“The term ‘Great Lakes’ includes Lake Champlain.”
These seven words, quietly slipped into an appropriations bill by Vermont’s U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy in 1998, briefly elevated the national status of a picturesque but little-known body of water that nestles between New York and Vermont. A short-lived, but surprisingly fierce, regional dispute ensued about the essential question: What makes a lake great?
Lake Champlain provides one way to answer that question.
The lake forms part of the border between Vermont and New York, and extends northward into Quebec. It stretches for over 100 miles …