[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 50 (Tuesday, March 24, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3653-S3654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     NORTHEAST KINGDOM ANNIVERSARY

 Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, sixty years ago today, Senator 
George Aiken, one of the great statesmen in

[[Page S3654]]

the history of Vermont and indeed our entire Nation, spoke to a group 
of rural Vermonters in the remote and sparsely populated northeastern 
corner of our State. As he spoke about the rugged region of the Green 
Mountain State he called it ``the Northeast Kingdom,'' a name which has 
lasted to this day as the way in which we in our State refer to this 
region. Today I celebrate the anniversary of this pristine area's 
unique and poetic name and to make a few observations about its land 
and its inhabitants.
  The Northeast Kingdom is Vermont at its most strikingly beautiful. 
Beckoning tourists are the glacial formations of Willoughby and Crystal 
Lakes, the farmland and forests along the Upper Connecticut River, and 
the northernmost reaches of the Green Mountains along the Canadian 
border. Vermont is one of the most rural States in the Nation, and the 
Northeast Kingdom is our most rural region. While it makes up more than 
one-fifth of the State's total geography, it has barely 10 percent of 
Vermont's total population. In fact, my first home in Vermont was in 
the Northeast Kingdom, in the town of Stannard, a town with a 
population of 200.
  As we look for new dawn in this time of economic difficulty, I am 
reminded of this fiercely independent region of which Senator Aiken 
spoke so eloquently 60 years ago. The Northeast Kingdom is inhabited by 
working Americans, solid and proud Vermonters: it is from their hardy 
spirit, and the spirit of people like them, that our country's strength 
has always come. It is my hope that not only will the rugged beauty of 
the forests and lakes of the Northeast Kingdom survive, but so will 
that strong and independent spirit that we can turn to as a catalyst 
for rebuilding our Nation.

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