Rock Dunder is a tiny rock island extending just above the waters of

Lake Champlain Lake Champlain ( ; french: Lac Champlain) is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. The New York portion of t ...

roughly southwest from the

Burlington Burlington may refer to: Places Canada Geography * Burlington, Newfoundland and Labrador * Burlington, Nova Scotia * Burlington, Ontario, the most populous city with the name "Burlington" * Burlington, Prince Edward Island * Burlington Bay, no ...

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

ferry dock. The water level averages above sea level, and the rock protrudes only a few feet above that. The island becomes somewhat larger at low water. Rock Dunder and much larger nearby

Juniper Island Juniper Island is one of the largest islands located on Lower Stony Lake, a lake situated in Ontario. It is home to private cottages, the Stony Lake Yacht Club and Juniper Island Store. The Stony Lake Yacht Club is governed by its Board of Di ...

(visible in the background of the picture) are remnants of a large belt of Utica slate which once filled Lake Champlain from Shelburne to South Hero, part of a belt extending northward from the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

. The base of the rock is strewn with large boulders of Winooski limestone and Laurentian gneiss. According to

Abenaki The Abenaki ( Abenaki: ''Wαpánahki'') are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of Canada and the United States. They are an Algonquian-speaking people and part of the Wabanaki Confederacy. The Eastern Abenaki language was pre ...

legend, '' Oodzee-hozo'' ("he who created himself") lived before the invention of legs. As he dragged his body around, he created mountains, valleys and rivers, as well as Lake Champlain, which is holy to the Abenaki. ''Oodzee-hozo'' turned himself into this rock in the lake, and there his spirit lives. An 1896 newspaper article says the

Huron Huron may refer to: People * Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America * Wyandot language, spoken by them * Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec * Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...

and

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

would meet here at what they called ''Wujahose'' to make their treaties. While there is similarity between this name and the Abenakis', the question arises as to whether the Iroquois and Huron knew of or cared about the Abenaki legend and whether they would have been meeting here if they believed it was the embodiment of such a powerful spirit. The rock has often been mistaken for another ship on the foggy lake, and legend has it parts of the rock were blasted away throughout the Revolutionary war. Rock Dunder owes its name to one such incident. At the height of the Battle of Plattsburgh a British vessel mistakenly fired on the rock, then obscured by fog. When the officer discovered his mistake he is said to have cried out "It's a rock, by Dunder!", earning the place its name.

References

{{authority control Islands of Lake Champlain Lake islands of Vermont Landforms of Chittenden County, Vermont Uninhabited islands of the United States

See also

References