CATS launched their first travel writing contest in September and it has drawn to its conclusion this January. Jessica Wimett, of Wadhams, won the $250 People’s Choice Prize for receiving the most online votes. Here is an excerpt from her piece that I particularly liked; the final message reminds me of Aldo Leopold‘s musings on nature in A Sand County Almanac:

“I recently took Amaya for a hike on the Beaver Flow Trail.  Bobbing next to me, insisting on holding a walking stick and taking her gloves off, I watched my daughter open to the natural world.  Every few feet, she’d bend low on her little haunches; furrow her brow to poke a pudgy finger into a patch of moss, or a runaway eff.  I had initiated our hike with an urgency to reach the beaver dams, but Amaya was too absorbed by every detail along the way.  Every interesting tree had to be felt, and occasionally leaned against.  Every small trickle was an unforeseen phenomenon.  After proceeding in this manor for some time, I too began to forget to think in the future tense.  I let Amaya’s curiosity guide the hike, and marveled at the minor miracles along with her.  And so, three years after my pregnant hike where I decided upon her name, my great resolution reminded me of another: Slow down and be present to the scores of interconnected details working in harmony to create the whole…” [Read in full at A Great Resolution | Champlain Area Trails.]

Related articles

• Lake Champlain Region Heritage (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
• It’s Voting Time in the Travel Writing Contest (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
• Wildlife, Connected in and out of Town 
• CATS Travel Writing Contest Winners