A Family Legacy
Some call Lake George, in upstate New York, The Queen of American Lakes. Among those who have spent time the lake for some much needed R&R is Thomas Jefferson, who described it as follows.
"[It is] without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw; its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony.”
I have never seen Lake George myself, and my prose isn’t suited to declaring independence from much other than Cheez-Its, so not going to try to top that description, but as I spoke with Karen, a 4th generation Lake George-er, about what she loves about the place, she alluded to the the same features Thomas Jefferson wrote about in that letter to his daughter; the pristine, crystal clear water, the lush, jetting mountains, the limpid… uh… rocks? Nevermind.
In addition to its lovely features, Karen appreciates Lake George’s rich history, the naval battles fought, the British occupation, all of which were pivotal moments in American independence that left their mark where her family’s cottage now stands. Beyond its impact on American history and its lauded aesthetic beauty, though, what really makes the lake special to Karen is her family’s legacy: It’s watching her children grow up swimming, hiking, and toasting marshmallows alongside the same rocky crags she did as a kid.
When not spending time with her family at Lake George, Karen’s home is nestled in the Champlain Valley - Middlebury, to be specific. “The kids have really spent their entire lives between here and the northern end of Lake George,” she says. When her children were graduating and off to far away colleges, Karen wanted to find a meaningful gift to remind them of home. She originally learned about Treeline Terrains from Alex Gemme, a co-founder of the company, who before that was an intern in her office at Middlebury College. A map covering Lake Champlain and Lake George, she thought, would be “a great sort of physical reminder of the valley they grew up in.”
And so it was decided.
“A lot of graduation gifts, you know, even if it's something nice like a car or a computer, within five or ten years, it's no longer a thing. This is something they can keep for their whole lives…I mean, it’s literally unbreakable.”
Today, the two maps live in her kid’s dorms, the ultimate test of our maps’ unbreakability, and who knows where they’ll take them next. For now, they’re a little reminder of the place that holds their cherished memories.
- Lake George Map - courtesy of Karen -
“It’s one thing to have a poster that’s 2D,” Karen says, “but to have that sort of 3D, very tactile reminder of the geography of the area—the mountains they’ve climbed and all of that—it’s really special.”