Isle La Motte and Samuel de Champlain

You are on Isle La Motte, one of the northernmost islands in Lake Champlain, and one of the oldest European-touched places in what would become the United States.

Samuel de Champlain himself stopped here in July of sixteen hundred and nine, describing the island as three leagues long and noting that he hunted and camped on its shores. Champlain was on his way south toward the lake that would carry his name, where days later he would witness and participate in a battle between his Huron allies and the Iroquois, firing his arquebus and changing the course of northeastern history. French soldiers arrived on Isle La Motte in sixteen sixty-six and built Fort Saint Ann on the western shore. That fort is long gone, but a shrine to Saint Ann stands near the same ground today, drawing pilgrims to one of the quietest corners of Vermont.