Kate Kampner is a reporter with the Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.
HYDE PARK — When New Zealand native Charlotte Brynn moved to Vermont in 1998, it didn’t take long for her to discover the natural waters of Vermont.
Brynn grew up swimming in glacial lakes and the waters that surround the island country. Now she’s been the executive director of the Swimming Hole, a nonprofit community pool and fitness center in Stowe, since 2001.
While she transitioned to her life in the United States, she began open water swimming in Vermont at the Green River Reservoir in Hyde Park. In 2006, Brynn entered a YMCA Burlington event to swim eight miles across Lake Champlain from Willsboro Point in New York to Burlington.
She quickly fell in love with long-distance open water swimming and eventually set a goal to swim the English Channel, the part of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England and northern France. Brynn was able to do the 21-mile swim in 11 hours and 43 minutes.
The 12-year journey to success would deepen Brynn’s relationship with the natural waters of the world and strengthen her passion for protecting the environment. For many open water swimmers like Brynn, concern for the environment plays a large role in their swimming careers.
“As open water swimmers, we gain an appreciation for the environment,” said Paula Yankauskas, a resident of Hyde Park and another long-distance swimmer who uses Green River Reservoir for training. “Without it, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.”
Yankauskas has been swimming since she was 11 years old and swam for the University of Vermont. Eventually, she would train and successfully swim the English Channel, making her the oldest woman in the United States to do so in 2016. She and Brynn also both swam the Catalina Channel and around the island of Manhattan.
“You start to want to care about [the natural waters] and do what you can to help keep things clean and available,” Yankauskas said.
Brynn said that Green River Reservoir is well-maintained and protected from bad water quality and doesn’t appear to have runoff. Both Crystal Lake and Lake Willoughby, other natural waters in the Vermont and New Hampshire area, she said, are also pretty clear. “Lake Memphremagog saddens me because I’ve noticed a real decline,” Brynn said.
Brynn has been swimming in Lake Memphremegog since 2009 and has seen a variety of manmade waste, bleaching and discoloration of rocks on the side, and occasionally white and foamy bubbles on the surface. In 2021, Canadian officials found traces of PFAS in the lake.
Lake Memphremagog, which crosses over into the Canadian border, is 31 miles long. Three-quarters of it is in Vermont and it serves as a water source for 200,000 people.
“I’m in there an hour to five to ten hours,” Brynn said. “There’s definitely a concern.”
Brynn said she has her own test kit to test any of the waters she swims in after flooding or if there’s discoloration.
She also said, despite its great swimming community and accessibility, Lake Champlain has work to do. She monitors swimming areas online to make sure they are safe from harmful recurring contaminants like cyanobacteria or phosphorus runoff.
Another concern that Yankauskas raised is the recent increase in wildfire smoke in the state. When open water swimming in a group, she noted how one of their members, who has asthma, hadn’t been able to swim on days with bad air quality. In response, their practices have been moved indoors if the air quality index is high enough.
But despite concern for water and air quality, as well as their health, both Brynn and Yankauskas keep on swimming.
“The water really produces a giant hug and the ripples of it just wash away stuff,” Brynn said. “It’s very much like meditation or yoga where once you are one with the water and you’re swimming, those other stresses and worries, whether they’re relevant or not, they melt away.”
Brynn said she felt her relationship with nature had changed during the process of training for the English Channel, especially with the Green River Reservoir.
“I know every tree and rock along that shoreline,” Brynn said. “You have such an appreciation for the beauty.”
Franny Cohen is a New Hampshire resident who spends time swimming in Vermont’s natural waters. She said she feels like part of the landscape when open water swimming.
“You’re aware of the loons and the ducks in New England,” said Cohen. She called her time swimming in the Boston Harbor euphoric.
Yankauskas recalled swimming in the Catalina Channel at night and swimming through bioluminescent organisms in the water. “It’s like shooting diamonds and lightning off your fingertips,” she said. “It’s just really beautiful.”
Brynn said sometimes when she’s swimming she can feel fish swim under her bodies’ shade, hiding from people who are fishing in the lakes.
These swimmers’ passion and commitment for the open waters only empowers them to communicate, educate, and inspire others to think about how important good water quality is for the planet.
Brynn called water the resource of the future.
