Brave Little State Podcast
1) Off the Path: Where the Appalachian Trail began
Today, the origin story of the Appalachian Trail, which stretches more than 2,000 miles from Maine to Georgia. But it was a peak in southern Vermont that inspired the idea of the trail in the first pl...Show More
2) The case of D.W. Bancroft’s curious cure-all
A few years ago, John Haffner was digging in his White River Junction backyard when his shovel hit a glass bottle buried underground. Then he found another, and another — all with words like “remedy,”...Show More
3) What happened to all the halfway houses in Vermont?
Question-asker Manny recently got out of prison. He wants to learn about his options for transitional housing — a place where he could stay sober while readjusting to life outside a prison cell. It ...Show More
4) Why is Rutland made to feel like Vermont’s ‘ugly child’?
Rutland — or, “RutVegas” — gets a pretty bad rap outside the city’s limits. But some of Rutland’s most passionate cheerleaders say there’s a side of the city people are missing. Thanks to Linda Mulli...Show More
5) The case of the missing Tinmouth apple
Leave your grocery store apples at home and join our search for this most unusual Vermont fruit. For photos from our journey, check out the web version of our story here. And if you want to read up o...Show More
6) 200th episode extravaganza
For the 200th episode of the show, we set ourselves a challenge: take on 20 listener questions in a single episode. We went back to the very beginning of our archive — combing through thousands of qu...Show More
7) Class in the classroom
“There was this huge divide in, like, social grouping and connection … No one really talked to each other.” “Making friends at the high school wasn't really my priority because I felt like I had noth...Show More
8) Lake Champlain’s brush with ‘Great’-ness
There are five Great Lakes: Superior, Ontario, Michigan, Huron and Erie. But for a few fleeting weeks in the late 1990s, Lake Champlain made six. How did this happen? To answer that question from Eri...Show More
9) Twelve hours at the Richmond park and ride
We took a full-day detour to answer this question from Heather Channon of South Burlington: "Who is using all of the park-and-ride lots?" We spent 12 straight hours (yes, you read that correctly) a...Show More
10) Our 8th Annual Brief History of Vermont Road Names
Every summer, we add a new chapter to our favorite annual tradition: investigating the origins of Vermont’s strangest road names, as chosen by our listeners. This summer’s crop included Horn of the M...Show More