I have never been to Vermont so help a stranger. My recently turned 50 year-old daughter has made a serious offer to buy a house in Swanton, Vermont. You can't go much further northwest and still be in Vermont. Discussions are underway as to when exactly she lost her everloving mind, but, that's a separate story.
If she were to complete the transaction and want a survey, is there anyone closer than Burlington who might routinely work in that area?
The house is within the village of Swanton, not to be confused with the town of Swanton. It is on a named street, too. Is this actually in the US or is it land that Canada eagerly gave away? I'm guessing this is in an area with 200 or more inches of snowfall each year. Am I wrong?
I did a Wikipedia search and didn't learn much, except M. Emmett Walsh, the actor, once lived there. Several named individuals only became wellknown once they moved to Wisconsin.
What attractions are near the village of Swanton?
I can tell you this, back in the winter of 2001, I was assigned the duty to scour the state to find places to install cell phone towers on either bridges, in silos or church steeples, with stealth covers.
Vermont has some pretty peculiar environmental laws to protect the scenery, when traveling any main artery, or feeder road, you will see zero billboards, they are not allowed. No radio tower, or any other tower for that matter, could be taller than 15'. Cell phone communication back then, in the village areas was either spotty, or non existent.
I spent a total of six weeks there (one week on the road and one week at home), starting in mid January. Most of the towns/villages that I passed through were unincorporated. While the cell phone department head was more than happy to take Burlington off of my hands, he was also delighted to take the Sugarbush ski resort and another off of my hands because the only means of looking on the mountain top were being chair lifted up, and skiing down, as of that time, I had never skied a day in my life and, at almost twice the age, still have never had an interest in it, I have had offers to go sky diving too, But, as Clint Eastwood once said, there is no reason to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.
I scoured, probably, 3/4 of the state. If I was lucky, I happened across a smally roadside food joint where I could get something to eat that was hot. The rest of the meals came at the end of a 12 hour day and consisted of a bologna and cheese sandwich and a 12 pack of beer from the closest gas station.
As for your snow estimations, you could be correct, in the upper elevations, what they call a dusting, amounts to at least 4" of snow. I stayed in just about every Norman Bates motel that exists on the planet, woke up about an hour before sunrise, started my rig, took a shower and bundled up before I hit the road because, almost consistently, the pre sunrise temps were -15°.
I have no clue what land value is there and have not seen anything but snow covered landscape, but it appeared to me that a vacation get away for the warmer months would be nice.
I used to live in Castleton, two towns south of Swanton. I don't know any surveyors in that area.
The snow isn't as much as it used to be; most storms leave less than 10 inches in the Lake Champlain Valley. Swanton is on Lake Champlain, about a 40 minute drive from Burlington and about a 15 minute drive from St Albans, which has some amenities. Temperatures in the Lake Champlain Valley are milder than the mountains.
Montreal is a little over an hour drive, not counting waiting at the border. The wait at the border depends a lot on what time of day you travel. To the east, it's perfectly feasible to take a day trip to go skiing at a serious mountain such as Stowe.
If health is an issue, University of Vermont Medical Center has a good reputation and can handle most problems.
Surveying information: only a few spots, around a square mile each, are sort of unincorporated (they're called gores or unorganized towns). The rest of the state is divided into towns and cities. Parts of some towns have a more densely populated area incorporated as a village. The village adds additional services to the town services, which might be municipal water, sewage, or police. Land records are not maintained at the county level; land records are kept by town or city clerks. Villages have sort of become obsolete because now special districts, such as water districts, can be established without creating a village.
The find a Surveyor page on the VSLS.org page is very helpful. It has a directory and a map function. It looks like there may be some surveyors closer than the Burlington area. If help finding someone is still needed, you can always email Birgit at birgit@vsls.org
I started my career at Vermont Surveying and Engineering in Montpelier. Great outfit. They do work across the State.
My Brother and I went to college with the Gervais brothers (Mike & Gabe), from my recollection they are up that way.
I did a Wikipedia search and didn’t learn much, except M. Emmett Walsh, the actor, once lived there
