Imagining the Champlain Quadricentennial
by Jay Craven
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Other News from
the Event Producer
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I’ve recently returned from a trip to Quebec City, as Burlington’s producer for its international celebration of the 400th anniversary of French explorer Samuel de Champlain’s voyage into a region so stunningly beautiful that he promptly named its lake after himself. While up north, I met with representatives of the Cirque du Soleil, the producers of Quebec’s huge year long Champlain cultural festival, and organizers of the city’s mammoth summer fireworks extravaganza. I returned to Vermont with dozens of new ideas. I also picked up a generous and unexpected promise from the Canadian colleagues, to sponsor the costs for a number of Quebec performing artists that we’ll stage here next summer.
The Champlain Quadricentennial presents an extraordinary opportunity to reclaim and re-examine our past – and look to the future. By reminding us of the first European to explore our region, it also affirms the seminal role of Native Americans and conjures the vivid emigration experience of thousands of Quebecois families to Vermont. The Champlain commemoration also invites us to forge new collaborations with our historic partners, Quebec and France.
 The “Quad” also implores us to focus on Lake Champlain itself—it’s history, natural beauty, and recreational value along with our commitment to its environmental health. Recent reports, including a week-long series by Vermont Public Radio, suggest that much remains to be done in order to clean up the lake and protect it for future generations.
We’re now laying groundwork for Burlington’s ambitious eleven-day Champlain International Waterfront Festival next summer (July 2-14). The festival will include world-class performers from France, Quebec, and Vermont—along with blues, folk, rock, salsa, classical, Franco-American and Native American music concerts, with surprising special guests that we’ll announce early next year. We’ll host an Abenaki encampment along with film and theater festivals at venues throughout Burlington. Kids will make costumes, puppets and floats. Through our partners at the Young Writers Project, they’ll also develop stories from people in lake towns and turn them into songs, plays, and short stories—and they’ll write essays and comic sketches that explore open-ended Quadricentennial themes of “discovery,” “first encounters,” and “border crossings.”
I’m working for Burlington City Arts to make all of this happen – and to include dozens of regional artists and partner with vital community organizations including The Echo Center, Flynn Theater, Vermont Folk Life Center, Vermont Historical Society, Vermont Public Radio, Very Special Arts, Vermont Stage Company, Vermont Symphony Orchestra, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Elnu Abenaki Tribe, Vermont Arts Council, Champlain College, Vermont Performance Lab, Vermont Youth Orchestra, and many more.
But we’re not waiting until next summer to start commemorating this rich moment (visit www.champlain400.com for a still-evolving calendar of events). Indeed, a weekly film series starts in February and a recent day-long forum at the Vergennes Opera House saw scholars and community leaders discussing how regional archeology provides clues to our vast area history—going back to the Vikings and even earlier.
Burlington’s First Night has programmed a luminous New Year’s Eve festival featuring a number of French-Canadian and Franco-American artists. The Quadricentennial Commission will also link by video to Quebec for a formal declaration for 2009 that will include Vermont Governor Jim Douglas and Quebec Premier Jean Charest. We’ll also stage the inaugural edition of the new Queen City Radio Hour, featuring Champlain-themed music, comedy, radio drama, and special guests.
We’re also planning a huge Burlington parade to the lake next July 11th— that will focus on the theme, “Legends of Our Past and Future” and celebrate each of the Quad festival’s key components of history, technology, imagination, and the natural world. We’re inviting each of Vermont’s 251 Vermont towns to participate, so start planning!
Our parade will feature floats, marching bands, and exhibits from the region’s community groups, businesses, and historical societies—along with an array of clowns, jugglers, and dignitaries. And it will include an unusual performance element inspired by “Le Defile,” a dazzling promenade that kicks off each edition of the bi-annual performing arts festival in Lyon, France, a city not far from Samuel de Champlain’s home. Like the Lyon event, we are working to reach deep into communities and neighborhoods to stage workshops with more than a thousand people of all ages and abilities. Each local group will collaborate with a professional choreographer to develop an original, expressive, and fully-costumed performance piece that will entertain audiences along the entire parade route.
 The July 11th parade and pageant will also highlight examples of visionary new technologies for a sustainable future—and it will launch a full day of exhibits, art fairs, and performances leading up to the Festival’s “Signature Event” that evening. We’ll announce these and other details later—but we’re now deep in discussions with a variety of visual and performing artists to commission a spectacular centerpiece pageant that night. Afterwards, stunning fireworks displays from Quebec, the United States, and France will light up the sky.
Everyone is invited to participate in Champlain Quadricentennial activities. Let us know if you’d like to be in our parade – and send us your odd and funny stories for upcoming editions of the Queen City Radio Hour—about first dates, blind dates, border crossings, mud season, vacations, family gatherings, and more.
So join the fun and help us create a memorable and meaningful occasion for the 400th anniversary of Champlain’s expedition, an event that shaped our history and can provide fresh inspiration for the next hundred years—starting now.
Burlington’s Champlain Quadricentennial producer Jay Craven can be reached at
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