Thanksgiving Day Gratitude Walk shines a spotlight on history of Rock Point land

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - While many were in the kitchen Thursday preparing their holiday meal, some Vermonters decided to burn some calories first at Rock Point’s Thanksgiving Day Gratitude Walk.

“Well, now that you mention it, I think that’s a very important part of it. Which is honoring and respecting the land. The history is really rich on this land,” said Brian Pine of Burlington.

Hearing about the land and learning its history is exactly what people went out to do at Rock Point in Burlington on Thanksgiving morning.

The nonprofit hosted its first Thanksgiving Day Gratitude walk. The idea was to spend the morning with the community hiking Rock Point’s trails to remember what the land has been through and those who were here before us.

“You think about that time frame when the Abenaki used this land. It was only 10,000 years ago. That time span is pretty phenomenal to imagine,” said Liz Curry of Burlington.

Rock Point encompasses 130 acres and the nonprofit welcomes people to come out and walk their trails on a regular basis.

Thanksgiving morning, the group walked a loop trail that is a mile long, learning all kinds of things from what Lake Champlain used to be called to the natural rock walls that sit along the lake.

People traveling for the holidays said this is a great way to learn about a new place.

“We wanted some maybe alone time away from the family this year. We wanted to come out here and enjoy Mother Nature and Vermont,” said Janet Rangel, a visitor from New Jersey.

“The rock formations, this is wonderful how this is kind of forming over the course of millions of years,” said Marcin Warmuz, a visitor from New Jersey.

The trails are free to the public. Rock Point does ask frequent hikers to go on their website and add their names to the registry, so they know who has been there to witness this land.

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