PART FOUR (5 May 2015): ECHO
LEAHY CENTER FOR LAKE CHAMPLAIN
We
spotted the brochure for this at a kiosk, and figured it would be worth the
trip to check it out. This is located right in Burlington close to the water front, right at
the end of College Street .
While there’s public pay lots by the boardwalk and nearby bike trail, there’s a
lot by the museum who will validate the parking fees for you. Named for
work done for the lake by Senator Patrick Leahy, this is a hand-on science
museum dedicated to the ecology of Lake Champlain .
(“ECHO” in the name stands for “Ecology, Culture, History, and Opportunities
for stewardship.”) It first opened in 2003.
The first
thing I noticed was this huge piece of stone sitting in the foyer, with many
strata layers. This is a piece of an ancient coral system known as the
Chazy Reef, and was unearthed on Isle La Motte (the northernmost island in Lake Champlain ). It’s quite impressive to know it’s
around 500 million years old (dating from a time when the area was a shallow
ocean).
Inside
the museum are many stations available for interactive learning (like comparing
the mercury levels of fish), and small tanks for marine life (like turtles,
mudpuppies, crabs, fish, and the like).
There’s
also a short movie on the ecology of Lake Champlain .
An interesting little sidebar is Lake Champlain
was promoted (although briefly) by President Clinton in March 1998 as part of
the National Sea Grant Program. The Great Lake Lake Champlain is nowhere
close to either parameter. In all honesty, if something was to get
promoted to be a Great Lake , in my opinion that’d be Georgian Bay (a rather
significant extension of Lake Huron ).
A fun
exhibit in the museum deal with metrology, which was produced by Plattsburgh TV
station WPTZ. This allowed someone to stand in front of a green screen
and read a weather report from a telepropter. The complete image was
displayed nearby, so others could watch you give the weather report with the
appropriate background behind you.
Mum did
one where she talked about shoveling show. Of course, as I do with most
things, I found a way to pervert it. I chose the report dealing with
thunderstorms (because of the background of lightning strikes it would
provide), and ad-libbed this being a prelude to a meteor-strike which was going
to kill humanity. I even sang (badly) REM’s “End of the World” at one
point in my joyful report of the apocalyptic events.
The
exhibit also allowed you to have the copy of your report sent to your email, so
you could save it and watch it again. I wasn’t going to miss that
opportunity to retain the goofy fun like that. (I do have to note that
when I later received the report, the lead-in from the anchors was generic and
had absolutely nothing to do with the report I did. The same was true for
Mum’s video.)
No museum
about Lake Champlain would be complete without
a display of Champ, the lake’s alleged prehistoric denizen. Considering
the size and depth of the lake, it’s highly unlikely it’s a plesiosaur or some
other aquatic dinosaur could exist there without being noticed.
Chances
are the original sightings by the Native Americans were of large eels or
similarly-shaped fish, and the story then grew in each telling to what it is
now. I would love to get confirmation of a new or previously-thought
extinct species which matches Champ’s description. That would be a
celebration for all cryptozoologists everywhere. But the scientific
likelihood is low of that happening. I feel the same way about Loch Ness,
too. Sorry, peeps. Like Mulder, I want to believe, but I need the
evidence to do so.
One of
the more thought-provoking exhibits was on the zebra mussels, an invasive
species currently being found within the lake. Inadvertently introduced
back in the late 1980’s, displays show how the zebra mussels cover underwater
formations in the lake, including valuable historical shipwrecks, so can’t be
studied. The bike pictured here is a
good example of how the mussels cover things.
Because
there are no natural predators of the mussels in the lake, their infestation is
upsetting the balance of the natural food chain, and could potentially change the
ecological composition of the lake. There’s a running joke the zebra
mussels killed Champ. Setting the humor aside for the moment, the display
does talk about what was being done to combat the infestation in hopes of
preserving the ecology of the lake.
At one
point, I went out on the second-level patio to get some pictures of the lake,
and noticed the sun dial that was sitting out there. That falls into the
category of things I find when I check to see if doors can be opened. No
other exhibits are out there, but it’s nice to be able to see the body of water
the museum is dedicated to.
This is a
great place to go for an afternoon of learning. Keep in mind while many
of the exhibits are targeted towards children, there’s enough informative stuff
to interest adults.
As a
quick aside, we wanted to go a few blocks over to the pedestrian street to get
some ice cream at the local Ben & Jerry’s store. It was too far for
my parents to walk, so we drove over there. The parking meter was set for
increments of 15 minutes, and I pumped in enough money to give us an hour, so
we could sit and enjoy. The damn meter only registered 15 minutes, and
ate the rest of my money. Okay, we thought perhaps we could get cones for
road, but the line at the store was so long there was no way we’d be able to
get our stuff and back to the car within the allotted time. That was a
bummer too, as there were a lot of interesting shops on Church Street we would’ve loved to
explore.
For more information on the places visited or mentioned:
Senator
Patrick Leahy: https://www.leahy.senate.gov/
National Sea Grant Program : http://seagrant.noaa.gov/
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