Finding a place that welcomes and accommodates our furry friends who enjoy traveling as much as we do is always a treat.
By Josephine Matyas, F468364
September 2023
I first heard about Dog Mountain when scanning the rack of glossy attraction pamphlets tucked inside the entrance of a folksy Vermont general store. We are dog lovers and RVers, and we are easily distracted by any road stop that marries the two. If you are an RVer with a pooch onboard, you’ll find that Vermont has spots aplenty to hike, stroll, swim, and camp. Turns out that the Green Mountain State is one positive dog experience.
A Tribute To The Love Between Human And Dog
There is no other place like Dog Mountain, a rolling, green paradise set on 150 acres just outside St. Johnsbury in the state’s “Northeast Kingdom.” The grounds are always open to visitors, and dogs are welcome to roam off-leash along the hillsides, fields, pond, agility course, wildflower meadow, and walking trails. Dog Mountain was once the studio location of artist, author, and woodcarver Stephen Huneck. He was known for his series of colorful books featuring Sally, his beloved Labrador retriever.
“Most people come for the Dog Chapel,” explained the young woman in the small shop filled with books and doggy-themed knickknacks. The property is operated as a nonprofit and is free of charge to visitors; donations and sales from the gift shop help to attain the mission of honoring “the healing power of dogs, nature, love, and art.”
At Dog Mountain, the Dog Chapel is a heartwarming tribute to man’s best friend.
After a near-death experience, Huneck awoke from a two-month coma with the vision of building the Dog Chapel. He described it as “a place where people can go and celebrate the spiritual bond they have with their dogs.”
The emotional highlight is the small, handcrafted chapel resembling a white clapboard Vermont village church. The hand-built wooden pews are bookended by life-size wooden carvings of dogs, sitting at the ready. Light streams in the stained-glass windows, with every square inch of wall space covered in handwritten notes and photographs. These scraps of memories and sentiments penned by visitors to their beloved canine companions are called the “Remembrances of Dogs Loved and Lost.” Bring a box of tissues.
Where Every Dog Is Treated Golden
Their Harvest Host camping is amazing (24-foot RV limit, due to some tight turns); the people are inspiring; their honey and maple syrup are yummy; and the location is jaw-droppingly beautiful. Just south of Jeffersonville, Golden Dog Farm is a dream-come-true, second-career act for Becca and Doug Worple. Whether you have a dog in tow or not, this is a stop worth exploring.
“The name of the farm came from our love for our goldens,” Becca said. After selling a successful advertising firm in Cincinnati, Ohio, the couple packed up their home and hit the road for a year full-time in their Winnebago Navion motorhome. The list of states they explored is long, but they eventually settled in northern Vermont. They fell in love with a 275-acre property that offered uninterrupted views of Mount Mansfield, the Long Trail, and Smuggler’s Notch; a vineyard with more than 1,500 grapevines; a fruit orchard filled with cherry, plum, peach, apricot, apple, and pear trees; historic barns from the 1700s; a sugar house to produce springtime maple syrup; and a Slovenian bee house that holds more than 16 beehives.
They parked the van, unpacked their belongings and, as Becca writes, “My first thought was ‘This is a lot.’ My second thought was ‘Who’s going to mow?’ And my third thought was ‘We have no idea how to do any of this. This is nuts.’”
Golden Dog Farm is a testament to the power of positive thinking. In addition to giving farm tours of their property, they sell raw honey, organic wood-fired maple syrup, hats, and T-shirts. Becca and Doug epitomize the notion of “giving back.” Visitors can sponsor a maple in the sugar woods in honor of their pet, and a portion of the purchase is given to North Country Animal League. This past year’s proceeds from their honey sales went to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
“People love to take their dog on some of the great hiking trails near here, as well as on the miles of walking trails we have in our woods,” Becca said. She points visitors to close-by trails at Sterling Pond, Brewster River, and Lamoille Valley Rail Trail.
The Robert Frost Interpretive Trail is a popular route for dog walking.
The barns on the property are an architectural historian’s dream. “The barns are all from Vermont,” Becca noted. “They were purchased, dismantled, restored, transported to the farm, and then reassembled by hand. Even the original Vermont slate roofs had every single tile hand-removed, restored, and reinstalled.”
A Walk, A Swim, And A Campsite
Campgrounds, national forests, and hiking trails define rural Vermont. We get our outdoorsy fix at dozens of trailheads in the Green Mountain National Forest — part of the Appalachian Mountain chain aptly nicknamed the “granite backbone of the state.”
Stretching north and south, the enormous swath of protected wilderness includes hiking corridors of the national Appalachian Trail (dogs must be leashed on parts of the trail that use National Park Service-administered lands); Vermont’s Long Trail, which follows the spine of the Green Mountains (dogs must be leashed while hiking in alpine zones, near roads, overnight sites, water sources, and at other hikers’ requests); and the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail off Route 125, which is an easy, level, on-leash pathway designed to commemorate Frost’s writings with poems mounted trailside.
One of our favorite swimming stops is at Niquette Bay State Park along the northeastern shore of Lake Champlain. It’s a 20-minute hike through the woods from the day-use parking lot to the rocky point at Calm Cove, the park’s one waterfront section where dogs are allowed to play and swim off leash. It’s a sublime spot to cool off on a hot summer day, as well as burn off some of your pet’s pent-up energy.
Niquette Bay State Park offers dog-friendly swimming at Calm Cove.
Camping in Vermont state parks has always been a breeze with our pets. Dogs are allowed in all state park campgrounds for a modest fee but must be leashed. Owners must observe the rules about barking and cleanup. Vermont’s state parks do not have hookups, but they do have restrooms, showers, and dump stations. The state has dozens of private campgrounds that allow pets and provide full-hookup services.
Traveling through this beautiful part of New England is good news from start to finish for RVers who love to explore with their furry friends. It’s about as “dog-pawsitive” a journey as you’ll find anywhere.
Further Info
Dog Mountain
143 Parks Road
St. Johnsbury, VT 05819
www.dogmt.com
(800) 449-2580
Golden Dog Farm
1039 Pratt Road
Jeffersonville, VT 05464
www.goldendogfarm.com
(513) 633-1003
Vermont State Parks
www.vtstateparks.com
(888) 409-7579 (reservations, information)
(802) 893-5210 (Niquette Bay State Park)
Vermont Vacation
www.vermontvacation.com
(800) 837-6668