(leaves rustling) (peaceful music) - [Angela] It begins as a whisper in a lonely place, high up among the bracken and the sedges.

Unnoticed.

Trivial.

A river swells with rainfall, shrinks with drought, may slack into a stingy trickle or strengthen to a torrent.

Its voice is never jabber, only song.

A river may appear impressionable, foolish, easily led, and yet if turned aside, will in the end come round to its intended course.

It cannot be contained by fences, ditches, levees, dams.

Leaves everything it has ever owned behind it in the past.

It runs its own way home.

(melancholic music) (bright music) - Everyone's got a life jacket and everyone's got a paddle.

Everyone's got their car keys.

We're getting rain tonight but unfortunately right now, the water level's quite low so there will be exposed rocks.

There will probably be a few hidden rocks.

And there will be some gravel bars.

There will be spots where we all just get stuck.

Sorry.

Intro to the Upper Missisquoi.

(bright music) - In the 1960s, people started recognizing that dams have a big impact on our rivers and the way that they flow.

And so there was a big push to protect a lot of our rivers, especially out west.

The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act was started by the federal government.

- If a river is recognized as Wild and Scenic, it receives funds from the federal government to help in protecting and preserving.

- So a Wild and Scenic river means you can't build within the river, there can't be a dam in the river, and generally it's a protected area.

Rivers are meant to be wild and the protection through the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act really make sure that we can protect our rivers the way that they're meant to be and help mitigate some of the negative impacts that we have generally environmentally.

- It provides a level of protection that encourages people to utilize the river in responsible ways.

A lot of that is to do with connecting people to rivers.

We came up with the idea of providing day paddles to do that.

- We're celebrating 10 years of designation by paddling all 46.1 miles.

We're splitting it up into seven days.

- On achievable river miles, we're gonna fully support it.

We can provide the boats for people and the knowledgeable guides so everyone feels safe and we'll get people out on the river and hopefully that will help amplify the awesomeness that are rivers.

- Okay, you guys ready?

Whee.

- At five years we did a sojourn paddle sections of our designated river and just basically have fun on the river.

And this year makes 10 years, so we're ready for another one.

(bright music) - We are celebrating all the work that led to getting (indistinct) of our river designated Wild and Scenic, getting recognition on a national scale.

And it serves as an opportunity to make sure that people know that we have this awesome feature.

(bright music continues) Getting out and moving at the speed of the river is a different kind of connection and it really worked for me and I think it can work for other people to go, "This is important, this is something I wanna experience.

This is something that I wanna preserve."

- [Sarah] The Upper Missisquoi starts in a pretty rural area of Vermont that's known for being farmlands.

(bright music) - But down here, this stretch of the river, is about as natural as it can get.

It's just a great place to paddle.

If it's been dry for a long time, it's, (chuckles) oh well, you do a little more gravel bar hopping and.

- Upper Missisquoi in all it's glory.

Really nice to be on the water with people that are enjoying themselves.

You know, I always am a little nervous, especially when the water's low.

It's like, you know, you're kind of walking your boats but everybody's super happy and got a great attitude and that makes me feel like these are my people.

We're gonna have a great time.

- This is definitely the lowest water levels we'll have, hopefully for the whole trip.

The Upper Missisquoi is pretty notorious for having low levels.

It's a Vermont river, you know, you're here to experience Vermont.

(bright music) - [John] We got a gem, we got a great little spot.

(bright music continues) - Even after 10 years, some people don't know it exists, so I think it's great to get the word out and let people know what's available to them because of this designation and because of the National Park Service.

(bright music continues) - As the designation of Wild and Scenic indicates, it is a stretch of running river that is unspoiled.

(bright music) - Day two we will get to explore what's probably the most wild section of our river, the more extreme paddling that we have.

(bright music continues) It's only about a four mile section, but some of the most remote chunk of the Missisquoi.

(bright music continues) You do have high water.

Thankfully it was at 88 CFS where I looked last night and now it's somewhere around 500 probably.

So that's great.

(bright music continues) With this high water, we're gonna be scouting everything.

- Such a stunning gorge.

The water's pretty hot.

(bright music continues) - Doing great.

It's nice to be out in the whitewater.

- [Paddler] Amazing, in Vermont, in the summer.

- I paddle an open canoe so it means that I'm ending it portage and drag.

There's no trails or anything so it was pure (chuckles) bush whacking.

(bright music continues) It's like being in the wildest canyon.

- It kind of has like an uncut feel when you're going through it.

And it's exactly why we're here.

(bright music continues) (water lapping) (bright music) - Every drop of water connects us to a river, connects us to a lake.

Anything I can do to get people to realize that this river is ours, whether or not we own the land on either side of it.

We are participating in keeping it clean, keeping it healthy.

The more I can get people to care about it, the more I can encourage them to think about it as a very public resource, the better we're gonna be.

- I know.

It's so fun.

- My husband and I used to go on long canoe trips every summer in Northern Quebec and Labrador.

Ad every time I came back, in the local newspaper, I saw an ad for meetings to help clean up the river.

And it was a group called Missisquoi River Basin Association.

Then I started going to meetings, and that was probably about 25 years ago.

Probably about five years after that, I went to a river rally, which is a national conference about rivers.

And one workshop I was in, I met people who worked for the National Park Service and they were telling me about this amazing program and that we could get federal dollars to help clean up the river.

It just all seemed too good to be true.

Oh, the thing that got me too, they said New Jersey has three Wild and Scenic rivers and Vermont doesn't have any.

And I said, "That is not right."

(chuckles) (paddlers chattering) - My name is Lindsey.

I'm the director of the Upper Missisquoi and Trout Rivers Wild and Scenic Committee.

I'm super excited to have you guys join us.

This is day three of seven days where we're exploring all 46 miles of our Wild and Scenic river.

- From the gorges, we'll do a stretch from Big Falls, which is the tallest natural falls in Vermont, we'll paddle from below Big Falls to the Canadian border.

- I'll be honest, I've never been on this stretch of the river.

- This is my first time going out for a paddle with these guys.

I'm looking forward to it.

The water's nice and high.

Think it'll be a good day.

(bright music) - We've got some current today.

(bright music continues) - I'm Myra, I came out here because I like kayaking and I wanted to try canoeing.

It was really pretty.

I liked when the trees like drooped over the water.

(bright music continues) - Where we took the boats out, luckily there's a landowner who graciously lets us take the boats out there.

So with everyone working together, it wasn't that difficult to get everybody out of the river.

- We'll walk up this guy's driveway.

You're crossing a major roadway, so please look both ways.

(bright music continues) We'll carry the boats over a railroad and around the dam there is a a trail.

(bright music continues) - [John] Come on, you booger.

- You really feel alive after this trail because there's a lot of mud, there's logs.

It's a little bit slippery.

Good stuff.

- Okay, that was an adventure all in itself.

- Then we floated about a mile and a half towards the Canadian border and it was my first time on that section and it was just, it felt a little magical.

It was like hanging trees and very forested, and 'cause we got rain, pretty swift moving.

Didn't take us very long but it was a really nice float with good people.

(bright music) - In 2004, we started to work towards getting designation for Wild and Scenic and then it took a whole nother 10 years before we actually got designated, which takes an act of Congress to make that happen.

- Some people were very wary.

People who said like, "We don't want the government involved.

We're afraid they're gonna restrict what we can do."

It took getting people in each of the towns to agree to start working on it.

I give John Little a lot of credit.

He really worked hard with all those people in all those towns.

It was a lot of work and it took congressional approval to get the designation.

- And we were on page, somewhere around page 1,400 and something out of a 1,600 page bill and it was like, you know, two paragraphs.

But that's changed everything.

(bright music) - So guys, welcome to day four.

We're starting the trek.

- This is the site of what's called Stevens Mills and it was some kind of a furniture mill, I believe.

At this site, this rapid is always here because both of the brooks that come in bring down boulders from the mountains right here.

It keeps replenishing the level of the riverbed, bringing it up.

So you got a rapid that goes down.

Pretty cool.

- At 500 CFS, it's a straightforward run.

It looks like it's still straightforward but it is big water and it does get churny.

But again, if you're feeling at all uncertain, there's enough of us here, we will get your boats down without you having to run it.

(bright music) Most of our Wild and Scenic rivers are out west where there are large tracks of federal land, so it's just an added protection.

In the east we don't have those large tracks.

We have a lot of private lands.

And so they needed to come up with a new model.

And the way they did that is through the partnership Wild and Scenic Rivers, which means control of land is retained by the landowner.

We partner with the National Park Service to make sure that we're maintaining our rivers in good fashion, but the control of the river stays local.

All of our federal financial support is overseen by local folks who have our local river's best interest in mind.

- It was looking pretty dry last week and after a couple days, maybe another two inches of rain, the water's running high, it's running fast.

I'm not a super-experienced paddler and can run the rapids up here and it's a pretty great spot to learn.

(bright music continues) - [Lindsey] It's moving fast.

- Moving right along.

Read it and run it.

- Yeah.

- In 2014, we actually received federal designation.

With that came federal financial support, so that enabled the committee to say it's time to hire someone to oversee the work that we've been doing, and they flew the position and I'm very lucky to have gotten it.

It was a really awesome time to join in this work.

I joined an organization and we just started hitting wind.

There's a ton of work that came into getting the designation and now the work is getting people to realize that this river's really special.

It's special on a national scale, but it should definitely be special on a local community scale as well.

- I couldn't believe we had a section of the National Wild and Scenic River right in my backyard, basically.

- Just doing a little check in.

Fadbury Maple Candy from Coochers.

(indistinct crosstalk) - I want one.

- Nobody wants an unclean river, but this brings in some extra money where we can actually take some action in a place that doesn't necessarily have a lot to spare.

(bright music) - That designation is here forever.

It's always gonna be an asset to our communities.

It's always going to be something that our communities can say, "We are part of the Wild and Scenic River.

We are part of the Upper Missisquoi and Trout and that means that we have this amazing resource flowing through our municipalities."

(peaceful music) So the bridge is just down here a little ways.

We can walk through Weatherbys, the gas station here, and get to the bridge and check it out.

Folks that want to run it can make that determination there and then come back here and launch and do the run.

- [Paddler] When we were up on the bridge, we looked at the rapid.

And from a distance it didn't look that big at all.

- I haven't done this section before so I would like to check it off my list.

- As long as you're willing to like potentially get swamped.

- Yeah.

- Then we went down right next to the rapid and looked much bigger and very exciting and then we changed our ideas about where we were gonna run it.

(bright music) - Yeah, the red line, I don't think (indistinct), we'll it's pretty straightforward.

- Yeah.

- Flows very quickly.

- We're not gonna flip.

I hope.

(laughs) - We're just gonna bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk and it'll be done.

Hopefully we'll be upright.

(bright music continues) - Slow down.

Okay.

Paddle, paddle, paddle.

We're upright.

(laughs) - It looks scarier than it is.

You know, once you're in it you can kind of like coast and choose your lines, but yeah, that was something.

(bright music continues) - So I'm Stewart, this is my wife Constance.

This is our first time canoeing.

- Mm-hmm.

- So, yeah.

- Coming down the river, you're completely surrounded in it and like the road is there but you don't even- - You don't even notice it.

- Like it's not part of your worldview at the moment, I guess.

- [Stewart] You definitely see like a different part of the river when you're down there, so, you know, I've never seen like the view from where we canoeing.

- When you're on the road, you can see the river from the road, but you don't realize how wild it feels when you're on it.

And there's something beautiful about paddling where you're never entirely in control.

You kinda gotta feel the water, see where it takes you, and hope you can guide yourself as necessary.

(peaceful music) (birds chirping) - You're in a river, you're slowed down, you don't have to worry about too much else.

(peaceful music continues) - I always say, you know, the view from the water is one of the most magical views that you can get.

So many people spend their time trying to climb to the top of mountains, and I kind of like to go to the bottom and look up and see how majestic the mountains are or how kind of long those valley view are from the river.

(bright music) - You know, there's just something peaceful and quiet about it.

You know, you're away from the traffic, you're away from people.

You can just kind of, you know, sit back, enjoy the scenery, think about life, you know, and appreciate where you are.

- Canoeing is a very community-based sport, like you have to collaborate with who you're paddling with.

It's dangerous, so like you have to prepare for those moments when you flip over and trust the people that you're with.

- Okay, rock.

(bubbles burbling) Pretty good.

- Hey, I've got the boat and I can walk the boat down here if you wanna get in below the ledge.

- That's great.

- Okay.

- Thank you, sir.

Hop out.

Stepping in, well I'm not noticing the rain anymore.

- We're going into that and I was like, "We should go right."

And Lindsey was like, "I think left's better."

- I'm gonna try that.

(laughs) - It's day six, it's our final day on the Missisquoi part of our designated river.

Doing about six smiles.

It's mostly gonna be flat water.

It's a pretty easy stretch.

(bright music) We'll make some curves and then we'll approach 105 again.

So when you start seeing the road, know that we're coming up on the one rapid section, the Sampson Bill Dam remnants.

(peaceful music continues) We'll scout it.

There's a Portage Trail river left.

(peaceful music continues) - Kathy and I were like, "We could do that."

- Yeah.

- Or we can up shore.

I think I'm an up shore.

- Yeah.

(Lindsey laughs) - [Lindsey] I don't feel like getting wet again today.

- [Paddler] You know, we'll come on down.

- [Paddler] So we'll hit that center line- - Yeah- - And kinda- - Come on down the center line.

You wanna hit it just right to that four over.

- Yeah.

(indistinct chatter) (peaceful music) (paddlers cheering) (peaceful music continues) - I can get through some way or another.

Hopefully upright.

(bright music) - Beautiful.

(bright music continues) - So one of the most important aspects of this designation is that there's reliable money that comes in, and so many nonprofits spend probably half of their time trying to get money to pay their staff, to fund the projects.

And in this case, that's not an issue.

So it opens up a lot of staff time and staff expertise to implement projects that otherwise might not happen.

(peaceful music) - Here we are, the Burnwood Trail.

So this is managed and maintained by the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, up these steps that come in and out every winter, usually by Sarah and I. There's a picnic table, there's a privy, there's also the loaner boats.

The Hinesburg Recreation Committee applied for grant funding through the UMATR Committee and we provided them a grant to purchase these canoes and kayaks locally through The Great Outdoors, the outdoor shop in town here.

But you check in at the Flying Disc, which is an awesome coffee shop here in town, and they'll give you a paddle, a life jacket.

So it's a really awesome community asset and we really love that folks are using this space and using our funds to get on the river.

(bright music) Here's why we do what we do, 'cause we can have successes like this.

(bright music continues) - [Wendy] Wild and Scenic designations can't go past the dam and there's a dam in Hinesburg.

(bright music continues) - Thanks for joining us for this paddle on the Trout River.

We're starting in Riverwalk Park in Montgomery.

- [Paddler] This river is much smaller than the Missisquoi, What we paddled before, it's shallower.

- Today the Trout is kind of our backyard river living in Montgomery, and you know, we've done that quite a few times.

But with this group of people and this celebration made it very special.

- I really like this Trout River the best because you have to pay attention.

It's a little bit technical, weaving, and after all week long it's just a really nice finish, you know, on the Trout.

- The river moves quick so you don't have to work as hard and that's part of the fun of it as well.

(bright music) I think overall it was very successful.

We had over 100 people join us, which is way more than we had five years ago.

There's such a barrier for people to get out there just in general of just having the right equipment or just having a paddle partner to go with.

And through this trip, like I've had people reach out to me and make connections from people that they paddled with on the trip.

And it definitely like formed our own community on the water as we're going through it and I think that will spread now that we're off the water.

- Thank you so much.

You guys did awesome.

- Congratulations.

You guys, what a job.

Had a great time.

- [Paddler] Good.

- [Paddler] Thank you.

- Truth is, we did a sojourn year five.

I think it's become a tradition that every five years we're gonna run a sojourn.

And we'll see if I'm around for the next one.

But it's fun to get out on the river and sometimes we need an excuse.

(bright music) (indistinct crosstalk) - Projects don't happen without community support.

(traffic humming) (peaceful music) We don't just walk in and plant trees on someone's property.

It takes years to get that person involved.

(peaceful music continues) Like the rain garden that we built today.

A project like that would not happen without community support.

- So this is a historically wet spot at the end of the parking lot here.

You know, we thought a rain garden would be the most well suited.

- The main thing that UMATR does, obviously, is protect our rivers.

So this project is going to filter out the stormwater of this parking lot before it reaches the Trout River.

So in turn it will keep our Trout River cleaner.

- We also chose local species that are good for pollinators so it can serve a dual purpose.

- [John] Wild and Scenic, it's just a great program, provides money to do stuff.

(bright music) - The way to protect a natural resource has to be a collaboration.

And I love collaborations.

I think if we all come together, we can do great things.

I get to be on the banks of one of those great things.

(bright music continues) (bright music fades out) (bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)