GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Snow this morning. There’s a clipper system on its way with a warm front out ahead of it, bringing snow showers over the next few hours. It’s moving fast and snow’s not expected to last more than a couple hours once it does arrive. After today’s cold start, temps will rise into the mid 30s, with gusty winds this morning shifting to come from the south. There’s a cold front coming through this evening, which may produce some more light snow. Clouds will clear for a bit overnight, lows in the mid or upper teens.
Look up!
Sunset over Braintree Ridge on Sunday, with what has to be one of the oddest cloud formations you’ll ever see. The nor’easter was approaching off the coast: “Perhaps related to weather along the Northeast?” writes Dona Meltzer.
And speaking of odd formations, up on Thetford Hill, Greg Gundlach noticed this “ice ghost” ziplining down a telephone wire.
You might want to get your last Gas Station Chinese now. On the Upper Valley (VT/NH) Facebook group (sorry, you need to be a member, but there are nearly 32,000 of you, so odds are good) a user posts a handwritten note from Oriental Wok Express. As you’ll remember, it’s being forced to leave its longtime old West Leb spot as Stewart’s takes over the service station at the corner of Bridge St. and Route 10. Its closing date was supposed to be March 25, but now is Feb. 27 (ie, Friday). “I don’t know if the big boss here has changed his mind again. I’m so sorry everyone,” the note reads.
In long-running Tunbridge trails case, VT Supreme Court sides with town. At issue are town trails that cross land owned by John Echeverria and Carin Pratt, which the couple stopped maintaining in 2020 after a dispute over bicycle access. The argument ultimately went to court, revolving around whether a town has the right to maintain trails on private property even against the wishes of the landowner. In a ruling Friday, reports Clare Shanahan in the Valley News, the court held that barring towns from repairing or maintaining trails “would essentially make the system of public trails ineffective and superfluous.” The couple have two weeks to file for reargument.
SPONSORED: Dr. Lorissa Segal is now accepting new patients in Woodstock, VT. With 20+ years of experience as an internal medicine physician and a Woodstock community member since 2008, Dr. Segal is opening a new MDVIP-affiliated primary care practice March 31. She will provide personalized, preventive care and conveniences not usually available from traditional practices—including advanced screenings and diagnostic tests, and a customized Wellness Plan. Members of her practice can also book same-/next-day appointments and reach Dr. Segal after hours for urgent needs. Learn more at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by MDVIP.
A vampire story with a twist: no vampire. In this week’s Enthusiasms, the Yankee Bookshop’s Kari Meutsch writes that she’s read enough vampire books “that it is hard for these stories to surprise me anymore.” So imagine her delight at finding Anna Kovatcheva’s debut novel, She Made Herself a Monster. Set in 19th-century Bulgaria, it focuses on a cursed town, a con artist who makes her living by convincing townspeople there’s a monster in their midst—usually a vampire—and then ridding them of it, and a cast of characters in this town who discover there is indeed a monster in their midst, just not the imaginary kind. Kari explains all.
Ayotte: ICE backs off plan for Merrimack detention center. In a statement yesterday, NH’s governor said, “During my trip to Washington last week, I had productive discussions with Secretary Kristi Noem, and I’m pleased to announce that the Department of Homeland Security will not move forward with the proposed ICE facility in Merrimack.” As NH Bulletin’s William Skipworth writes, “The proposal sparked large protests in Merrimack and elsewhere in the state, as well as pushback from local officials. It also created a political challenge for Ayotte, a Republican who, in January, denied having any official knowledge of the facility.”
Manchester, NH resident charged in shooting near border. Yesterday, the US Attorney’s Office for NH gave more details about the early-Sunday incident in Pittsburg, report WMUR’s Arielle Mitropoulos and KC Downey: A border patrol agent came across 26-year-old Blu Zeke Daly driving alone near the border late Saturday night and followed him. At the border crossing in Pittsburg, which was closed, the agent activated his lights and got out of his car; Daly started to turn and then allegedly shot at the agent, who returned fire, wounding Daly—who lost control and hit a snowbank. Daly is now at a hospital “receiving medical treatment under guard.” The agent was unharmed.
Migrating Bay Staters continue to drive NH’s population growth. With deaths outnumbering births, writes the NH Fiscal Policy Institute’s Jessica Williams, “recent population gains are entirely dependent on net in-migration, which is the number of people moving into the state minus those moving out.” Looking at the latest Census Bureau numbers, she finds that people moving from MA spiked during the pandemic, but have settled back to the pre-pandemic norm: about 9,000 people in 2024. Meanwhile, Granite Staters have tended to move to ME in search of cheaper housing and lower costs, though more went to CT in 2024—the first time that’s happened.
“Who’s an Abenaki” debate reignites in dueling commentaries. And you can follow along…
The first match was struck early in February by former VT state archeologist Giovanna Peebles, arguing that history is “on the side” of VT Abenaki who’ve been attacked as “pretendians” by the Québec-based Odanak and Wôlinak First Nations. Within a “complex and largely unrecorded social, economic, and cultural history,” she wrote, “Native people, regardless if their name was French or English, stayed true to their culture and maintained their traditions in rural northern New England and across the border.”
Things accelerated with a commentary last week by Norwich filmmaker Nora Jacobson, joined by a host of other filmmakers, taking exception to VT Public’s decision to require them to excise Abenaki material from their 2013 Freedom & Unity: the Vermont Movie, because it runs counter to the Odanak/Wôlinak arguments. “Since when is it Vermont Public’s job to publicly adjudicate Abenaki identity?” Jacobson asks, going on to lay out a case on behalf of the “‘oral’ nature of Vermont Abenaki cultural heritage and family history that the Odanak people are attacking.”
Now, in the VN, Burlington historian Richard Witting joins the fray on behalf of the Odanak/Wôlinak, with whom he works. “‘Vermont Abenaki’ groups rest their claims on a mythic reinterpretation of the past (what we usually call religion), and the film treats them as fact,” he writes, going on to a serial rebuttal of Jacobson’s arguments, concluding that “Vermont Public is right to stop presenting contested claims as fact.”
Maybe you saw this on the highway yesterday? Some parts of Massachusetts got over three feet of snow Sunday and Monday, and can use a hand digging out. So yesterday, VTrans sent a fleet of dump trucks, bucket loaders, and plows down to help, along with 33 employees. They will stay “as long as the state of Massachusetts needs their help,” the agency’s Greg Smith says. They were initially sent to Milton, a suburb south of Boston. “I’m just glad our folks have plenty of experience dealing with the snow this winter, and they can go down there and be subject matter experts,” Smith tells VTDigger’s Emma Green. VTrans video of the convoy at the burgundy link.
In space, a snowman-shaped object. Up in the Kuiper belt, “a vast, thick ring of icy objects that lies beyond the orbit of Neptune,” sits a two-lobed object called Arrokoth. In The Guardian, Nicola Davis discusses new research into how this 4-billion-year-old planetesimal might have come to be. Planetary scientists have been running computer simulations that suggest such objects may have formed not by a bang or a crash, but by gravitational collapse—basically, orbiting ever closer until they connect. The research adds to information gathered by NASA’s New Horizons when it did a flyby of Arrokoth in 2019—the farthest object ever explored by a spacecraft from Earth.
What you want is one of those south-facing agave sugarbushes… Befuddlement for Vermonters in the sweetener aisle at the Ok! Anytime Market in Athens, Greece, from George Gemelas. (Thanks, George and SMLG!)
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak. If you’re new here, this is a puzzle similar to Wordle, but it draws its word from Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
THERE'S SOME GREAT DAYBREAK SWAG! Like Daybreak tote bags, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies, t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
Heads Up
Indigenous food systems: A recipe for resilience. Dartmouth’s Native American Program hosts Mariah Gladstone, founder of Indigikitchen. “Discover how pre-contact, locally harvested foods can be thoughtfully incorporated into modern kitchens, and enjoy a live demonstration of one of her original recipes.” 6 pm, Collis Common Ground.
And for today...
R&B great Macy Gray and her backup singers join up with the BBC Concert Orchestra for a version of her 1999 breakthrough hit, “I Try”.
See you tomorrow.
Looking for all of the hikes, Enthusiasms, daybreak photos, or music that Daybreak has published over the years? Go here!
And always, if you’re not a subscriber yet:
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on Daybreak’s homepage.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to visit daybreak.news to sign up.
Thank you!
