e.g., Japan’s Pocky chocolate sticks, Germany’s Haribo gummies and sours, black licorice “Beagles” from Holland). Candies also garnish the shop’s “King Shake” ice cream extravaganzas. lickeesnchewys.com

RED KITE CANDY, Hanover. Located just off the Dartmouth Green, Red Kite is an artisan caramel shop in an Ivy League of its own. Slow-cooked, small-batch morsels are made with cream from Vermont and New Hampshire dairies and come in classic, maple, sea salt, and four other varieties year-round, plus a gingerbread option during the holidays. Not into caramels? Try nougat made with local honey and egg whites, or turtles that actually look like turtles, with pecan heads and feet. redkitecandy.com

RHODE ISLAND

ANCHOR TOFFEE, Providence. A brewery, a distillery, a produce market—what more could one short stretch of Sims Avenue offer? The answer is toffee. The English treat is made here the traditional way, from caramelized sugar and butter, and offered coated with dark chocolate in plain, almond, pumpkin spice (seasonal), and other versions, even vegan coconut almond toffee with coconut milk substituting for butter. Look for saltwater taffy and truffles, too. Additional location in Newport; anchortoffee.com

HAUSER CHOCOLATIER, Westerly. For sheer variety, it’s hard to beat the array of flavors offered by the Hauser family, now in their second generation of producing fine chocolates and truffles to the exacting Swiss standards of founder Ruedi Hauser. In a truffle line of 30-plus varieties, traditional flavors like hazelnut and rum

Your Four-Season Destination! Year-Round Shopping Dining & Lodging

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are joined by adventurous selections such as blueberry port wine, eggnog, and black vinegar. hauserchocolates.com

A Four-Season Destination!

Downhill & Cross-Country Skiing Indoor & Outdoor Ice Skating

Many Unique Family-Owned Restaurants

A Four-Season Destination!

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other way around? Either way, here’s a place where Route 7 travelers can settle into their overnight lodgings with a box of bonbons bought on the premises. There’s no need to stay overnight, though, in order to browse Vermont’s largest selection of candies—over 1,500 varieties—and enjoy chocolates from a collection made right here in small batches. middleburysweets.com

www.WolfeboroChamber.com

A Four-Season Destination!

Year-Round Shopping, Dining & Lodging.

Call for a FREE Brochure! 603-569-2200

Year-Round Shopping, Dining & Lodging.

Downhill and Cross-Country Skiing. Visits to Santa’s Hut. Snowmobiling. Ice-Fishing events at Fisherville on Wolfeboro Bay. Art Galleries. Cozy Fireplaces. Skating. Festival of Trees. Snow-shoeing. Holiday Parade and New Y

Ask for a FRee Brochure! at wolfeborochamber.com

603-569-2200 • 800-516-5324

SWEENOR’S CHOCOLATES, Wakefield Want a reminder of your days by the sea? Sweenor’s has chocolate sailboats, sea creature pops, and even little chocolate flip-flops. And this may be the only place to buy a plaque depicting the Point Judith Lighthouse in chocolate. In the conventional-candy realm, Sweenor’s shoppers can opt for boxed assortments or curate their own selection from among dozens of varieties including caramels, turtles, truffles, clusters, barks, and chocolate-covered crackers and dried fruits. Additional location in Cranston; sweenorschocolates.com

“Work and Live Where You Love to Play”

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“Work and Live Where You Love to Play” wolfeboronh.us

“Work and Live Where You Love to Play” at wolfeborochamber.com

“Work where you love to play”

SWEET LORRAINE’S CANDY SHOPPE, Barrington. Tucked into an off-themain-drag location near scenic Brickyard Pond and its surrounding parkland, this family-owned mecca for candy lovers offers a roundup of chocolates from premier New England producers such as Lake Champlain and Sweenor’s. Sweet Lorraine’s stocks organic, sugarfree, and nut-free chocolates and other candies, and shelves are crowded with the shapes and colors of penny candies. Custom-assembled gift baskets and holiday-themed treats are specialties. sweetlorrainescandy.com

VERMONT

LAKE CHAMPLAIN CHOCOLATES, Burlington. In a state that’s pioneered the artisanal trend in everything from beer to ice cream, Lake Champlain has been the chocolate star for over 40 years. Barks, bars, and bonbons—both milk and dark—lead a lineup that includes exotics like macadamia nut caramel clusters, triple-layered peanut butter cups, and truffles made with Maker’s Mark bourbon. With a flagship store and café on Pine Street and a satellite location on Church Street, the company also offers baking chocolate and a selection of more than half a dozen hot cocoa powders. Additional locations in Waterbury and Stowe; lakechamplainchocolates.com

MOTHER MYRICK’S CONFECTIONERY, Manchester. Handcrafted using butter from Vermont’s celebrated Cabot Creamery, buttercrunch is the star attraction at this Manchester mainstay. It’s often paired with Lemon LuLu cake from Myrick’s bakery—after all, why not gild the lily? The confection menu continues past the ’crunch to include dark chocolate–dipped glacé apricots, milk or dark almond bark, fudge, sea salt caramels, a Myrick’s take on pecan turtles called “Myricles,” and a dandy hot fudge sauce. mothermyricks.com

THE SWEET SPOT CANDY SHOPPE, Quechee. Quechee Gorge Village, named for the nearby glacial gorge, is a place to browse antiques, stock up on Vermont cheese, and, well, gorge on a trove of traditional, hard-to-find, and just plain oddball candies. Nerds and Pop Rocks? They’re still around. So are sweets in liquid, squeeze, spray, and fizzy-soda forms. For fudge lovers, flavors range from basic maple and penuche to caramel sea salt, PB&J, and birthday cake. sweetspotcandyshoppe.net

TAVERNIER CHOCOLATES, Brattleboro

MAPLE CITY CANDY, Swanton . If you need any proof that maple is more than a pancake’s best friend, it’s here in Swanton. Vermont’s sweet elixir appears on Maple City’s shelves in the form of soft and hard candies, fudge, and taffy, and as a coating for almonds, cashews, pecans, and even popcorn. Maple cotton candy? Why not? Holiday-themed maple candies are a specialty: maple shamrocks for St. Pat’s, maple rosettes for Valentine’s Day, and, of course, maple Santas. maplecitycandy.com

MIDDLEBURY SWEETS, Middlebury. Is it a motel with a candy shop attached, or the

The married team of Dar TavernierSinger and John Singer source their chocolate from ethically grown cacao trees in Ecuador, and use it as the matrix for a sophisticated line of high-cocoabutter specialties featuring an unexpected variety of ingredients, many foraged in Vermont. The ever-changing exotic array might include truffles flavored with chanterelle or morel mushrooms, or shagbark hickory syrup; juniper spruce bonbons; and chocolate “charcuterie” kissed with miso, maple, or smoked salt. tavernierchocolates.com

VERMONT NUT FREE CHOCOLATES, Colchester. When Mark and Gail Elvidge discovered that their young son had a severe peanut allergy, they also learned how difficult it was to find sweets made without nuts. Gail started making her own chocolates, soon launching a line of nut-free candies produced in a facility with no trace of nut, sesame, or egg allergens. Her line now includes boxed chocolates, barks, toffee, fudge, and even chocolate-coated pretzels. All are available at the factory store in Colchester, as well as in shops throughout the Northeast. vermontnutfree.com

BEYOND THE MUSEUM

Your companion trip planner for “The Great Indoors,” p. 52

SALEM, MA

(PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM)

BREAKFAST SPOT: House-made pastries are the stars at A&J King Artisan Bakers —hello, frostingshellacked cinnamon bun—but don’t sleep on the breakfast sandwiches and toasts. A seeded honey oat slice topped with avocado, lime, and paprika, for one, is <chef’s kiss> ajkingbakery.com

HOT DISH: Sister restaurants Bambolina and Kokeshi moved in together during the pandemic and thank the culinary gods: You can now slurp down the Back Alley Bacon Ramen at Kokeshi —an oh-so-rich dish featuring pork belly, bacon, and a soft egg—with a side of perfectly charred Neapolitan pizza. kokeshirestaurant.com

COZY HANG: Santa Fe–based chocolatier Kakawa offers “Mesoamerican” elixirs studded with New Mexico chili, or coconut and hibiscus, as well as “Historic European“ and “Contemporary” concoctions (try the Tzul, layered with fall spices). Can’t decide? Order a flight and kick back in the pillow-strewn café. kakawachocolates.com

RETAIL HIT: The glowing centerpiece of the Cheese Shop of Salem is a counter displaying wheels from around the world—and that’s where fondue fantasies come true. With kits that range from classic (three Alpine cheeses with pickles and salami) to funky (spiked with Bayley Hazen blue cheese and Dijon mustard), you’ll be dipping in no time. thecheeseshopofsalem.com

OUTDOOR ESCAPE: Once upon a time, nearly 20 buildings lined Derby Wharf, arguably the hub of global shipping trade in early America. Today, you can take that history in stride as you stroll the scenic half-mile Derby Wharf Light Station walk to the squat, solardriven lighthouse that stands as the wharf’s last surviving original structure. nps.gov/sama

STYLISH SLEEPOVER: Gas fireplaces and heated bathroom floors are just two of the cozy-making amenities at The Merchant, an 11-room Lark Hotel housed in a 1784 sea merchant’s manse.

History buffs should book the George Washington King Deluxe room, where— you guessed it—the newly elected president laid his powdered-white head while visiting Salem. larkhotels.com

ONLY IN SALEM: While a feminist occult shop with an on-site aura-reading machine is peak Witch City, HausWitch is all about accessible magic. Friendly staffers are happy to talk crystals 101, or set you up with a haus-made spell kit for finding your perfect home, perhaps, or for clearing and refreshing (with a bell to bring positive vibrations). hauswitchstore.com

ROCKLAND, ME

(FARNSWORTH ART MUSEUM)

BREAKFAST SPOT: Killer coffee and a tight but tasty menu of breakfast wraps, bowls, and pastries in a hip space—it’s no wonder why locals and tourists alike flock to Rock City Coffee Cafe. Hello Hello Books, the pocket-size bookstore tucked in back, adds to the allure. rockcitycoffee.com

HOT DISH: While any dish at Suzuki’s Sushi Bar is a sure bet (the local uni melts in your mouth) you’d be smart to start with the roll that bears chefowner Keiko Suzuki Steinberger’s name. Keiko’s Favorite is simple but effective: fresh tuna, cucumber, scallion, and tobiko, all punched up with spicy sauce. suzukisushi.com

COZY HANG: Crafted from Tandem Coffee Roasters beans, Gladys’ Coffee Liqueur is the newest addition to Luce Spirits’ offbeat lineup (aquavit and absinthe are among the other offerings). Grab a bottle at the clubby Main Street tasting room, which also hosts karaoke nights, team trivia, and dance parties on the regular. lucespirits.com

RETAIL HIT: Not only is the home goods store Trillium Soaps impeccably styled, but it also smells incredible, with notes of patchouli and rose petal mingling with lemon-fennel and vetiver. That would be the rustic, organic soap bars, hand-cut on the premises. trilliumsoaps.com

OUTDOOR ESCAPE: Many a Mainer

has turned to Camden Snow Bowl for snow sports—and for good reason: This family mountain is relatively cheap and decidedly cheerful, with sweeping views of Penobscot Bay. For old-school thrills, take a toboggan down the iceslicked wooden chute onto Hosmer Pond. Camden; camdensnowbowl.com

STYLISH SLEEPOVER: The place to be, après-ski? Parked in an armchair by the Samoset Resort lobby’s giant wood-burning stone fireplace, toasting marshmallows from the complimentary s’mores kits. That is, until the indoor hot tub and steam room beckon. Rockport; samosetresort.com

ONLY IN ROCKLAND: North Beacon Oyster is the spot for pilgrims seeking salvation on the half shell—on any given night, the hip, six-year-old bar has up to eight varieties of local oysters ready to shuck. After all, it’s practically sacrilegious to make the trip to midcoast Maine and not indulge in the region’s bivalves. northbeaconoyster.com

HANOVER, NH

(HOOD MUSEUM OF ART)

BREAKFAST SPOT: The menu at Lou’s Restaurant & Bakery may have evolved with the times (looking at you, acai smoothie bowls) but this sweetly retro Hanover institution still shines brightest when slinging classics like French toast made with glazed crullers. lousrestaurant.com

HOT DISH: The savory pies at Umpleby’s Bakery & Café aren’t much bigger than a generous hockey puck, but they’re juicy reminders of the heights that a pie can achieve in the hands of master bakers. Chicken curry pie, artichoke pie, Aussie meat pie—no matter what you choose, you’ll get a warming, hearty, old-fashioned treat, deliciously reinterpreted for modern times. umplebys.com

COZY HANG: Is there anything better than leafing through Molly Baz’s new cookbook and sipping a Definitive Brewing IPA while snow swirls outside? The answer is no, and with a beautifully curated book selection, comfy seating, and a café menu that

BEYOND THE MUSEUM

Your companion trip planner for “The Great Indoors,” p. 52

transitions from day to night, Still North Books & Bar encourages dawdling. stillnorthbooks.com

RETAIL HIT: Practical doesn’t equal boring at the women’s boutique Indigo Indeed, with its riotous rainbow of puffer coats and sweaters, plus beanies and mittens from cool brands like Sh*t That I Knit and Helga Seibert, you can live colorfully—even in the dead of winter. indigo-hanover.com

OUTDOOR ESCAPE: In partnership with Dartmouth, the Friends of Oak Hill has unveiled expanded cross-country ski trails and snowmaking at the new Oak Hill Outdoor Center. Trail lighting, a warming hut, and a solar array are also in the works—all in support of the nonprofit’s goal to provide accessible skiing for Upper Valley Nordic fans. oakhilloutdoorcenter.org

STYLISH SLEEPOVER: At the Hanover Inn, you can come for the history and views of Dartmouth’s college green, and stay for the modern amenities (EV charging, Gilchrist & Soames toiletries) and brunch at Pine restaurant (three words: Maine lobster benedict). hanoverinn.com

ONLY IN HANOVER: What isn’t surprising? A college town that has two brilliant bookstores. What is surprising? Left Bank Books’ selection of used treasures spanning subjects from the performing arts to local interest, including New Hampshire field guides and dog-eared Dartmouth yearbooks. leftbankbookshanover.com

MANCHESTER, VT

(SOUTHERN VERMONT ARTS CENTER)

BREAKFAST SPOT: If ordering one of everything on the Sunday brunch menu at the Crooked Ram is wrong, we don’t want to be right. (OK, if we must pick: the kale and mushroom toast with poached eggs and harissa hollandaise, please.) thecrookedramvt.com

COZY HANG: Blending massage, reflexology, and reiki, the 80-minute Spirit of Vermont treatment at the Spa at The Equinox is truly ahhinducing. Prolong the bliss with a

trip to the steam room or a dip in the outdoor hot tub or heated indoor pool. equinoxresort.com

RETAIL HIT: Find the cutest offspring of the marriage of two Vermont brands at Vermont Flannel with Vermont Teddy Bear: teddies outfitted in organic Campbell tartan and buffalo-check flannel. Apparel and accessories for humans are also available. vermontflannel.com

OUTDOOR ESCAPE: Generations of Vermont kids have learned to ski at the easygoing, right-size Bromley Mountain ski resort, and for good reason: With nearly 50 trails and two terrain parks, there’s something for every skill level. Plus, it’s the only major ski area in New England with southern exposure, increasing the chances of that bluebird day. Peru; bromley.com

STYLISH SLEEPOVER: Modern farmhouse decor, Dorset Daughters bath products, and Mocha Joe’s coffee—the recently renovated Barnstead Inn screams Vermont, right down to the local-leaning names of the 23 rooms and suites (President Coolidge, Norman Rockwell). And the pièce de résistance? A new sauna overlooking the mountains. barnsteadinn.com

ONLY IN MANCHESTER: Stock up on all your New England–made foodstuffs at Above All Vermont, from Vermont Farmstead’s Cheddy Topper (cheddar made with, yep, Heady Topper beer) to Dorset Maple Reserve’s bourbon barrel–aged syrup and Sidehill Farm jams. aboveallvermont.com

OLD LYME / ESSEX / OLD SAYBROOK, CT

(FLORENCE GRISWOLD MUSEUM)

BREAKFAST SPOT: Whether you swear by savory or have a need for sweet, head to the waterfront Hangry Goose, where the tempting breakfast menu features everything from a western egg sandwich—stuffed with peppers, diced ham, and American cheese—to thick-cut cinnamon French toast. Old Lyme; hangrygoose.com

HOT DISH: You’ve never had clam chowder quite like the chowder en croute you’ll find at The Essex. Chef-owner Colt Taylor’s umami-laden take on this classic New England dish is dosed with seaweed and topped with pillowy puff pastry. Pair it with a barrel-aged Manhattan to help keep the chill at bay. Old Saybrook; theessex.com

COZY HANG: A fireplace. Dark wood. Help-yourself popcorn. Newspapers for browsing. Originally built in 1735 as a schoolhouse and then relocated and attached to its namesake inn in 1801, the Griswold Inn Tap Room is the stuff of drams and dreams. Essex, griswoldinn.com

RETAIL HIT: All the usual suspects await you at The Trove, a cavernous, two-building antiques shop: Persian rugs, midcentury modern credenzas, Fiestaware. But it’s the one-of-a-kind curiosities—cast-iron pan bookends by Robert Emig, perhaps—that will charm collectors. Old Saybrook; thetroveoldsaybrook.com

OUTDOOR ESCAPE: Not all animals hibernate in winter, and neither should you: Instead, make the most of the quiet season on the Connecticut River with a two-hour, naturalist-narrated RiverQuest cruise. Brave the deck to spot bald eagles, seals, swans, seals, and other wildlife, then warm up with coffee in the heated cabin. Essex; ctriverquest.com

STYLISH SLEEPOVER: Trade in snowscapes for sweeping water views at the family-run Saybrook Point Resort & Marina, which features a spa with a sauna, fireplaces in the luxury rooms and suites, and not one but two heated pools. Old Saybrook; saybrook.com

ONLY IN OLD LYME: Is the creative vibe of the Lower Connecticut River Valley stoking your own artistic fire? Make a beeline to de Gerenday’s Fine Art Materials & Curiosities at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, where serious painting supplies share shelves with ostrich eggs, porcupine quills, and other giftable oddities. Old Lyme; degerendays.com

(Continued from p. 67)

couch. Soon I was up the first pitch, focused entirely on what’s in front of me, exactly what I needed.

While Cathedral isn’t Alaska— there’s a hospital nearby and routes are 300 feet, not 3,000—the climbs demand the same attention. It’s why many of the best winter climbers in the country live in New England. All our little climbs add up to big ones in other mountain ranges. And sometimes the backyard feels just as precarious.

Last time I climbed Remission, a chunk of ice reacted to a swing of my ax, exploding off the wall before slamming into my face. Blood spouted onto my jacket; I fought to keep from falling. I shook my head a few times, punchdrunk. My broken nose ballooned so much it took days before it could be set into place again. Last winter, a young climber started up Repentance on a day when the temperature was above freezing, and his ax sheared through the ice like a spoon scooping ice cream from a pint left on the counter too long. It was a costly error in judgment: He fell 20 to 30 feet before being caught by his climbing partner and suffered a compound leg fracture.

The sun is nearly gone. We’ve been driving or hiking or climbing for hours. I want hot soup. I want our couch, the woodstove, to crawl into bed. But a steep pillar of ice, Remission’s crux, glistens above me. The gathering darkness renders the familiar climb an unknown, and those are the best climbs, when the dance between success and failure is far from choreographed. The pillar is wet and still forming and I am not sure I have the skill and stamina to climb it in the dark—at least not safely, anyway— but when the conditions are this good, there’s always that lick of fire in the back of my brain telling me to keep going up.

I grew up in southern New England but my parents met in New Hampshire, where they taught at Brewster Academy, a boarding school skirting Lake Winnipesaukee, before moving to western Massachusetts and then

Connecticut. My father climbed ice. In high school, my feet finally big enough to fit into a pair of his ancient leather mountaineering boots, we’d drive north to stay with the friends he’d climbed with before I was born; rising in darkness, we made our way up the routes my dad had done as a student at the University of Maine or as a teacher in New Hampshire. He would tiptoe on the front points of his crampons, his profile framed by the foul weather of New Hampshire’s notches. I had not thought of him as graceful before. But in that balance—his calves straining, the rope stretching down beneath him—I saw him in a different light.

Sitting on a bunk bed at the base of Mount Washington or driving south in the Sunday darkness to make it back to school on time, I’d flip through the

New England’s ice climbs promised a sheltered kind of mystery for anyone willing to check out the next cluster of birch trees or the fork in a logging road or the tight contour lines on a map.

The idea of spending a lifetime developing the skill and strength to ascend these climbs burrowed into my head early.

I left New England to go to college in Colorado, where the mountains were higher and there was far more climbing. Returning back east after not finding work, I moved into a cheap rental in the White Mountains. Taping a list of routes to the fridge, I figured I’d need a single winter to climb the classic ice lines before I fled back west to chase bigger goals. That was 16 years ago.

If the compact universe of New England ice climbing has a hometown, it is North Conway, and International Mountain Equipment is its epicenter. There, Rick Wilcox, the de facto guru of New England climbing who has owned the store since 1979, holds court. Ice climbing as we know it goes back just a half century—a faded notebook behind the counter at IME still acts as the official record for first ascents in the Mount Washington Valley. Take a walk upstairs and you’ll migrate away from shiny $400 carbon fiber axes for sale and toward a display case holding the boots Rick wore to climb Everest “before it was crowded” and the bamboo ice axes he and his partner used on the first ascent of Repentance, when ice climbing was more garage science than anything else.

guidebook of New England ice climbs. It was loaded with photos and descriptions of routes with mythic names like Valhalla and Ragnarock. I’d stare at climbers tapping their way up impossible-looking tendrils of ice that froze to cliffs only when clouds and cold conspired together long enough; that offered safe passage for a few days or even hours; that had been climbed only a handful of times. New England crags seemed full of climbs like that. They felt different from the big mountains and the huge cliffs of the West. They promised a sheltered kind of mystery for anyone willing to check out the next cluster of birch trees or the fork in a logging road or the tight contour lines on a map.

Until the late ’60s, climbers mostly worked their way up snow and ice only when they needed to, on big alpine faces, almost always carrying just one long ax to chop steps into the ice. The process was exhausting, and the icy parts of a climb were often the most time-consuming and tiring. That all changed in 1969, when a young Californian named Yvon Chouinard (who in a few years would found a small clothing company he called Patagonia) invited a small cadre of northeastern climbers to an “unusual educational experience,” as historians Laura and Guy Waterman put it, in the Adirondacks. There, he demonstrated a radical ice ax, shorter and more aggressive, that could be paired with a second ax to climb in a new way: by facing inward and moving up steep ice previously

thought impassible. Literally overnight, the hundreds of ice formations within view of anyone driving through New Hampshire’s Crawford Notch or past Vermont’s Lake Willoughby became possible to climb, and Rick and a handful of buddies raced to pick the choicest plums. Nowhere else in the United States was there so much ice so close to the road.

Better ice axes and crampons meant a quantum leap in possibility, though the gear was still far from reliable by modern standards. Routes like Remission took all day and equipment often broke (Chouinard’s axes had bamboo handles). But as word got out and the gear improved, North Conway became a destination for thousands of visiting climbers.

To climb here on the same routes that Rick and others worked their way up five decades ago is to take on the “burden of history,” as one older mentor puts it, and each generation strives to add routes thought impossible by the last in order to cement their own reputations. The new climbs are thinner, sickly-looking pencils of ice tucked back in the woods or deemed too difficult by the sport’s pioneers. Every once in a while, a freak storm causes a dribble of ice to freeze in a place no one’s ever seen before. These climbs form rarely, sometimes just once a decade, sometimes just once—period. But the promise of it all has kept me and a host of others in town, kept our axes sharp, our eyes glued to the forecast, hoping for something remarkable to freeze just long enough to climb.

If you stay in town, undergoing the metamorphosis from itinerant climbing bum to full-fledged functioning member of the community, chances are Rick has hired you as a guide or a shop employee, loaned you money for gas, helped you set up a slideshow to pay for your next climbing trip, or replaced the brakes and rotors on your abused climbing jalopy (free of charge, of course). Other climbing stars may have burned as brightly on rock and ice, but no one has galvanized this teeny community like Rick, who still occasionally finds time to get out and do the thing that’s kept him around all these years.

We keep our axes sharp, our eyes glued to the forecast, hoping for something remarkable to freeze just long enough to climb.

As the years passed, I stopped traveling to climb as much, which meant tuning into the nuances of what was happening back home more. Alexa and I married, went back to school, got jobs. We stopped being able to fit everything we owned into the backs of our cars. We stayed in part for the promise of those rare winter climbs, but mostly for the friends who climbed them, and now it’s impossible to think about leaving. Ice climbing—such a fickle thing— remained a constant force in our lives. We’re not alone in this.

Driving back home through Crawford Notch one day last winter, I spotted a familiar mustachioed figure schlepping his climbing pack to the parking lot: Rick Wilcox, heading back from another day on the ice.

On the next pitch of Remission, the delicate climbing draws me in right away. It’s thinner than I’ve ever climbed it before, and each move takes an eon to parse: if the tenuous bond will hold or not, or if my ice ax will just sail through and ping off the rock beneath. The climb spills over a bulge where the steepness eases up and the ice becomes thicker up there. After 20 feet, I twist in an ice screw I know will actually hold.

“That one’s good,” I tell Alexa, and she lets out a sigh of relief. But this is usually the easy bit, and it’s still taking forever to tack my way upward. The pillar looks slimmer and less probable the closer I get to it. I ascend another 30 feet or so, right below the pillar, clip myself into an anchor halfway up the cliff, and put Alexa on belay. I stare up toward the next pitch.

These past few years, it’s been too warm for Remission to grow truly fat;

the melt-and-freeze cycle on which the climb relies is mostly melt these days. The climb has changed with the climate. A dagger of ice dangles in the middle of its upper chimney, a tricky prospect to get around. It’s a new development. A downed tree in a different place, a divergence in a stream, a wedged rock coming loose in a chimney—these things can alter where water flows and how a climb forms.

After I reach the anchor, Alexa climbs up toward me. The woods and the neighborhood settle into a pastoral silence. A barred owl glides into a crook of spruce tree before its mottled brown feathers dissolve into bark, perfectly camouflaged by its stillness. Some climber friends eager to scope out conditions stroll the path below us with their dog, watching for a few minutes

before continuing onward. The woods darken below. The column of ice glows as my world shrinks, framed in the confines of my headlamp beam. The fire dies down in my head, extinguished by the darkness, by reality crashing in.

“What do you want to do?” Alexa asks me. She already knows the answer.

“I think we should bail,” I say, staring up at the pillar.

In the blackness we slide down our rope to the ground and pull it until it slithers into a heap at our feet.

“Maybe we can come back tomorrow before work,” I offer hopefully, but we both know our bodies are spent. We stumble through the woods the few hundred meters to the car, toss our gear into the trunk, and drive home, back to the woodstove, to dinner, back to blanketing ourselves in creature comforts.

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Remission hangs in there for just six more days. Two teams of climbers scratch their way to the top; a few parties try and fail. Then it warms up and the climb falls apart again, parts of the pillar crashing into the woods, parts of the climb simply turning to water and

dripping, drop by drop, down the cliff. Ice climbers call those days when they don’t really climb much “taking the gear for a walk.” Those are my favorite days in New England now: sauntering over to the cliff to see if any new ice has formed, free of any timeline or expectation and ready to be surprised. The burn of cold, of chasing something ephemeral and absurd and a little dangerous with close friends or even loved ones.

Sometimes that’s all it ends up being: a shadow of a climb, a ghost in the woods that’s here one hour and gone the next. It’s hard to tell without going, though. Testing the ice to see if it will hold, retreating when it does not. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes not. Sometimes—on the best days—you start up for the sake of starting up.

The author pushes toward the top in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.

The Name We Carry

(Continued from p. 71)

action, my grandfather almost threw him down those stairs; it’s the most violent thing I have ever heard about him. Those stairs led up to a bustling home of nine children, filled with life and loss.

Nani looks like she’s about to drive my dad somewhere. It’s the day he flew to San Francisco. And then to Saigon. But I know she didn’t drive him. And my grandfather, who took the photo, didn’t either. They refused to escort their second-born son to war. He took the bus to Dudley Square. Then the T to Logan Airport.

Many times, my father has described the moments after this photo was taken. He remembers his father on the other side of the screen door, after their good-byes, saying with tears in his eyes, “Freddie, you know you don’t have to prove anything. You’re already a hero.” Those would be the last words he ever said to my dad.

My grandmother is trying to smile in my dad’s shadow.

Like she’s trying to be proud. Like this is what an American mother does. She loses her loves.

My father enlisted in the army four months after learning his brother was missing in action. After basic training he requested to be sent into combat in Vietnam. The U.S. Army declined his request. So my father slept outside the army offices until they finally agreed.

My father survived his combat tour. He protested the war when he returned to Boston, enrolled in Boston State College. He spent a few years working as a postal carrier, but the monotony was unbearable for this combat veteran. So he took the test for the Boston Police Department. He spent 26 years on the force, retiring in 2009. My father, a natural peacemaker, has led a life surrounded by violent conflict.

I asked him once why it took him so long to get out of the car after coming home from his shift. From the third floor, I could see him under the car’s

interior lights, sitting with focus and stillness. And when he came into the house, he’d walk straight to the corner of the kitchen. Every time. Like he was a deer and his pathway a game trail. He’d rise to his tiptoes and deposit the small duffel bag he carried into the 18-inch nook between ceiling and cabinet. Once, he noticed me stalking him. Erin, I’ll show you later. He said this without turning around. Here. His hands cradled the gun.

He wiped down the far end of the kitchen table, away from piles of mail and homework. Sitting across from me, he slid a tiny key into the handcuffs that were locked through the barrel of the revolver. Sounds of metal releasing; the gun was liberated. My dad raised the barrel and examined its five chambers, his pointer finger and thumb coaxing it around. Always check that each one is empty

He laid the gun down next to my textbooks. I hesitated. I had seen enough. Here, he insisted . It is the only time you will ever hold a gun. I want you to know what it feels like so you never have to imagine it. You won’t hold it again.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and then held them out. My dad handed me the gun.

My dad once choked on a tuna sandwich. Although my mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table with him, we had no idea he was in trouble. He walked away from us so that he could choke. In privacy.

The door to the back porch was open. That was the giveaway.

“Freddie?” Silence.

Then: SLAM! The bones of our home shook. SLAM! It was like a car had hit the side of the house. SLAM! We pushed our chairs back and hustled to the back door.

“Daddy?”

“Uuoooohhhhhh …”—his breath staggered and his hands gripped the banister as he hunched over—“... oooffff … uuuuhhh ....”

He closed his eyes, took a deep inhale, and grimaced. “I’m all right. I had to give myself the Heimlich.”

“What?! You were choking?”

“Why didn’t you let us know you were choking?”

“Do you guys know how to do the Heimlich?” He knew the answer. “That’s why.”

He stood up, rolling his shoulders up and back, trying to get to a vertical posture. “But I may have cracked a rib. Nothin’ you can do about a cracked rib. But I’m telling you, if I had died right there: no pension. If I’m gonna die, it better be in uniform.”

His police sergeant uniform, to be exact. Dying on the job was still an option. It was in his bloodline: His father and great-grandfather both died in the line of duty as Boston fire lieutenants. His brother was killed as a soldier in Vietnam.

If you have a job on the front lines, you absolutely do not die choking at your kitchen table.

And you die in uniform.

In 2001, I went to Boston City Hall to get a copy of my birth certificate. Once I made it to the front of a line, I was handed a handwritten note on pink paper and asked to move into the back of another line a few windows down. I was in my early twenties, living in Cambridge, working as a dance program assistant at Harvard. My father was working as a Boston police sergeant, and I would occasionally bump into him around town.

Standing in line, I noticed parts of uniforms surrounding me: pants of cops, scrubs of nurses, overalls of firefighters. And, for the first time as an adult, I was keenly aware that I was not in uniform in this world that I knew so well. I started thinking about the generations of Gottwalds: my father, my aunt and my uncles, all at their various shifts around Boston.

Behind me, a voice comes from the top of a pair of police slacks.

“Did I hear them say ‘Gottwald’?” He nodded at the plexiglass windows at the front of the line.

“Yeah. Yep.”

“Are you a Gottwald?”

“Yes.”

“Are you related to George Gottwald?”

“He was my grandfather.”

“So, whose daughter are you?” “Freddie. My dad is Freddie. I’m Erin.”

“Your dad’s a good man, Erin. You come from a great family.”

When I finally had my birth certificate in hand, the off-duty police officer and I said our good-byes. I don’t remember his name. Back then, I had no idea how unusual this occur-

had climbed one of them and was threatening to jump to his death. The temperature was well below freezing with wind whipping off Boston Harbor. My grandfather was one of the lieutenants on duty. The fire trucks’ ladders did not reach the top of the 150-foot-tall tank, so he and three other firefighters climbed up the icy iron staircase that wound around the

en George Jr. le for Vietnam, he le his ’55 Chevy parked next to my grandparents’ home in Roslindale. My grandfather was seen driving it around town, sometimes with the windows rolled down, visibly crying as he waited at stoplights.

rence would be. If this interaction happened now, during my middle age, I would remember. If a stranger in line turned to me and was curious enough to ask about my family name, I would want to know about his family, too.

One of the quintessential landmarks of Boston is the massive LNG storage tank that stands proud in its rainbow swash of colors on the Dorchester waterfront. In 1970 there were two tanks side by side, one new and one old. In 1971, artist Corita Kent, an anti-war activist and former nun, was commissioned to paint the rainbow design on the newly erected tank.

But in 1970, two unpainted tanks stood at Commercial Point in Dorchester.

At 1:24 a.m. on January 27, 1970, the Boston Fire Department responded to an emergency at the Dorchester tanks: A young veteran who had just returned from Vietnam

wide cylinder. My grandfather and fellow lieutenant Robert Foley had both lost sons in the Vietnam War, and they sat with this distraught 22-year-old. Ultimately, the young man was carried down and everyone made it back to safety.

As I read the article about this heroic rescue in The Boston Globe , I know things that don’t appear in print. I stare at my grandfather’s smiling face in the photo and understand that it is a rare happy moment in the two years since his eldest son’s death. When George Jr. left for Vietnam, he was in the middle of restoring a ’55 Chevy and left it parked next to my grandparents’ home in Roslindale. My grandfather was seen driving this car around town, sometimes with the windows rolled down, visibly crying as he waited at stoplights. George Jr. had died on a battlefield on top of the medic he was trying to save; his body wouldn’t be recovered for several days, until it was safe. Also not included in

print: Fire Lieutenant Gottwald’s second son was in Vietnam. It was freezing in Boston early that Tuesday. But it was 1 o’clock in the afternoon in Vietnam, and my dad was in combat. Sweltering. And I know that five weeks later, on March 3, my grandfather will die from smoke inhalation fighting a fire.

I’m 11 years old. No streetlights. A dirt road. Packed like sardines in a Dodge Caravan. It’s 1988 and we’re on our final stretch toward our family’s summer getaway at a trailer park in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. My father is driving. It is late. The youngest of his children are asleep but the oldest three are awake.

My father slows down the car. We can feel the tires ride the pockmarked road. The sound of pebbles crunching under our weight becomes background noise. He rolls down his window and turns off the air conditioner and the radio. He says, Listen. And we do. He tells us to listen to the sounds of the outside. The wind he says. The leaves he says. The animals he says. We try to hear it all. He tells us to look through the dense woods. He tells us to looks up at the stars. We try. And then he turns off the headlights.

Our eyes adjust to the dark. We put our noses against the windows of the Caravan, those windows that don’t roll down. We can see the outline of trees. We point at the shadows of trees against the night sky. He tells us to look straight ahead. In front of the moving car. Where he is looking. We can’t see anything.

My mom says, Please be careful, Freddie.

Yep, he says.

Imagine being in the jungle like this , he tells us. Imagine the silence. Listen. Can you hear an animal stepping on branches? The crackle? Do you know how many animals are watching us drive down this road? They know we are here. You just can’t see them.

But imagine if someone lit a cigarette way out there in front of us, he says. If a cigarette were lit a mile away, you’d be

(Continued on p. 108)

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able to see it. You might not be able to see your hand if you held it in front of your own face, but if you lit a cigarette an animal could see you from a mile away.

None of us breathe for several seconds. He doesn’t tell us that there were human beings in the jungle darkness—other people who were waiting. In New Hampshire, on this summer night, it is only about the animals.

Freddie, turn the lights back on , my mom says. And he does.

We all sit quietly and stare out into the beam of the headlights. We begin to see what he sees.

On March 4, 1970, a military helicopter landed yards from my father’s platoon in a rice paddy in Vietnam. A soldier got out and spoke to the captain. Then the captain approached my father and with one hand on his hip, patted my father’s shoulder with the other. (Over the course of my life, my dad has demonstrated this physical interaction a few times, and it’s always the pat on the shoulder that gets me.)

“Freddie,” the captain said, “ you’re going home. Your papi died.”

My father turned to look him in the eye. “You know, that ain’t funny. Don’t joke like that.”

“I’m not joking. Your papi died. You’re going home. Right now.”

My dad climbed aboard the helicopter in his fatigues. He flew from Saigon to San Francisco in the jump seat. He had no money, no belongings, had not showered, was still caked in dirt and blood from the battlefield. The plane was filled with joyous soldiers who had survived their tours and were celebrating with songs and toasts and laughter. My dad remembers hearing the clinking of beer bottles as he stared out the window. His gaze alternated between the splotches of blood on his uniform and the pale shades of sky outside.

He took a second plane to Boston, and on the sidewalk outside Logan Airport a stranger approached my father, concerned about the despondent, unkempt soldier before him. My

father told him an abbreviated version of his journey back home. The stranger told another passerby that my father was the son of “that Boston fire lieutenant in the news.” He whistled for a taxi and told the driver: “Take this soldier anywhere he needs to go.”

My father was supposed to go to his family home in Roslindale, where a suit hanging in the hallway

surprised that the ground had thawed into mud. With my feet sunk into the messy earth, I look over at the church, remembering a story about my grandmother at my Uncle George’s funeral mass there. When the priest offered up the unbroken eucharist, she believed it was on fire. In the depths of her grief, sitting next to her husband, she saw flames. Fiery flames.

Our name has always de ned us as part of a working-class Boston family. Like the moon was once part of Earth, we remain Gottwalds because it is our family of origin. Our clan that has a gravitational pull.

was waiting for him. Instead, he went directly to the funeral home. There he appeared like an apparition in the threshold of the main entrance, in the middle of visiting hours. The room’s somber murmur went silent. Among those who kept their eyes on my father were his mother, his seven younger siblings, and a massive crowd of firefighters. Everyone else looked away.

He stared at his father’s body in the open casket but was unable to enter the room. Until my father appeared in the doorway, my grandmother couldn’t walk unassisted after her husband’s death—her grief too deep and pain too raw. When she saw him, she floated out of her chair and approached her son as though he offered life support. She guided him across the room while onlookers covered their mouths and averted their eyes.

On Halloween 1970, the traffic circle across from Holy Name Church in West Roxbury was dedicated and named Lt. George J. Gottwald Circle.

I walk that landscaped traffic circle on a warm, sunny day one January,

On May 16, 2022, a stranger phones my Uncle Eddie, a Boston fire lieutenant, to say he recently purchased an old Boston Fire Department helmet from the Savers secondhand store near Dedham, Massachusetts. “Gottwald” is painted in red under the rear brim. On the front in large yellow block numbers is “22”: BFD Engine 22. This is my grandfather’s helmet from the 1960s. While at Engine 22, he was placed on the BFD’s Roll of Merit, with the citation reading:

For great personal risk involved in the performance of his duty at Box 1541; a fire in an apartment building at 6 Dartmouth Street, South End, on June 21, 1963, crawled through a long hallway and room involved in fire to a rear bedroom and removed a child he found in an unconscious condition. Firefighter Gottwald performed this rescue under most difficult conditions before ventilation of building or hose lines were in position. He is hereby placed on the Roll of Merit.

The day he crawled to that unconscious child, he was a father of nine—

the youngest 2, the oldest 15. He returned home to them that day.

The stranger drives the helmet to Uncle Eddie’s home. A piece of my grandfather returns to our family.

My 8-year-old daughter asks me why my last name is different from hers. She is perplexed. I tell her I was born a Gottwald. I tell her I have my daddy’s last name just like she has her daddy’s last name.

She squints her eyes at me as she absorbs this information.

My two married sisters also are Gottwalds. Our name has always defined us as part of a workingclass Boston family. Like the moon was once part of Earth, we remain Gottwalds because it is our family of origin. Our clan that has a gravitational pull.

I wonder if people read the names on the signs at traffic circles and corner squares. Are they curious about these George Gottwalds? I want to tell them about what our family has

sacrificed. I want to tell them about the Boston Gottwalds who gave their lives to save others.

I once volunteered for my daughter’s school field trip to FDNY’s Engine Company 226 in Brooklyn, where we now live. I had never been to a fire station where I was anonymous. I thought it would be a chance to plant the seeds of family history in my daughter. But instead of watching the kids burst with glee as they saw one of the firefighters slide down the shining silver pole, I lost myself in the glass cases at the back of the station.

Behind the windows were memorials to four of the fallen: turnout jackets printed with the names Wallace, DeRubbio, McAleese, and Smagala, alongside pictures of spouses, children, and grandchildren they never knew.

I confided in the lieutenant, saying, “My grandfather was killed in the line of duty in Boston. These memorials are beaut—” And I choked on the last syllables as I looked at him.

As I’m sure he had done dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times before, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m sorry for your family’s loss.” It was the first time a stranger had acknowledged the indirect yet profound loss I had always felt. The sort of loss that ripples down a family line. The FDNY lieutenant caught me off guard. The rest of what I wanted to say was lost to the lump in my throat. What I wanted to say was that when my grandfather died on Washington Street in Boston, he saved his son’s life in Vietnam. My father was plucked out of combat and returned home on March 4, 1970. And my father’s mantra on his journey from Saigon to Boston was march forth : “March 4th. I will march forth. That’s how I will get through this. I will march forth.”

So he did. So I am here.

My grandfather died six years before I was born.

My father marched forth. And fire gave me life.

A Place That Changes Lives

(Continued from p. 89)

their own book launch and reading in September.

Marx sits beside Josie to discuss a problem her reader has flagged. Josie has written more than 30 poems, and while many address different people— her mother, her siblings, her friends— she uses “you” for nearly all. It’s a problem she needs to solve, and time is not her friend. “I want it to be perfect,” she says softly.

Outside in the big loft space, students in the Young Writers & Leaders program have gathered. Before joining them, I meet with Sonya Tomlinson, who has been with The Telling Room from the early days. On her bulletin board she has pinned group photos of every young person she has taught: 437 in all, from 57 countries. She talks about them as if they were family, and she admits she feels protective of these students, who—because she and coteacher Hipai Pamba are very good at what they do—open up their lives to each other.

When I mention the challenges today of being an immigrant, Tomlinson stops me. “We do not use the word immigrant We do not use the word refugee ,” she says. “Our students told us they don’t want to be identified by those words. They don’t want people to feel pity for their hardships. We say our students are multilingual, multicultural. And for some that’s not their story. It’s their parents’ story.”

And because of that, she is sensitive to the fact that “students may reveal something to their family that they haven’t been able to express. And what they write lives forever. Your grandchild is going to pick this up and see who you were in 10th grade. So we talk about that.”

Tomlinson shows me a poem by a Muslim girl who no longer wants to wear the hijab. She feels that her mother is proud of her only when she dresses religiously, “and she doesn’t want to anymore,” Tomlinson says. “I told her, ‘I need to know you feel OK publishing this. Because your mom will

read it.’ Her mother came to her reading, and afterward she found me to say thank you.”

At around 4, the students sit down in a circle with Tomlinson and Pamba. They read a snippet from the session’s writing prompt—where they find calm, or whether they’ve had a dream—and then they talk about what lies ahead. On this day, they are only a few weeks away from the program’s end. At a reading at the Portland Museum of Art later this month, they will see the new book Outbeam the Sun their book for the first time. “ It doesn’t set in that they’re published authors until the book is in their hands,” Pamba, a former Telling Room student herself, tells me. “You look through and find your story and see your photo.”

In the circle, a number of the students admit they are nervous because soon they will stand on the museum’s auditorium stage and they will read. And for the first time, their family will hear their stories.

Pamba understands the nerves, but offers this advice: “When you finish reading, take a moment at the end and listen to the applause. Feel the awe.”

On this day, I keep hearing how The Telling Room believes in these students. That the teachers don’t tell them they’ll be a writer one day, but that they are right now.

“Without writing, I wouldn’t know what would be on my mind every day, what would give me the joy in my life.... Writing is my way of creating life.” —Sunila DeLoacth, writing at The Telling Room in 2024

Later that month, I return to Maine for the book launch and reading. The young writers’ photos are displayed on a big screen on the stage as one by one, they walk to the podium.

Here is Nevaeh Lynn-Rose Patt. She is 16. We hear about her childhood in the state of Washington

where her mother often left her and her little brother on their own while she chased her next fix. Now she is with a new family she loves in Maine. But “I don’t want to forget that feeling of abandonment and loneliness. The person I am now was created by the person I was before.”

Here is Noemia Nzolameso, who tells about trying to fit in with white classmates and realizing she needs to be true to herself. Here is Faisal Azeez, his voice crisp and confident, telling about the growing distance he felt during the pandemic from the brother he loves.

Here is Angelique Kabisa, as composed as if she has done this all her life, reading about how she needs to be a success in life in order to honor the sacrifice her parents made to bring her here to have a chance at a better life.

And here is Cristina Zalabantu. She is 17 and came to Portland from Angola when she was 5. “As the Stars Watch” is a memory of a home she has never forgotten, the first story she has put out into the world: If welcome were a home, it would be our house. I remember not being able to fall asleep most of the time. The three of us slept in the kitchen. There was a little window where I could see the bright stars watching me as they reflected into the room. I loved watching the stars…

When everyone has read and the audience has stood and clapped, the young men and women take it all in from the stage as if in a theater—and in a way, they are. This is their moment in the spotlight. As I watch them in the hallway afterward clutching their books, I think about how every young person I have spoken with has told me how The Telling Room has changed their lives.

But I think about how for all these years, so many people reading and listening to them have also been changed. Because what the founders of The Telling Room always knew is something Paterniti once wrote years ago to Aruna Kenyi: You speak—and we listen, as if it happened to us.

To learn more about The Telling Room’s programs, events, and published works, go to tellingroom.org

Life in the Kingdom

(Continued from p. 112)

At 5, I find Kyle at the end of Norway Road. I climb into his truck and we travel the remaining roads together, stopping every so often to chat with whomever we meet coming the other way, all men, all in pickups, all wearing baseball caps, all greeting us with a smile and a rueful shake of the head, because while there’s nothing funny about any of it—not a damn thing—there is a certain dark comedy at play. I mean, seriously: a year to the day of the previous flood, our little town left hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from that storm, with the long-promised FEMA relief still dangling like a carrot at the end of the longest, twistiest damn stick you’ve ever seen? Are you kidding me?

As it happens, you are not.

Kyle and I park at the bottom of the mountain and walk that remaining narrow strip in silence, each of us in our own way reckoning with the hard truth of the hard circumstances that we suddenly find ourselves beholden to. His reckoning, I’m almost certain, involves a mental checklist: Who is available to start hauling material, who has an excavator available, which gravel pit to haul from? Mine leans financial: How much can this possibly cost, how will we afford it, and what are we going to do if this just keeps happening, year after year after year?

And I don’t know what gets me thinking about this, though maybe it’s just the vulnerability of the moment, the sense of being at the mercy of forces beyond my control—natural forces, bureaucratic forces, forces I cannot name and perhaps are not even nameable in any language I know— but as I walk, my thoughts turn from the matter at hand and I am thrust back in time to the moment exactly one week earlier, when I’d left my son Rye standing in the middle of the vast Montana valley where he now lives, on the vast Montana ranch where he now works, after a too-short visit that had seemed shorter still.

We walk in silence, each of us in our own way reckoning with the hard truth of the hard circumstances that we suddenly find ourselves beholden to.

So even as I continue following Kyle up the Mountain Road in the misty half-light, stopping at intervals to peer over the edge into the deep mud-and-gravel channel where the road used to be, even faced with such stark and strangely beautiful devastation, I’m still back in Montana, now making the three-hour drive to the airport, where I’ll soon fly 2,500 miles in a direction pointing away from my 19-year-old son, feeling as if I might literally not survive. As if

my love for him could break me into pieces too small, too numerous, too complicated and messy to ever be put back together into anything resembling their original whole.

And even though I think this might actually come to pass—indeed, I am nearly convinced that I am about to become the first parent to actually die from loving their child—and even though many times I think to turn back, I also know that I won’t, that his life and mine have diverged in the ways they were always meant to. Which is not to say that we are not still connected, or that our lives won’t intersect again, because surely they will. But it is to acknowledge that he himself has become like the rain that swept through my window in the night, like the water that has once again wreaked havoc on my community: a force beyond my control.

So instead of turning back, I keep driving under that ceaseless sky, putting mile after mile after mile between myself and my son. Waiting to see if maybe—just maybe—I’ll survive.

Force of Nature

What you can’t control, you have to survive.

ILLUSTRATION BY TOM HAUGOMAT

xactly a year to the day since the great July flood of 2023, the rain rushes in again, hammering my roof for hours in the night. It pulls me from a deep, dreamless sleep, slanting sideways through the open window at the head of my bed, the cool drops freckling my face until I rouse myself enough to lower the sash. I lie there listening to its unrelenting roar, willing the already-saturated ground to absorb it all, willing the stream that runs along the Mountain Road to contain it, willing the culverts to remain clear of debris. Willing it to just stop.

At precisely 4 a.m. my phone rings, waking me again, and I know immediately that it has to be bad. Because who calls at precisely 4 a.m. when it’s good? No one, that’s who.

Indeed, it is bad. The bridge above the Riches’ is gone (again), the bridge at the bottom of the Mountain Road is gone, Silver Road is reduced to a single lane (again), the lower section of Gonyaw Road is unpassable (again), and the Mountain Road from just past the old Giles place and upward is at least half gone—all that remains is a narrow strip along its southern shoulder, unnavigable by car or even truck.

I drive what remains of the dangerous, diminished roads to the town garage, where I grab every Road Closed sign I can find and stuff them in the back of my car, then head back into the murky, liminal light separating night from day, windshield wipers slapping, window open to the thick air, rain slanting through the opening onto my arm, into my lap, freckling my face again. I don’t even try to stop it. There seems no point to it; the damage is already done. The water has already won.

(Continued on p. 111)

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Yankee Magazine January/February 2025

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EDITORIAL

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YANKEE PUBLISHING INC.

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Loving the Single Life

Fair Winds and Following Seas Blue Sapphire Ring

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Oh-SoWoolly Wear

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FOR THE COOKIES

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FENNEL, BLOOD ORANGE & PISTACHIO SALAD

Soup’s On

THE ART of RETIREMENT Make the Move to a Retirement Community

INSPIRED Retirement Living

AT HOME IN CAMDEN

Woodstock, VT

IN & AROUND WOODSTOCK

EAT & DRINK

STAY

PLAY

Bonbon Appétit

CONNECTICUT

the great indoors

Exploring a Witch City Spellbinder

Looking Beyond Seascapes and into the Future

Big-League Art Meets Ivy League Vibes

Masterworks in the Mountains

At Home with Art History

COLD

RUSH

the name we carry

ACADIA IN

WINTER

Jacob Knowles

changes that place a lives

YOUNG PEOPLE DISCOVER THE POWER OF THEIR STORIES.

MEL ALLEN AT THE TELLING ROOM IN PORTLAND, MAINE,

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