No Landscape Is Permanent

Our landscape is under constant change. In the late 1950s, Vermont's Interstate 89 was designated to travel from Waterbury to Bolton and construction began with haste. Interstates across the country brought new economic development along with permanent residents, and the Green Mountain State was no exception.

Interstate 89 between Bolton and Waterbury in the late 1950s. Note the cleared hillsides encroaching into the Green Mountains.

Interstate 89 between Bolton and Waterbury in the late 1950s. Note the cleared hillsides encroaching into the Green Mountains.

Until this point, human populations in Vermont had been on the decline ever since the booming railroad industry that brought many young New Englanders from their homes and into the Great West. For the first time in nearly one hundred years, resident and tourist growth began to boom, fueling permanent settlement and a ski industry that moved the state rapidly into the late 20th century. 

After decades of regrowth and rehabilitation of viable wildlife habitat, Vermont would once again undergo a change (not nearly as dramatic as the clearing of nearly 80% of the state's forest for pasture & logging) that disregarded natural communities in favor of economic stimulus. By the end of the Interstate creation, rocks had been blasted, tree stands had been cleared, and a new highway sat in wary proximity to the Winooski River and cut through the chain of the Green Mountains.  

A view of the same section in 1960 upon completion of the highway.

No landscape is ever permanent. Vermont's Green Mountains once stood as high as the Himalayas, sat next to a great sea, and were once (for more than 96% of the land's existence) covered in glacial ice or tundra. It is unwise to hope to clear away the highway for the sole purpose of "what the land used to be". But for this same reason, it is also unwise to believe that this interstate is all there is and all there ever can be. As we move further into the 21st century and witness the arrival of new technology, new energy innovations, and new ways of thinking, can we not imagine our coexistence with the natural world as well?

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Images used by permission from the Vermont Historical Society. Copyright 2006, Vermont Historical Society. All rights reserved. 

For more information regarding...
Vermont Interstate construction, please see: http://www.freedomandunity.org/vt_transition/interstate.html 

Vermont population trends please see: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/626203/Vermont/272487/Demographic-trends

Vermont landscape studies please see: Wessels, Tom. (1997). Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England.   Woodstock, VT: The Countryman's Press.