Introducing Mystery Class #1
Derby Line, Vermont ( 45.000 N, 72.118 W)

Well Hello!

We are the mystery class from Derby Line, Vermont. Did you guess correctly? The 'Line' of Derby Line refers to the Canadian/USA border line at the edge of our village. One of the roads that runs along the border is CANUSA Avenue. Get it? We even have a theater, the Haskel Opera House, with most of the audience in the USA and the stage is in Canada.

We actually do have ancient fossilized coral on Isle La Motte in our beautiful Lake Champlain, which almost became the sixth Great Lake recently. But the lake name that means "beautiful waters" is our own Lake Memphremagog which extends over twenty-five miles into Canada. In the winters we host an international skating race and in the summer, a swimming marathon on the lake.

Our summers are pretty hot and our winters can be very cold. The 45th parallel crosses home plate in the school's baseball field.

During the summers we play soccer, swim, hike, ride dirt-bikes and go four-wheeling. During the winter we go skiing, snowmobiling, snowboarding, sliding, skating, ride horse drawn sleighs and winter camping. Indoors we mostly play basketball.

If you looked at our state quarter you would see that Vermont, the Green Mountain State, is known for its great maple syrup. It takes a lot of work and wood to boil 40 gallons of maple sap down to one gallon of maple syrup.

Most of the farms in this rural state are dairy farms, but recently we have begun to diversify. The dairy cow is the most common domestic animal we see by far, but if you look hard you might see horses, goats, chickens, elks, emus, llamas and alpacas to name a few.

Our elementary school has about 500 students from kindergarten to 6th grade. This is considered a large school. Just five miles down the road in the town of Holland they have about 50 students in the same grades. All of our surrounding towns (12 total) within a 50 mile radius go to the same High School and we are called the North Country Falcons.

We hope you enjoyed learning about our area, and thanks for participating in Mystery Class.

Thanks again from

Derby Elementary School, Derby Line, Vermont

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