Brave Little State

Vermont Public

What if you could decide what stories Vermont Public should be covering, before they're even assigned? That's the idea behind Brave Little State.

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25 episodes
fortnightly
Avg 28 min
English

Episodes 25

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October 8 · 27 min
Weighers of coal, high bailiffs and other oddities of local government
Election Day is less than a month away. You’ve probably thought about the big races on your ballot. But what about the ones near the bottom of the page? And what about all those obscure positions a…
September 24 · 32 min
What’s the deal with Vermont’s fire towers? (Encore)
Wesley Davis grew up in the woods of Mount Holly. But there was always one place where he could get high above the trees: the fire tower on top of nearby Ludlow Mountain. He’s been curious to learn …
September 10 · 28 min
Is private equity taking over Vermont’s veterinary market?
McKayla Baker has two dogs, Casey and Nettles, who for years she took to the same local veterinary clinic — until a few years ago, when she noticed changes like extra fees and recommendations for e…
August 27 · 48 min
Our 9th Annual Brief History of Vermont Road Names
Vermont is home to tons of peculiar road names. Every year, you nominate your favorites — and we crisscross the state looking for answers. Dive right into our exploration of Green Dolphin Drive in S…
August 13 · 49 min
Behind the mic
Today, instead of chasing down leads and crisscrossing the state to satisfy your curiosity about one Vermont story or another, we’re going to indulge your curiosity about the show itself. A few mo…
July 30 · 21 min
What’s the story behind Bethel’s famous white granite?
Bethel, Vermont is home to a rare geological treasure: a brilliant granite that’s often described as the whitest in the world. The stone has been quarried there for generations and sent as far as P…
July 16 · 39 min
Twelve hours at the Village Scoop
Last year, a listener question inspired us to spend 12 whole hours at a park-and-ride lot in Richmond. This year, we posted up at another Vermont mainstay – a popular ice cream shop near the b…
June 25 · 27 min
The Birthday Party: America at 250
You might have heard that the U.S. turns 250 this year. It’s a big, corporate to-do — the phrase “America 250” is plastered all over baseball hats and bags of potato chips. But what do Americans rea…
June 11 · 29 min
Why does Vermont send people to an out-of-state prison?
Right now, there are around 150 Vermonters behind bars in Tutwiler, Mississippi. Question-asker Devon Kurtz is wondering: Why does the state send these men to a private prison more than a thousand …
May 21 · 22 min
Why are there so many twins in Sheldon?
There’s a saying that twins are “in the water” in the town of Sheldon. Our journey to get to the bottom of this curious bit of local lore takes us from a dairy farm in Franklin County to a unive…
May 7 · 24 min
A day with Bradford’s bottle-sorting wiz
Inside a cavernous redemption warehouse in the Upper Valley, customers come to exchange bottles and cans for coins — and to see bottle-sorter Teera “Sweet T” Paye. We visited thanks to a question fr…
April 23 · 21 min
Vermont’s love-hate relationship with fast food
People love to highlight Vermont “firsts” — like, how we’re the first state to ban billboards and to approve civil unions. Or how we’re first in the nation in maple syrup production and number of cr…
April 9 · 25 min
Why are self-storage facilities popping up all over Vermont?
We all accumulate lots of … stuff. Increasingly, we’re cramming more of that stuff into self-storage facilities: those fields of metal lockers, arranged in neat, industrial rows. Join us as we expl…
March 19 · 26 min
What's the story behind the asbestos mine in Eden?
This is a tale about what happens when a toxic industry booms and busts, the mess that’s left behind and the fight over how to clean it up.Thanks to Morgan Pratt, Ann Fano and Carol Fano for the g…
March 5 · 21 min
Who are Vermont’s volunteer firefighters, and why do they do it?
Fire departments across the country are struggling to find volunteers. But in Norwich, new recruits are lining up. We spent a weekend at the firehouse to find out why.You can find the web version …
February 19 · 22 min
When is it safe to go ice fishing on Lake Champlain?
Ice is unavoidable during winter on the Champlain Islands. Surrounded on all sides by an icy expanse, islanders embrace this seasonal terrain — as a place to walk the dog, to skate and to fish. One …
February 5 · 21 min
What do Vermont counties actually do?
Vermont has among the weakest forms of county government in the United States, placing a big burden on towns. Is there a better way forward?You can find the web version of this story here.Thanks to…
January 22 · 20 min
Who controls the deployment of the Vermont National Guard?
The Vermont National Guard usually takes orders from the state. But at the end of 2025, President Trump deployed the Vermont guard to the Caribbean — and Gov. Scott said he had no control over the p…
January 8 · 14 min
Off the Path: Where the Appalachian Trail began
Today, the origin story of the Appalachian Trail, which stretches more than 2,000 miles from Maine to Georgia. But it was a peak in southern Vermont that inspired the idea of the trail in the first…
Dec 18, 2025 · 20 min
The case of D.W. Bancroft’s curious cure-all
A few years ago, John Haffner was digging in his White River Junction backyard when his shovel hit a glass bottle buried underground. Then he found another, and another — all with words like “…

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