This is pancake breakfast day for us at the Vermont Maple Festival. We went to the City Elementary School in St Albans where the breakfast is served. It was great!

                                

We had a couple of large pancakes, smothered in maple syrup, some great local sausage, orange juice and coffee. From the breakfast we went to the park to check out the concessions and exhibits on Main St. We bought some Maple syrup and candy. 

                                          

Then we went to the Quadricentennial Event Center at City Hall Auditorium on Main St. We saw an authentic Abenaki style birch bark canoe, a display of historic sap spouts, buckets and other sugaring equipment.

                                          

We learned how corn was ground to make foods by Native People and Settlers and Deb got a pattern to make a basket of birchbark like the ones used by the Native Peoples to collect sap, store and carry sugar.

After all that, we needed to sit down and have a beer. We went to a place called Harley D’s Bar and Restaurant. I had a local porter, Deb had an Amstel and we shared an order of Poutine. Debra has been looking forward to trying this since she heard about it years ago. It is a dish consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curds, covered with brown gravy.

                                                     

I enjoyed the Poutine more than I thought and would order it again. Poutine is a fast food staple sold mostly in Quebec. We are close enough to Quebec, not only to get Poutine, but to have the local signs in English and French instead of English and Spanish.