Daybreak Friday, 10/30/26

Partly sunny, cooler. But still: Not bad. A cold front that just came through brought light showers and is pulling in colder temps—not so much today, which will get into the high 50s, but definitely for tonight and tomorrow. We’ll also see gusty winds from the northwest this afternoon. Lows tonight around or a bit below freezing. High pressure’s here over the weekend, with sun both days and temps warming again Sunday.

Polar bears, but not in E. Thetford. Erin Donahue was just at Hudson Bay and sends along two videos. Ted Levin writes, “Churchill, Manitoba leans into the southwestern rim of Hudson Bay, the world's polar bear capital. Each autumn, as many as a thousand bears gather along the shore, waiting for the bay to harden beneath their feet. Salt water freezes at 28 degrees, fresh water at 32. Near Churchill, three rivers pour their freshwater freight into the bay, easing its salinity. Prevailing winds and counterclockwise water currents shepherd distant floes and rafts of slush toward shore. The bears know this. They gather at the threshold of the first frozen avenue, the path that carries them toward the ribbon seals they hunt. Until then, they wait patiently for the freeze.”

The Upper Valley could become a tourist destination. But do people want that? As Alex Hanson writes in his first piece for Daybreak, while the region definitely has tourist attractions like Woodstock and King Arthur, “it does not market itself with an eye toward bringing in more visitors.” If anything, he notes, “the sense of seclusion in the hills is deeply ingrained.” But a couple of weeks ago, Extension researchers at UVM and UNH presented a study to a group of locals arguing the region has untapped potential for more. Their question: Do you want to pursue it? As you’d expect, answers vary, especially with concern about housing. Alex explains.

In discussion about Randolph policing, a lesson in the VSP’s limits here. The town’s police department has been trying to rebuild after it was down to just two officers—and at a meeting this week of the committee charged with the effort, members heard “a sobering assessment of the Vermont State Police’s ability to provide additional coverage,” reports The Herald’s Tim Calabro. The commander of the Royalton barracks, which covers an area from almost in Middlebury clear to the CT River, said staffing shortages have left it with little ability to bolster local police. Often just three troopers are on duty for an area that can take 1 ½ hours to traverse.

In Springfield, VT, all eyes are on the girls’ high school soccer team. It’s had a remarkable season, going 17-0 and, earlier this week, locking up a berth in tomorrow’s Division II finals in South Burlington against Green Mountain Valley School—which beat Hartford for the spot. As the Rutland Herald’s Adam Aucoin notes, it’s been 14 years since the team last made an appearance there. “The soccer gods shined on us, as they’ve done a lot this year,” coach Ray Curren told Aucoin after the last win. “These kids have worked so hard. Springfield is not a soccer powerhouse and the program was down in the dumps for a little while and struggling. We’ve built it back up.”

SPONSORED: Montshire After Dark returns on November 6 and it's radioactive! It's Marie Curie's birthday eve, so we're glowing all out! DJ Rex is bringing the vibes, dinner and drinks will be available for purchase from Brownsville Butcher & Pantry, and the Montshire team is showcasing Half Life math, Geiger Counters, Glow Room, and Radioactive Rock samples! Bring yourself, a date, a buddy, or a group, for this adults-only night out at the Museum. Sponsored by the Montshire Museum of Science.

“There are so many students saying, ‘Oh, I didn’t think I could vote in New Hampshire anymore’.” That’s Will Nelson, co-president of Dartmouth Civics, the nonpartisan election information organization launched a few years ago on campus. As Ethan DeWitt writes in NH Bulletin, there’s confusion in the wake of the on-again, off-again, on-again ban on using student IDs in NH for voting. Students can definitely vote, they just need different forms of ID: a driver’s license from any U.S. state, a different form of state or municipal ID card, a passport or passport card. Hanover Town Clerk Terry Walsh tells DeWitt that most students are coming in with what they need.

Suspect in Lebanon burglary faces deportation. On Sunday, a homeowner alerted the LPD that two people were caught on a home surveillance camera trying to enter the house. Police responded and chased down one of them, subduing him with a taser. He turned out to be a 25-year-old Colombian citizen living in Woodside, NY, Jose Gonzalez Rojas. After his arrest, reports Alex Ebrahimi in the Valley News, the federal Dept. of Homeland Security notified the LPD that there was probable cause to deport him: Rojas is “a criminal illegal alien…with arrests for robbery and unauthorized use of vehicle without owner consent,” ICE tells Ebrahimi.

It’s not just birds. Listservs are migrating, too. On his Upper Valley VT/NH Musings substack, Dave Celone—who is on the executive committee of the new UVLists organization that’s taken charge of the 38 town listservs from Vital Communities—writes that the lists have begun settling into their new home, and volunteers will continue to transfer them over this week. You may already have seen yours, now labeled, for instance, “Hartford Discuss.” You can check into yours here. Celone goes into what it’s taken so far, and what’s left to do.

Coming next weekend, a chance to poke fun at fairy tales. That’s how BarnArts director Linda Treash describes Once Upon a Mattress, the musical made famous by Carol Burnett on Broadway in 1959 (”She was so hilarious — raw comedy that is funny and carefree,” Treash tells the Standard’s Justin Bigos) and arriving on the Barnard Town Hall stage a week from today. It’s a retelling of “The Princess and the Pea” with a queen determined to find ridiculous ways of keeping any princess from marrying her son. Audience members “may be coming and expecting one thing,” actor Shu-nan Chu tells Bigos, but this version “kind of flips the fairy tale on its head.”

Hiking Close to Home: Paradise Park, Windsor, VT. This park provides a lovely series of trails for hiking, snowshoeing, and skiing through mature forest, along a stream, and around the fields and shoreline adjacent to Lake Runnemede. Multiple trails offer options for short easy hikes and longer outings on varied terrain, says the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. There are plenty of benches and picnic areas, fire pits, and a water source. A variety of wildlife visit the preserve, making it great for bird-watchers.

Daybreak’s Upper Valley News Quiz. Were you paying attention this week? Because we’ve got questions! Like, what was that popular watering hole and music venue run by Joe and Ingrid Stallsmith in the 1980s called? And what was sitting on the seat of a work truck stolen from a job site in Bethel when it was found? You’ll find those and more at the link. Meanwhile, here’s NHPR’s New Hampshire quiz, while Seven Days’ Vermont quiz is here.

NH Secy of State responds to concerns about ballot security. On Monday this week, 10 GOP state reps wrote to David Scanlan questioning the state’s assurances that towns’ ballot-counting devices have no network capabilities, and requesting physical inspections. On Wednesday, Scanlan responded with a point-by-point rebuttal in a letter to the legislature, the governor, and the AG. As Manchester Ink Link’s Carol Robidoux reports, he also addressed “a Nashua moderator’s report of radio-frequency readings near a ballot counter.” He noted that state law prohibits machines that connect to the internet, and cited independent lab testing. You can read the full letter here.

“The differences extend far beyond hogs and sandals.” That would be “hogs” as in motorcycles. In Seven Days, Ken Picard speaks with Windsor’s Brian L. Porto, the former VLGS law prof whose new book charts the political differences between VT and NH. They delve into how the geography, history, and economy of each state pushed its political leanings. For one, NH “got great water power but lousy soil,” so industry and shipping helped some residents grow rich while farmers stayed poor. And each state’s marketing campaign plays to type: NH touts golf courses and a racetrack; VT promotes its rural way of life, “so that’s who we got: a lot of professors who had time off in the summer, as well as artists and writers.” Lots more at the link.

As you’d imagine, this spate of dry weather has fire officials nervous. That’s especially true in Vermont, where the state’s forest, parks, and rec department says at least six fires have been officially reported since last Friday. "We've had quite an uptick really, due to the last couple of weeks of very dry weather and an abundance of dry leaf litter and dead grasses," Dan Dillner, the state forest fire supervisor, tells NBC5’s Yunier Martinez. Several towns have imposed burn bans, and more are considering them. The state’s fire danger map shows a high risk from top to bottom. Over in NH, the state’s daily “Fire Weather Forecast,” which comes only as an email, lists moderate danger.

Up at the border, a generations-old way of life is gone. Seven Days’ Lucy Tompkins spent several days earlier this month traveling the towns along the US-Canada line, on both sides, “to learn how deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Canada are transforming daily life on the ground.” What she found was that the political tensions of the last nearly two years “have divided families, communities and economies whose close ties were long taken for granted”; on the Canadian side, at least, attitudes have hardened. “I don’t think it’ll ever go back to the way it was,” says Jody Stone, the mayor of Stanstead, QC, who as a kid learned to swim on the US side.

“Even I am not stupid enough to use a Ouija board in this house.” M.T. Anderson, the award-winning author of Feed, the Octavian Nothing series, Elf Dog and Owl Head, and lots of other books, lives in an 18th century home, the oldest surviving house in Calais, VT. “It has wide plank floors that creak, 12-over-12 windows with wavy glass, an enormous fireplace — and a rumor that the house is haunted,” reports video journalist Eva Sollberger for her latest episode of Stuck in Vermont. Anderson says he doesn’t believe in ghosts—but that doesn’t stop him from gleefully telling stories about the house’s supposed haunting, as he gives Sollberger a tour of where he lives and writes.

And: Why? Because I’m a sucker for falling dominoes. 123,456 of them.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP

You know where to go! It’s Halloween Weekend, so there’s less going on than usual, but there’s still plenty going on.

And for today...

Despite yesterday’s warmth, it’s that moment in fall when you know for certain that winter’s coming: the leaves are done, even if they’re not fully down; morning frost is becoming a regular thing; the wood’s (mostly) stacked. So what better than to cast a lingering look back with Itzhak Perlman and Jon Batiste and Gershwin’s “Summertime”?

See you Monday for CoffeeBreak.

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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt      Poetry editor: Michael Lipson    Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt

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