Middlebury Magazine

  • Recent Stories
  • Menu
    • Features
    • Essays
    • Q&A
    • Podcasts
    • Review
    • Videos
    • About
    • Advertising
    • Contact
    • Support
    • Writers’ Guidelines
  • Search

Spring 2018 Road Taken

Swamp Things

Why do swamps always get such a bad rap? A writer urges a corrective point of view.

By Kathleen Doyle
Illustration by Gina + Matt
May 2, 2018
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • Email icon

Politicians of all stripes make calls to “drain the swamp” as a euphemism for ridding government of special interests, as if swamps contain all that is dark, evil, and selfish, instead of being the life-giving places that they are. Because words matter and so do the actions they inspire, I ponder how we might restore swamps to their rightful place on the landscape. How might we celebrate the swamp and embrace a perspective that considers broad timescales, recognizes interconnectedness, and appreciates the diversity and complexity that enrich our lives?

Swamps have a lot to teach us about broader perspectives. Before heading into Cornwall Swamp in Vermont’s Champlain Valley, my students and I don hip waders. Solid ground gives way to uneven terrain, and we encounter with each step the complexity and variation in vegetation, soils, and water depth. One moment, I am standing on a dry mossy hummock where northern white cedar, red maple, and black ash trees are rooted with deciduous holly shrubs and verdant cinnamon fern. A step later, I am shin-deep in water and sink into deep, black muck.

As we squeeze the muck between our fingers, we shift our perspective of time. The deep, dark, waterlogged soil that extends meters deeper than we can probe has formed over millennia from the remains of plants. We are transported back over 10,000 years to when glacial Lake Vermont receded, and organic deposits started accumulating in the basin.

Students get sucked in; they let down their guards. They laugh and help pull each other out of the muck and appreciate each other in new ways. We all experience the quiet, the beauty, and the life-giving nature of the swamp, home to Canada warblers and moose, and a source of clean water downstream.

We appreciate the legacy and hard work that have maintained thousands of acres of wetlands that buffer Otter Creek. The Nature Conservancy cites the Otter Creek Swamps as the largest and most biologically diverse swamp complex in New England. The state of Vermont had the foresight to begin formally conserving Cornwall Swamp in 1965, and soon after it was designated a National Natural Landmark. This was the era when bipartisan efforts established the Environmental Protection Agency and expanded the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to become the Clean Water Act. Today, a consortium of farmers, local governments, landowners, and nonprofits continue the work to restore and conserve the Otter Creek Swamps.

The students and I experience the importance of the swamps to those downstream by reflecting on a recent and dramatic example. When Tropical Storm Irene hit Vermont in August 2011, the Otter Creek Swamps absorbed floodwaters and released them slowly over a period of weeks, reducing the rate of water rushing through the town of Middlebury. As much as $1.8 million was saved in avoided property damage in Middlebury alone during that one storm, according to a study conducted by the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. Typically, the peak flow rate of floodwater increases downstream as the size of the watershed increases; however, during the intense storm, the rate of flow of Otter Creek was lower in Middlebury than it was upstream in Rutland, a city not buffered by swamps.

Many students remark that they feel like they are in another world in the swamp. Perhaps visiting the swamp helps them understand interconnectedness, the complexity of space and time and context in a new way. One can understand how events in the past and actions in the future make a difference in our lives.

Instead of suggesting we degrade swamps, we can think over broader timescales and recognize how actions today shape the future and help us weather storms to come.

So go borrow a pair of hip waders and some binoculars and head into the muck with a neighbor—and appreciate how this diversity enriches our lives.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Stories

Features

A Dog’s Life

A filmmaker takes us into the minds of the animals who are part of our families.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph by Randal Ford
April 4, 2025

On Parenting

Caitlin McCormick Murray ’05 has some thoughts on what it means to be a good mom.

By Frederick Reimers ’93
Photograph by Justin Patterson
March 15, 2025

Object Lessons

Curator Rebekah Irwin sees Middlebury's Special Collections as a laboratory, where antiquities meet utility.

By Caroline Crawford
Photograph by Adam Detour
August 23, 2024

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

How one alumna is embracing a distinctive reforesting technique that promotes accelerated ecological benefits.

By Elena Valeriote, MA Italian '19 in conversation with Hannah Lewis '97
Illustrations by Karlotta Freier
August 16, 2024

Dispatches

Thanks for the Memories

A student-curated exhibit explores the Middlebury experience through more than a century of undergrad scrapbooks.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photographs by Todd Balfour
May 5, 2025

Fear Factor

A scientific model—and work of art—warns of the next pandemic.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Jonathan Blake
April 4, 2025

From NESCAC to NFL?

Thomas Perry '25 has a shot at playing football on Sundays.

By Matt Jennings
Photograph by Rodney Wooters
March 11, 2025

Words in Space

A NASA interpreter bridges the language gap, one mission at a time.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Illustrations by Davide Bonazzi
February 15, 2025

Keeping Her Stick on the Ice

An alumna’s passion for ice hockey puts her in the record books.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Illustration by Connie Noble
January 26, 2025

Watch Party

Henry Flores ’01 builds a community of collectors.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Hubert Kolka
January 15, 2025

A Man of Letters

The art of letter writing may be in decline, but one alumnus has kept it alive in a unique way.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph used with the permission of Melvin B. Yoken
October 9, 2024

If the Sneaker Fits

Adam King ’05 brings an Asian aesthetic—and celebrates Asian American culture—with his startup, 1587 Sneakers.

By Jessie Raymond ’90
Photograph by Sasha Greenhalgh
August 22, 2024

Jacob Shammash and the Gift of the Torah

A story of two journeys.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photographs by Paul Dahm
April 21, 2024
View All

Essays

Shear Madness

A yarn shop owner with no livestock experience takes an unlikely detour.

By Lindsey Spoor, MA French ’08
Illustration by Ben Kirchner
April 4, 2025

Q&A

37 Minutes with Lorraine Besser

The professor and philosopher talks about the three elements of the “good life”—especially the one happiness culture overlooks.

By Jessie Raymond '90
Photograph by Oliver Parini
April 4, 2025

Quotation

A summer immersed in a language can do wonders, as veterans of Middlebury College’s famous language-learning program can attest. The lockdown is clearly going to amount to the equivalent of about two summers, and there are mini-Middleburys happening in millions of houses worldwide.”

—John McWhorter, writing “The Coronavirus Generation Will Use Language Differently” in the Atlantic.

Podcasts

The Exit Interview with Middlebury President Laurie L. Patton

With her presidency at Middlebury coming to an end, the host of this podcast becomes its final guest.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
December 18, 2024

The Monterey Trialogue: A Distinct Take on Superpower Diplomacy featuring Anna Vassilieva and Peter Slezkine

Our guests for episode six of season three are Anna Vassilieva and Peter Slezkine, the folks behind the Monterey Trialogue—which brings together leading experts from the United States, China, and Russia for in-depth discussions of their countries' interests and concerns in the vital regions of the world.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
July 19, 2024

Education as the Great Equalizer, featuring Annie Weinberg ’10

Our guest for episode five of season three is Annie Weinberg '10, the founder and executive director of Alexander Twilight Academy, an educational catalyst program in Boston, Massachusetts, that supports students from under-resourced backgrounds.

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
March 14, 2024

Review

Editors’ Picks for March and April

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
April 10, 2025

Editors’ Picks for January and February

By Middlebury Magazine Staff
February 14, 2025

Long Live Brazenhead

Out of a secret bookstore comes a unique literary review.

By Sara Thurber Marshall
Photograph by Todd Balfour
January 13, 2025

Videos

Creating Community Through Hip Hop

For three days in March, the sounds, styles, and fashions of global hip hop converged on Middlebury for an electric symposium.

By Jordan Saint-Louis '24
April 17, 2023

Pomp and Unusual Circumstances

As viewed from above.

By Chris Spencer
June 1, 2021

Davis the Owl Returns Home

Having recovered from life-threatening injuries, a beautiful winged creature is released to its natural habitat.

By Andrew Cassell
April 22, 2021
Middlebury College
  • Alumni
  • Newsroom
  • Contact Us
  • icon-instagram

The views presented are not necessarily those of the editors or the official policies of the College.

© 2025 Middlebury College Publications.